Today in history
On June16, 1567, Mary, Queen of Scots, was imprisoned in Scotland’s Lochleven Castle.
In1858, in a speech in Springfield, Senate candidate Abraham Lincoln said the slavery issue had to be resolved, declaring, “Ahouse divided against itself cannot stand.” In1897 the U.S. government signed a treaty of annexation with Hawaii. In 1903 Ford Motor Co. was
incorporated. In1933 the National Industrial Recovery Act became law. (Itwas later struck downby the Supreme Court.) In 1955 Pope Pius XII excommunicated Argentine President Juan Domingo Peron— a ban thatwas lifted eight years later. In 1961Soviet ballet dancer Rudolf Nureyev defected to the West while his troupe was in Paris.
In1963 Valentina Soviet Tereshkova cosmonautbecamethe space after first womanin being launched into orbit aboard Vostok 6. In1977 Soviet Communist Party General Secretary Leonid Brezhnev was named president, becoming the first person to hold both posts simultaneously. In 1978 President Jimmy Carter and Panamanian leader Omar Torrijos exchanged the instruments of ratification for the Panama Canal treaties. In1987 a New York jury acquitted Bernhard Goetz of attempted murder in the subway shooting of four young blacks whohe said were going to rob him. (He was convicted of illegal weapons possession.)
In1992 former Defense Secretary Caspar Weinberger was indicted on felony charges in the Iran-Contra affair. (Later, hewas pardoned by President George H.W. Bush.)
In 1994 former President Jimmy Carter, on a private visit to North Korea, reported the Communist nation’s leaders were eager to resume talks with the United States on resolving disputes about Pyongyang’s nuclear programand improving relations. In 1995 Bosnian government forces aided by Bosnian Croats unleashed a major offensive in hopes of breaking the Serb stranglehold on Sarajevo. Also in 1995Salt Lake City was awarded the 2002 Winter Olympic Games. In 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. In 1999 Vice President Al Gore formally opened his candidacy for the Democratic presidential nomination. Also in 1999Kathleen Ann Soliah, a fugitive member of the Symbionese Liberation Army, was captured in St. Paul, Minn.,
where she had made a new life under the name Sara Jane Olson. In 2000 federal regulators approved the merger of Bell Atlantic and GTE Corp., creating the nation’s largest local phone company. In2004, rebuffing Bush administration claims, the independent commission investigating the Sept. 11 attacks said no evidence existed that al-Qaida had strong ties to Iraqi leader Saddam Hussein. In 2005 European Union leaders put on hold plans to unite their 25 nations under a single constitution.
In 2008 former Vice President Al Gore announced his endorsement of Barack Obama. Also in 2008 a California Supreme Court ruling that overturned the state’s bans on same-sex marriage became final at 5:01p.m. Pacific Time. In 2015 Donald Trump, the real estate mogul and reality television star, announced that hewould seek the Republican presidential nomination.