TODAY IN HISTORY

Today is Sunday, June 4, the 155th day of 2017. There are 210 days left in the year.

Today’s Highlight in History

On June 4, 1917, the first Pulitzer Prizes were awarded. Herbert Bayard Swope of the New York World was recognized for a series of articles, “Inside the German Empire”; the New York Tribune for an editorial on the one-year anniversary of the sinking of the Lusitania; Jean Jules Jusserand for his book “With Americans of Past and Present Days”; Laura E. Richards, Maude Howe Elliott and Florence Howe Hall for their biography about Julia Ward Howe.

On this date

1783 — The Montgolfier brothers first publicly demonstrated their hot-air balloon, which did not carry any passengers, over Annonay, France.

1812 — The Louisiana Territory was renamed the Missouri Territory, to avoid confusion with the recently admitted state of Louisiana.

1937 — One of the first, if not the first, shopping carts was introduced by supermarket chain owner Sylvan Goldman in Oklahoma City.

1939 — The German ocean liner MS St. Louis, carrying more than 900 Jewish refugees from Germany, was turned away from the Florida coast by U.S. officials.

1940 — During World War II, the Allied military evacuation of some 338,000 troops from Dunkirk, France, ended.

1942 — The World War II Battle of Midway began, resulting in a decisive American victory against Japan and marking the turning point of the war in the Pacific.

1947 — The Christmastime tale “Miracle on 34th Street,” a 20th Century Fox production, opened in New York.

1954 — French Premier Joseph Laniel and Vietnamese Premier Buu Loc signed treaties in Paris according “complete independence” to Vietnam.

1967 — In the second air disaster to strike a British carrier in as many days, a British Midland Airways jetliner crashed in Stockport, England, killing 72 of the 84 people aboard. (A day earlier, a British charter crashed in France, killing 88.)

1977 — The VHS home videocassette recorder was introduced to North America by JVC during a press conference in Chicago.

1986 — Jonathan Jay Pollard, a former U.S. Navy intelligence analyst, pleaded guilty in Washington to conspiring to deliver information related to the national defense to Israel. (Pollard, sentenced to life in prison, was released on parole on Nov. 20, 2015.)

1992 — The U.S. Postal Service announced the results of a nationwide vote on the Elvis Presley stamp, saying more people preferred the “younger Elvis” design.

Five years ago

With President Barack Obama standing off to the side, former President Bill Clinton warned during a fundraiser in New York that a Mitt Romney presidency would be “calamitous” for the nation and the world.

Al-Qaida’s second-in-command, Abu Yahya alLibi, was killed in a U.S. drone strike in North Waziristan, Pakistan.

Today’s Birthdays

Sex therapist and media personality Dr. Ruth Westheimer is 89. Actor Bruce Dern is 81. Jazz musician Anthony Braxton is 72. Rock musician Danny Brown (The Fixx) is 66. Blues singer-musician Tinsley Ellis is 60. Singer-musician El DeBarge is 56. Actor Sean Pertwee is 53. Rhythm-and-blues singer Al B. Sure! is 49. Comedian Horatio Sanz is 48. Actor Noah Wyle is 46. Rock musician Stefan Lessard (The Dave Matthews Band) is 43. Actor-comedian Russell Brand is 42. Actress Angelina Jolie is 42. Actor Theo Rossi is 42. Rock musician JoJo Garza (Los Lonely Boys) is 37. Model Bar Refaeli is 32. Rock musician Zac Farro is 27. Rome Middle School rising seventh-grader Jada Johnson of Rome is 12.