TODAY IN HISTORY

TODAY’S HIGHLIGHT 2016

Justice Antonin Scalia, the influential conservative and most provocative member of the U.S. Supreme Court, was found dead at a private residence in the Big Bend area of West Texas; he was 79.

ALSO ON THIS DATE 1861

Abraham Lincoln was officially declared winner of the 1860 presidential election as electors cast their ballots.

1935

A jury in Flemington, New Jersey, found Bruno Richard Hauptmann guilty of first-degree murder in the kidnap-slaying of Charles A. Lindbergh Jr., the 20-monthold son of Charles and Anne Lindbergh. (Hauptmann was later executed.)

1939

Justice Louis D. Brandeis retired from the U.S. Supreme Court.

1965

During the Vietnam War, President Lyndon B. Johnson authorized Operation Rolling Thunder, an extended bombing campaign against the North Vietnamese.

1991

During Operation Desert Storm, allied warplanes destroyed an underground shelter in Baghdad that had been identified as a military command center; Iraqi officials said 500 civilians were killed.

1998

Dr. David Satcher was sworn in as the 16th Surgeon General of the United States during an Oval Office ceremony.

2000

Charles Schulz’s final “Peanuts” strip ran in Sunday newspapers, the day after the cartoonist died in his sleep at his California home at age 77.

2002

John Walker Lindh pleaded not guilty in federal court to conspiring to kill Americans and supporting the Taliban and terrorist organizations. (Lindh later pleaded guilty to lesser offenses and was sentenced to 20 years in prison. He was released in 2019).