Today in history

Today is Tuesday, June 16, the 168th day of 2020. There are 198 days left in the year.

Today’s Highlight in History:

On June 16, 1996, Russian voters went to the polls in their first independent presidential election; the result was a runoff between President Boris Yeltsin (the eventual winner) and Communist challenger Gennady Zyuganov (geh-NAH’dee zyoo-GAH’nawf).

On this date:

In 1567, Mary, Queen of Scots, was imprisoned in Lochleven Castle in Scotland. (She escaped almost a year later but ended up imprisoned again.)

In 1858, accepting the Illinois Republican Party’s nomination for the U.S. Senate, Abraham Lincoln said the slavery issue had to be resolved, declaring, “A house divided against itself cannot stand.”

In 1883, baseball’s first “Ladies’ Day” took place as the New York Gothams offered women free admission to a game against the Cleveland Spiders. (New York won, 5-2.)

In 1903, Ford Motor Co. was incorporated.

In 1911, IBM had its beginnings as the ComputingTabulating-Recording Co. which was incorporated in New York State.

In 1932, President Herbert Hoover and Vice President Charles Curtis were renominated at the Republican National Convention in Chicago.

In 1933, the National Industrial Recovery Act became law with President Franklin D. Roosevelt’s signature. (The Act was later struck down by the U.S. Supreme Court.) The Federal Deposit Insurance Corp. was founded as President Roosevelt signed the Banking Act of 1933.

In 1963, the world’s first female space traveler, Valentina Tereshkova (tehruhsh-KOH’-vuh), 26, was launched into orbit by the Soviet Union aboard Vostok 6; Tereshkova spent 71 hours in flight, circling the Earth 48 times before returning safely.

On June 16, 1967, the three-day Monterey International Pop Music Festival, a major event of the “Summer of Love,” opened in northern California; among the featured acts were Jefferson Airplane, The Who, the Grateful Dead, the Jimi Hendrix Experience, Janis Joplin, Otis Redding and Ravi Shankar.