TODAY IN HISTORY
TODAY IS FRIDAY, JUNE 26, the 178th day of 2020. There are 188 days left in the year. TODAY’S HIGHLIGHT IN HISTORY:
On this date in 1948, the Berlin Airlift began in earnest after the Soviet Union cut off land and water routes to the isolated western sector of Berlin.
In 1870, the first section of Atlantic City, New Jersey’s Boardwalk was opened to the public.
In 1911, John J. McDermott became the first American-born golf player to win the U.S. Open, played in Chicago.
In 1936, President Franklin D. Roosevelt was nominated for a second term of office by delegates to the Democratic National Convention in Philadelphia.
In 1963, President John F. Kennedy visited West Berlin, where he delivered his famous speech expressing solidarity with the city’s residents, declaring: “Ich bin ein Berliner” (I am a Berliner).
In 1977, 42 people were killed when a fire sent toxic smoke pouring through the Maury County Jail in Columbia, Tennessee. Elvis Presley performed his last concert at Market Square Arena in Indianapolis.
In 1996, the Supreme Court ordered the Virginia Military Institute to admit women or forgo state support.
In 1997, the first Harry Potter novel, “Harry Potter and the Philosopher’s Stone” by J.K. Rowling, was published in the United Kingdom (it was later released in the United States under the title “Harry Potter and the Sorcerer’s Stone”). In 2013, in deciding its first cases on the issue, the U.S. Supreme Court gave the nation’s legally married gay couples equal federal footing with all other married Americans and also cleared the way for same-sex marriages to resume in California.
TODAY’S BIRTHDAYS: Singer Billy Davis Jr. is 82. Rock singer Georgie Fame is 77. Actor Robert Davi is 69. Singer-musician Mick Jones and actor Gedde Watanabe are 65. Rock singer Chris Isaak is 64. Rock singer Patty Smyth is 63. Country musician Eddie Perez (The Mavericks) is 52. Writerdirector Paul Thomas Anderson, and actors Sean Hayes, Matt Letscher, Chris O’Donnell and Nick Offerman are 50. Actress Rebecca Budig is 47. Rock musician Nathan Followill (Kings of Leon) and pop-rock singer-musician Ryan Tedder (OneRepublic) are 41