Today’s highlights in history
On June 19, 1865, Union troops arrived in Galveston, Texas, with news that the Civil War was over and that all remaining slaves in Texas were free — an event celebrated to this day as Juneteenth.
On this date
In 1917, during World War I, King George V ordered the British royal family to dispense with German titles and surnames; the family took the name “Windsor.”
In 1944, during World War II, the two-day Battle of the Philippine Sea began, resulting in a decisive victory for the Americans over the Japanese.
In 1953, Julius Rosenberg, 35, and his wife, Ethel, 37, convicted of conspiring to pass U.S. atomic secrets to the Soviet Union, were executed at Sing Sing Prison in Ossining, N.Y. In 1964, the Civil Rights Act of 1964 was approved by the U.S. Senate, 73-27, after a lengthy filibuster. In 1977, Pope Paul VI proclaimed a 19thcentury Philadelphia bishop, John Neumann, the first male U.S. saint.
In 1982, Vincent Chin, a Chinese-American auto engineer, was fatally beaten in Highland Park, Mich., by two autoworkers who later received probation for manslaughter in state court and won acquittals in federal court.
In 1987, the U.S. Supreme Court, in Edwards v. Aguillard, struck down, 7-2, a Louisiana law requiring any public school teaching the theory of evolution to teach creationism as well.
Ten years ago: President George W. Bush and visiting Israeli Prime Minister Ehud Olmert sided with Palestinian President Mahmoud Abbas in his standoff with the militant group Hamas.
Five years ago: WikiLeaks chief Julian Assange took refuge at Ecuador’s Embassy in London, seeking to avoid extradition to Sweden, where he faced questioning about alleged sex crimes. (Sweden dropped its inquiry in May, but Assange remains holed up in the Ecuadorian Embassy to avoid arrest by British authorities for jumping bail.) One year ago: Anton Yelchin, a rising actor best known for playing Chekov in the new “Star Trek” films, was killed by his own car as it rolled down his driveway in Los Angeles; he was 27.