TODAY IN HISTORY
Today is Tuesday, June 30, the 182nd day of 2020.
TODAY'S HIGHLIGHT
On June 30, 197 1, the Supreme Court ruled, 6-3, that the government could not prevent The New York Times or The Washington Post from publishing the Pentagon Papers.
ON THIS DATE
In 1865, eight people, including Mary Surratt and Dr. Samuel Mudd, were convicted by a military commission of conspiring with John Wilkes Booth, the assassin of President Abraham Lincoln. (Four defendants, including Surratt, were executed; Mudd was sentenced to life in prison, but was pardoned by President Andrew Johnson in 1869.)
In 1934, Adolf Hitler launched his “blood purge” of political and military rivals in Germany in what came to be known as “The Night of the Long Knives.”
In 1958, the U.S. Senate passed the Alaska statehood bill by a vote of 64-20.
In 1963, Pope Paul VI was crowned the 262nd head of the Roman Catholic Church. In 1982, the proposed Equal Rights Amendment to the U.S. Constitution expired, having failed to receive the required number of ratifications for its adoption, despite having its seven-year deadline extended by three years.
In 1994, the U.S. Figure Skating Association stripped Tonya Harding of the national championship and banned her for life for her role in the attack on rival Nancy Kerrigan.
In 1997, the Union Jack was lowered for the last time over Government House in Hong
Kong as Britain prepared to hand the colony back to China at midnight after ruling it for 156 years.
In 2009, American soldier Pfc. Bowe R. Bergdahl went missing from his base in eastern Afghanistan, and was later confirmed to have been captured by insurgents. (Bergdahl was released on May 31, 2014 in exchange for five Taliban detainees.)
In 2013, 19 elite firefighters known as members of the Granite Mountain Hotshots were killed battling a wildfire northwest of Phoenix after a change in wind direction pushed the flames back toward their position.
Ten years ago: President Barack Obama talked about the economy at a town hall in Racine, Wisconsin, saying, “We got it moving again,” and that he intended to get “our debt and our deficits under control,” but warned he wouldn’t slash spending at the expense of the economic rebound. Benigno Aquino III was sworn in as the Philippines’ 15th president. Five years ago: A toughtalking New Jersey Gov. Chris Christie launched his 2016 campaign for president with a promise to tell voters the truth “whether you like it or not, or whether it makes you cringe every once in a while or not.”
One year ago: President Donald Trump and North Korea’s Kim Jong Un met at the heavily fortified Demilitarized Zone between North and South Korea, and agreed to revive talks on the North’s nuclear program. (A working-level meeting in Sweden in October would break down over what the North Koreans described as the Americans’“old stance and attitude.”)
— ASSOCIATED PRESS