TODAY IN HISTORY
Today is Friday, June 16, the 167th day of 2017. There are 198 days left in the year. Today’s Highlight in History On June 16, 1967, the three-day Monterey International Pop Music Festival, a major event of the “Summer of Love,” opened in northern California; among the featured acts were Jefferson Airplane, The Who, the Grateful Dead, the Jimi Hendrix Experience, Janis Joplin, Otis Redding and Ravi Shankar. On this date 1567 — Mary, Queen of Scots, was imprisoned in Lochleven Castle in Scotland. (She escaped almost a year later but ended up imprisoned again.) 1858 — Accepting the Illinois Republican Party’s nomination for the U.S. Senate, Abraham Lincoln said the slavery issue had to be resolved, declaring, “A house divided against itself cannot stand.” 1903 — Ford Motor Co. was incorporated. 1933 — The National Industrial Recovery Act became law with President Franklin D. Roosevelt’s signature. (The Act was later struck down by the U.S. Supreme Court.) 1942 — A second four-man team of Nazi saboteurs landed in Florida, three days after another group arrived on Long Island, New York. (The plot was foiled when two members of the first team agreed to betray their comrades.) 1963 — The world’s first female space traveler, Valentina Tereshkova, 26, was launched into orbit by the Soviet Union aboard Vostok 6; she spent 71 hours in flight, circling the Earth 48 times before returning safely. 1977 — Business software maker Oracle Corp. had its beginnings as Larry Ellison, Bob Miner and Ed Oates founded Oracle’s precursor, Software Development Laboratories. 1987 — A jury in New York acquitted Bernhard Goetz of attempted murder in the subway shooting of four youths he said were going to rob him; however, Goetz was convicted of illegal weapons possession. (In 1996, a civil jury ordered Goetz to pay $43 million to one of the persons he had shot.) 1996 — Russian voters went to the polls in their first independent presidential election; the result was a runoff between President Boris Yeltsin (the eventual winner) and Communist challenger Gennady Zyuganov. 2015 — Real estate mogul Donald Trump launched his successful campaign to become President of the United States with a speech at Trump Tower in Manhattan.
Five years ago
Egyptians began going to the polls for a twoday runoff to choose their first freely elected president; Islamist candidate Mohammed Morsi emerged the winner.
China launched its most ambitious space mission to date, carrying its first female astronaut, Liu Yang, and two male colleagues on a 13-day mission to an orbiting module that ended safely.
Today’s Birthdays
Actress Eileen Atkins (TV: “The Crown”; “Doc Martin”) is 83. Author Joyce Carol Oates is 79. Country singer Billy “Crash” Craddock is 79. Actress Joan Van Ark is 74. Rhythm-and-blues singer James Smith (The Stylistics) is 67. Boxing Hall of Famer Roberto Duran is 66. Actor James Patrick Stuart is 49. Golfer Phil Mickelson is 47. Actress Missy Peregrym is 35. Actress Olivia Hack is 34. Pop-rock musician Ian Keaggy (Hot Chelle) is 30. Anna K. Davie Elementary School rising fifth-grader Jeremiah Crawford, son of Marqueta Searcy of Rome, is 10. Madilyn Norton, daughter of Alicia Jones and Daniel Norton of Silver Creek, is 3.
Thought for today ‘Not to know is bad. Not to want to know is worse. Not to hope is unthinkable. Not to care is unforgivable.’ Nigerian saying