Today in History
Today’s highlight:
On June 20, 1837, Queen Victoria acceded to the British throne following the death of her uncle, King William IV.
On this date:
1782: Congress approved the Great Seal of the United States, featuring the emblem of the bald eagle.
1893: A jury in New Bedford, Massachusetts, found Lizzie Borden not guilty of the ax murders of her father and stepmother.
1921: U.S. Rep. Alice Mary Robertson, R-Okla., became the first woman to preside over a session of the House of Representatives.
1943: Race-related rioting erupted in Detroit; federal troops were sent in two days later to quell the violence that resulted in more than 30 deaths.
1967: Boxer Muhammad Ali was convicted in Houston of violating Selective Service laws by refusing to be drafted and was sentenced to five years in prison. Ali’s conviction was ultimately overturned by the U.S. Supreme Court.
1972: Three days after the arrest of the Watergate burglars, President Richard Nixon met at the White House with his chief of staff, H.R. Haldeman; the secretly made tape recording of this meeting ended up with the notorious 18½-minute gap.
1974: The film noir “Chinatown,” starring Jack Nicholson and Faye Dunaway, was released by Paramount Pictures.
1979: ABC News correspondent Bill Stewart was shot to death in Managua, Nicaragua, by a member of President Anastasio Somoza’s national guard.
1990: South African black nationalist Nelson Mandela and his wife, Winnie, arrived in New York City for a ticker-tape parade in their honor as they began an eight-city U.S. tour.
1994: O.J. Simpson pleaded not guilty in Los Angeles to the killings of his ex-wife, Nicole, and her friend, Ronald Goldman.
2001: Houston resident Andrea Yates drowned her five children in the family bathtub, then called police. Yates was later convicted of murder, but had her conviction overturned; she was acquitted by reason of insanity in a retrial.
2014: The Obama administration granted an array of new benefits to same-sex couples, including those living in states where gay marriage was against the law; the new measures ranged from Social Security and veterans benefits to work leave for caring for sick spouses.
Ten years ago: Edith Shain, who claimed to be the nurse smooched by a sailor in Times Square in a famous Life magazine photograph marking the end of World War II, died in Los Angeles at 91.
Five years ago: More than 60 pizza-makers working for 18 hours completed a pie that was 1.59545 kilometers, or nearly a mile long, for Milan’s world fair, Expo 2015; a Guinness World Records judge proclaimed it the world’s longest pizza.
One year ago: Iran’s Revolutionary Guard shot down a U.S. surveillance drone in the Strait of Hormuz; it was the first time the Islamic Republic had directly attacked the U.S. military amid tensions over the unraveling nuclear deal.