TODAY IN HISTORY
TODAY IS SUNDAY, JUNE 18, the 169th day of 2017. There are 196 days left in the year. This is Father’s Day.
TODAY’S HIGHLIGHTS IN HISTORY: On this date in 1940, during World War II, British Prime Minister Winston Churchill urged his countrymen to conduct themselves in a manner that would prompt future generations to say, “This was their finest hour.”
In 1778, American forces entered Philadelphia as the British withdrew during the Revolutionary War.
In 1812, the War of 1812 began as the United States Congress approved, and President James Madison signed, a declaration of war against Britain.
In 1817, London’s original Waterloo Bridge, commemorating Britain’s victory over France two years earlier, was opened by the Prince Regent, the future King George IV, and the Duke of Wellington.
In 1873, suffragist Susan B. Anthony was found guilty by a judge in Canandaigua, N.Y., of breaking the law by casting a vote in the 1872 presidential election. The judge fined Anthony $100, but she never paid the penalty.
In 1953, a U.S. Air Force Douglas C-124 Globemaster II crashed near Tokyo, killing all 129 people on board.
In 1964, President Lyndon B. Johnson and Japanese Prime Minister Hayato Ikeda spoke to each other by telephone as they inaugurated the first transPacific cable completed by AT&T between Japan and Hawaii.
In 1979, President Jimmy Carter and Soviet President Leonid I. Brezhnev signed the SALT II strategic arms limitation treaty in Vienna.
In 1983, astronaut Sally K. Ride became America’s first woman in space when she and four colleagues blasted off aboard the space shuttle Challenger on a six-day mission.
In 1992, the U.S. Supreme Court, in Georgia v. McCollum, ruled that criminal defendants could not use race as a basis for excluding potential jurors from their trials.
TODAY’S BIRTHDAYS: Former Sen. Jay Rockefeller, D-W.Va., is 80. Baseball Hall-of-Famer Lou Brock is
78. Rock singer-composer-musician Sir Paul McCartney is 75. Actresses Isabella Rossellini and Carol Kane are 65. Rock singer Alison Moyet is
56. Rock musician Dizzy Reed (Guns N’ Roses) is 54. Figure skater Kurt Browning is 51. Singer-songwriter Ray LaMontagne is 44. Actress Alana de la Garza and country singer Blake Shelton are 41. Rock musician Steven Chen (Airborne Toxic Event) is 39. Actor David Giuntoli is 37. Drummer Josh Dun (Twenty One Pilots) is 29. Actress Renee Olstead is 28. Actor Jacob Anderson is 27. Actress Willa Holland is 26.