HIGHLIGHTS IN HISTORY
Today’s highlight:
On June 25, 1868, Congress passed an Omnibus Act allowing for the readmission of Florida, Alabama, Louisiana, Georgia, North Carolina and South Carolina to the Union.
On this date:
1788: Virginia ratified the U.S. Constitution.
1876: Lt. Col. Colonel George A. Custer and his 7th Cavalry were wiped out by Sioux and Cheyenne Indians in the Battle of the Little Bighorn in Montana.
1910: President William Howard Taft signed the WhiteSlave Traffic Act, more popularly known as the Mann Act, which made it illegal to transport women across state lines for “immoral” purposes.
1938: The Fair Labor Standards Act of 1938 was enacted.
1947: “The Diary of a
Young Girl,” the personal journal of Anne Frank,a
German-born Jewish girl hiding with her family from the Nazis in Amsterdam during World War II, was first published.
1950: War broke out in Korea as forces from the communist North invaded the South.
1967: The Beatles performed and recorded their new song “All You Need Is Love” during the closing segment of “Our World,” the first-ever live international telecast which was carried by satellite from 14 countries.
1973: Former White House Counsel John W. Dean began testifying before the Senate Watergate Committee, implicating top administration officials, including President Richard Nixon as well as himself, in the Watergate scandal and cover-up.
1981: The U.S. Supreme Court ruled that male-only draft registration was constitutional.
1993: Kim Campbell was sworn in as Canada’s 19th prime minister, the first woman to hold the post.
1998: The U.S. Supreme Court rejected a line-item veto law as unconstitutional, and ruled that HIV-infected people were protected by the Americans with Disabilities Act.
2009: Death claimed Michael Jackson, the “King of Pop,” in Los Angeles at age 50 and actress Farrah Fawcett in Santa Monica, California, at age 62.
Ten years ago:
A divided U.S. Supreme Court struck down a Louisiana law that allowed capital punishment for people convicted of raping children under 12; the ruling also invalidated laws in five other states that allowed executions for child rape that did not result in the death of the victim. A jury in Woburn, Massachusetts, convicted Neil Entwistle of first-degree murder in the deaths of his wife, Rachel, 27, and their 9-month-old baby, Lillian Rose. Entwistle was sentenced the next day to two life prison terms without possibility of parole.
Five years ago:
President Barack Obama declared the debate over climate change and its causes obsolete as he announced at Georgetown University a wide-ranging plan to tackle pollution and prepare communities for global warming. Russian President Vladimir Putin confirmed the whereabouts of National Security Agency leaker Edward Snowden at a Moscow airport, but promptly rejected a U.S. plea to turn him over.
One year ago:
In the U.S., tens of thousands of people waving rainbow flags lined streets for gay pride parades in coast-to-coast events.