This Day in History

Associated Press

On June 28, 1968, President Lyndon Johnson signed the Uniform Monday Holiday Bill, which moved commemorations for Washington’s Birthday, Memorial Day and Veterans Day to Monday, creating three-day holiday weekends beginning in 1971.

On this date:

In 1778, the Revolutionary War Battle of Monmouth took place in New Jersey; from this battle arose the legend of “Molly Pitcher,” a woman who was said to have carried water to colonial soldiers, then taken over firing her husband’s cannon after he was disabled.

In 1836, the fourth president of the United States, James Madison, died in Montpelier, Virginia.

In 1838, Britain’s Queen Victoria was crowned in Westminster Abbey.

In 1914, Archduke Franz Ferdinand of Austria and his wife, Sophie, were shot to death in Sarajevo by Serb nationalist Gavrilo Princip — an act which sparked World War I.

In 1919, the Treaty of Versailles was signed in France, ending the First World War. In Independence, Missouri, future president Harry S. Truman married Elizabeth Virginia Wallace.

In 1928, New York Gov. Alfred E. Smith was nominated for president at the Democratic national convention in Houston.

In 1939, Pan American Airways began regular trans-Atlantic air service with a flight that departed New York for Marseilles, France.

In 1944, the Republican national convention in Chicago nominated New York Gov. Thomas E. Dewey for president and Ohio Gov. John W. Bricker for vice president.

In 1951, a TV version of the radio comedy program “Amos ‘N’ Andy” premiered on CBS. (It was the first network TV series to feature an all-black cast, but came under criticism for racial stereotyping.)

In 1978, the Supreme Court ordered the University of California-Davis Medical School to admit Allan Bakke, a white man who argued he’d been a victim of reverse racial discrimination.

In 1989, about 1 million Serbs gathered to mark the 600th anniversary of the Battle of Kosovo in 1389.