On this date

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.” 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.” 1937 — The city of Bilbao fell to the Nationalist Army during the Spanish Civil War. 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. 1952 — The celebrity-panel game show “I’ve Got A Secret” made its debut on CBS-TV with Garry Moore as host. 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, New York. 1964 — The Civil Rights Act of 1964 was approved by the U.S. Senate, 73-27, after surviving a lengthy filibuster. 1972 — Hurricane Agnes, blamed for at least 122 deaths, made landfall over the Florida Panhandle. 1977 — Pope Paul VI proclaimed a 19th-century Philadelphia bishop, John Neumann (NOY’muhn), the first male U.S. saint. 1980 — Cave Spring Female Academy, Cave Spring High School, the Cave Spring railroad station, the Wesley O. Connor House, the Cave Spring commercial historic district, the Cave Spring residential historic district, the Georgia School for the Deaf historic district and the Rolater Park historic district were named to the National Register of Historic Places. 1982 — Vincent Chin, a Chinese-American auto engineer, was fatally beaten in Highland Park, Michigan, by two auto workers who later received probation for manslaughter in state court, and won acquittals in federal court. 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. 1999 — Author Stephen King was seriously injured when he was struck by a van driven by Bryan Smith in North Lovell, Maine.