Today in history

On June 23, 1763, Josephine, Napoleon Bonaparte’s consort and empress of France, was born in TroisIlets, Martinique.

In 1836 Congress approved the Deposit Act, which contained a provision for turning over surplus federal revenue to the states.

In 1894 the Duke of Windsor, who became King Edward VIII of Britain before his abdication, was born in Richmond, England.

In 1927 choreographer and director Bob Fosse was born in Chicago.

In 1931 aviators Wiley Post and Harold Gatty took off from New York for a flight around the world.

In 1940 Olympic track star Wilma Rudolph was born outside Clarksville, Tenn.

In 1947 Congress overrode the veto of President Harry Truman and enacted the Taft-Hartley Act, which limited some activities of labor unions.

In 1956 Gamal Abdel Nasser was elected president of Egypt.

In 1969 Warren Burger was sworn as chief justice of the United States by the man he was succeeding, Earl Warren.

In 1972 President Richard Nixon and his White House chief of staff, H.R. Haldeman, discussed a plan to use the CIA to obstruct the FBI’s Watergate investigation.

In 1985, all 329 people aboard an Air India Boeing 747 were killed when the plane crashed off the Irish coast, apparently because of a bomb.

In 1989 the Supreme Court refused to shut down the “dial-a-porn” industry, ruling Congress had gone too far in passing a law banning all sexually oriented phone message services.

In 1992 mob boss John Gotti, convicted of racketeering charges, was sentenced in New York to life in prison.

In 1993 Lorena Bobbitt, of Prince William County, Va., sexually mutilated her husband, John, after he allegedly raped her.

In 1994 French marines and Foreign Legionnaires headed into Rwanda to try to stem the country’s ethnic slaughter. Also in 1994 the United States and Russia signed agreements in Washington on cooperating in space and economic development.

In 1995 Dr. Jonas Salk, developer of the first vaccine to halt the crippling rampage of polio, died in La Jolla, Calif.; he was 80.