TODAY in HISTORY
Today is Saturday, June 23, the 174th day of 2018. There are 191 days left in the year.
1683 William Penn signs a friendship treaty with Lenni Lenape Indians in Pennsylvania. 1757 Battle of Plassey: Three thousand British troops under Robert Clive defeat a 50,000- strong Indian army under Siraj udDaulah at Plassey. 1810 John Jacob Astor forms the Pacific Fur Company.
1860 The United States Congress establishes the Government Printing Office. 1887 The Rocky Mountains Park Act becomes law in Canada creating the nation’s first national park, Banff National Park.
1913 Second Balkan War: The Greeks defeat the Bulgarians in the Battle of Doiran. 1931 Wiley Post and Harold Gatty take off from Roosevelt Field, Long Island in an attempt to circumnavigate the world in a singleengine plane. 1942 World War II: Germany’s latest fighter aircraft, a FockeWulf Fw 190, is captured intact when it mistakenly lands at RAF Pembrey in Wales.
1951 The ocean liner, SS United States, is christened and launched. 1960 The United States Food and Drug Administration declares Enovid to be the first officially approved combined oral contraceptive pill in the world.
1967 Cold War: U. S. President Lyndon B. Johnson meets with Soviet Premier Alexei Kosygin in Glassboro, New Jersey for the three- day Glassboro Summit Conference. 1969 Warren E. Burger is sworn in as Chief Justice of the United States Supreme Court by retiring Chief Justice Earl Warren. 1972 Watergate scandal: US President Richard M. Nixon and White House Chief of Staff H. R. Haldeman are taped talking about using the Central Intelligence Agency to obstruct the Federal Bureau of Investigation’s investigation into the Watergate break- ins. 1973 A fire at a house in Hull, England which kills a six- year- old boy is passed off as an accident; it later emerges as the first of 26 deaths by fire caused over the next seven years by arsonist Peter Dinsdale. 1991 Sonic the Hedgehog is released to American audiences, then to PAL and Japanese audiences a month later, kickstarting the successful Sonic franchise.
2001 The 8.4 Mw southern Peru earthquake shakes coastal Peru with a maximum Mercalli intensity of VIII ( Severe). A destructive tsunami followed, leaving at least 74 people dead, and 2,687 injured. 2012 Ashton Eaton breaks the decathlon world record at the United States Olympic Trials.