TODAY IN HISTORY
1815: Napoleon Bonaparte abdicated for a second time as Emperor of the French.
1870: The United States Department of Justice was created.
1937: Joe Louis began his reign as world heavyweight boxing champion by knocking out Jim Braddock in the eighth round of their fight in Chicago. (A year later on this date, Louis knocked out Max Schmeling in the first round of their rematch at Yankee Stadium.)
1940: During World War II, Adolf Hitler gained a stunning victory as France was forced to sign an armistice eight days after German forces overran Paris. 1941: Nazi Germany launched Operation Barbarossa, a massive invasion of the Soviet Union. 1944: President Franklin D. Roosevelt signed the Servicemen’s Readjustment Act of 1944, more popularly known as the “GI Bill of Rights.”
1945: The World War II battle for Okinawa ended with an Allied victory.
1965: Movie producer David O. Selznick (“Gone with the Wind”) died in Los Angeles at age 63.
1970: President Richard Nixon signed an extension of the Voting Rights Act of 1965 that lowered the minimum voting age to 18.
1977: John N. Mitchell became the first former U.S. Attorney General to go to prison as he began serving a sentence for his role in the Watergate cover-up. (He was released 19 months later.)
1981: Mark David Chapman pleaded guilty to killing rock star John Lennon. Abolhassan Bani-Sadr was deposed as president of Iran.
1992: The U.S. Supreme Court, in R.A.V. v. City of St. Paul, unanimously ruled that “hate crime” laws that banned cross burning and similar expressions of racial bias violated freespeech rights.
1999: In a major upset at Wimbledon, top-ranked Martina Hingis lost 6-2, 6-0 in the opening round to Jelena Dokic, a 16-yearold qualifier ranked 129th. 2012: Ex-Penn State assistant coach Jerry Sandusky was convicted by a jury in Bellefonte, Pennsylvania, on 45 counts of sexually assaulting 10 boys over 15 years. (Sandusky is serving a 30- to 60-year state prison sentence.)
2021: Kobe Bryant’s widow agreed to settle a lawsuit against the pilot and owners of the helicopter that crashed in January 2020, killing the NBA star, their daughter, Gianna, and seven others.