DAY IN HISTORY

Saturday, June 29, 2019

Today is the 180th day of 2019 and the ninth day of summer.

TODAY'S HISTORY: In 1956, President Dwight D. Eisenhower signed into law the Federal-aid Highway Act, creating the interstate system.

In 1972, in Furman v. Georgia, the Supreme Court ruled that the death penalty as it was then applied in the United States was unconstitutional "cruel and unusual punishment."

In 1974, Isabel Peron was sworn in as Argentina's president, becoming the Western Hemisphere's first female head of government.

In 1995, the space shuttle Atlantis docked

with the Russian Mir station in orbit for the first time.

In 2007, Apple Inc. released the first iphone.

TODAY'S BIRTHDAYS: Harry Frazee (1881-1929), producer/ Red Sox owner; Alan Blumlein (1903-1942), engineer; Leroy Anderson (1908-1975), composer; Slim Pickens (1919-1983), actor; Harmon Killebrew (19362011), baseball player; Gary Busey (1944- ), actor; Richard Lewis (1947), actor/comedian; Dan Dierdorf (1949- ), football player/sportscaster; Matthew Weiner (1965), TV writer/producer; Bret Mckenzie (1976), comedian/musician; Kawhi Leonard (1991- ), basketball player.

TODAY'S FACT: The United States executed

25 convicts in 2018; 12 were executed by the state of Texas.

TODAY'S SPORTS: In 2004, Arizona Diamondbacks pitcher Randy Johnson became the fourth pitcher in Major League Baseball with 4,000 career strikeouts.

TODAY'S QUOTE: "My father used to play with my brother and me in the yard. Mother would come out and say, 'You're tearing up the grass'; 'We're not raising grass,' Dad would reply. 'We're raising boys.'" — Harmon Killebrew

TODAY'S NUMBER: 46,876 — miles of roads in the U.S. interstate highway system.

TODAY'S MOON: Between last quarter moon (June 25) and new moon (July 2).