TODAY IN HISTORY
1787: The Constitutional Convention began at the Pennsylvania State House (Independence Hall) in Philadelphia after enough delegates had shown up for a quorum.
1946: Transjordan (now Jordan) became a kingdom as it proclaimed its new monarch, Abdullah I. 1961: President John F. Kennedy told Congress: “I believe that this nation should commit itself to achieving the goal, before this decade is out, of landing a man on the moon and returning him safely to the earth.”
1964: The U.S. Supreme Court, in Griffin v. County School Board of Prince Edward County, ordered the Virginia county to reopen its public schools, which officials had closed in an attempt to circumvent the Supreme Court’s
1954 Brown v. Board of Education of Topeka desegregation ruling.
1968: The Gateway Arch in St. Louis was dedicated by Vice President Hubert Humphrey and Interior Secretary Stewart Udall.
1977: The first “Star Wars” film (later retitled “Star Wars: Episode IV — A New Hope”) was released by 20th Century Fox.
1979: 273 people died when an American Airlines DC-10 crashed just after takeoff from Chicago’s O’Hare Airport.
2008: NASA’s Phoenix Mars Lander arrived on the Red Planet to begin searching for evidence of water; the spacecraft confirmed the presence of water ice at its landing site.
2012: The private company SpaceX made history as its Dragon capsule docked with the International Space Station.
2016: Actor Johnny Depp’s wife, Amber Heard, filed for divorce in Los Angeles, citing irreconcilable differences after 15 months of marriage.
2017: Surrounded by stone-faced allies, President Donald Trump rebuked fellow NATO members for failing to meet the military alliance’s financial benchmarks.
2020: George Floyd, a Black man, was killed when a white Minneapolis police officer pressed his knee on Floyd’s neck for about 9 1/2 minutes while Floyd was handcuffed and pleading that he couldn’t breathe; Floyd’s death, captured on video by a bystander, would lead to worldwide protests, some of which turned violent, and a reexamination of racism and policing in the U.S.