TODAY IN HISTORY
Today is Tuesday, June 23, the 175th day of 2020. There are 191 days left in the year.
Today’s Highlight in History:
On June 23, 1888, abolitionist Frederick Douglass received one vote from the Kentucky delegation at the Republican convention in Chicago, effectively making him the first black candidate to have his name placed in nomination for U.S. president. (The nomination went to Benjamin Harrison.)
On this date:
■ In 1868, Christopher Latham Sholes received a patent for his “Type-Writer,” featuring a QWERTY keyboard; it was the first commercially successful typewriter.
■ In 1938, the Civil Aeronautics Authority was established.
■ In 1947, the Senate joined the House in overriding President Harry S. Truman’s veto of the Taft-Hartley Act, designed to limit the power of organized labor.
■ In 1969, Warren E. Burger was sworn in as chief justice of the United States by the man he was succeeding, Earl Warren.
■ In 1972, President Richard Nixon and White House chief of staff H.R. Haldeman discussed using the CIA to obstruct the FBI’s Watergate investigation. (Revelation of the tape recording of this conversation sparked Nixon’s resignation in 1974.) President Nixon signed Title IX barring discrimination on the basis of sex for “any education program or activity receiving federal financial assistance.”
■ In 1988, James E. Hansen, a climatologist at the Goddard Institute for Space Studies, told a Senate panel that global warming of the earth caused by the “greenhouse effect” was a reality.
■ In 1993, in a case that drew widespread attention, Lorena Bobbitt of Prince William County, Va., sexually mutilated her husband, John, after he’d allegedly raped her. (John Bobbitt was later acquitted of marital sexual assault; Lorena Bobbitt was later acquitted of malicious wounding by reason of insanity.)
■ In 1995, Dr. Jonas Salk, the medical pioneer who developed the first vaccine to halt the crippling rampage of polio, died in La Jolla, California, at age 80.
■ In 2018, Trump administration officials said the government knew the location of all children in its custody after separating them from their families at the border, and that it was working to reunite them.
Ten years ago: Following Gen. Stanley McChrystal’s criticism of the Obama administration in a Rolling Stone magazine profile, President Barack Obama named Gen. David Petraeus to replace the Afghanistan commander. Gary Faulkner, who was detained by authorities in northern Pakistan during a personal quest to track down Osama bin Laden, was released.
Five years ago: WikiLeaks published documents it said showed the U.S. National Security Agency had eavesdropped on the last three French presidents, releasing material that appeared to capture officials in Paris talking candidly about Greece’s economy, relations with Germany — and, ironically, American espionage. Actor Dick Van Patten, 86, died in Santa Monica, California.
One year ago: Democratic presidential candidate Pete Buttigieg faced criticism from angry residents of South Bend, Indiana, where he was mayor, at an emotional town hall meeting a week after a white police officer fatally shot a black man there; Buttigieg said he would call for an outside investigation. President Donald Trump told NBC’s “Meet the Press” that he’d prefer to run for re-election against Joe Biden, suggesting that the former vice president wouldn’t be the “great candidate” that Hillary Clinton was in 2016. Two siblings from the famed Flying Wallendas safely crossed New York’s Times Square on a high wire strung between two skyscrapers, 25 stories above the pavement.
Today’s Birthdays: Singer Diana Trask is 80. Musical conductor James Levine is
77. Actor Ted Shackelford is 74. Actor Bryan Brown is
73. Supreme Court Justice Clarence Thomas is 72. Actor Jim Metzler is 69. “American Idol” ex-judge Randy Jackson is 64. Actress Frances McDormand is 63. Writer-director Joss Whedon is 56. Actress Selma Blair is
48. Actor Joel Edgerton is 46. Rock singer KT Tunstall is 45. Actress Emmanuelle Vaugier is 44. Singer-songwriter Jason Mraz is 43. Actress Melissa Rauch is 40. Country singer Katie Armiger is 29.