HISTORY AT A GLANCE

TODAY is Friday, June 26, the 177th day of 2015. There are 188 days left in the year. Highlights in history on this date:

1963 – Levi Eshkol becomes the Israeli Prime Minister.

1967 – Karol Wojtyla (later John Paul II) made a cardinal by Pope Paul VI.

1973 – At Plesetsk Cosmodrome nine people are killed in an explosion of a Cosmos 3-M rocket.

1974 – The Universal Product Code is scanned for the first time to sell a package of Wrigley’s chewing gum at the Marsh Supermarket in Troy, Ohio

1975 – Two FBI agents and a member of the American Indian Movement are killed in a shootout on the Pine Ridge Indian Reservation in South Dakota; Leonard Peltier is later convicted of the murders in a controversial trial.

1977 – The Yorkshire Ripper kills 16-year-old shop assistant Jayne MacDonald in Leeds, changing public perception of the killer as she is the first victim who is not a prostitute.

1977 – Elvis Presley performs the final concert of his life in Indianapolis, Indiana.

1991 – Ten-Day War: The Yugoslav people’s army begins the Ten-Day War in Slovenia.

1995 – Hamad bin Khalifa al-Thani deposes his father Khalifa bin Hamad al-Thani, the Emir of Qatar, in a bloodless coup.

1995 – Attempted assassination of Egyptian president Hosni Mubarak in Addis Ababa.

1997 – The US Supreme Court rules that the Communications Decency Act violates the First Amendment to the United States Constitution.

1997 – Bertie Ahern becomes Prime Minister of Ireland.

2000 – President Clinton announces the completion of the first survey of the entire human genome.

2000 – John Paul II reveals the third secret of Fátima.

2003 – The US Supreme Court rules in Lawrence vs Texas that gender-based sodomy laws are unconstitutional.

2004 – Ólafur Ragnar Grímsson is re-elected as President of Iceland.

2006 – Mari Alkatiri, the first Prime Minister of East Timor, resigns after weeks of political unrest.

2007 – Benedict XVI reinstates the traditional laws of papal election in which a successful candidate must receive 2/3 of the votes.

2008 – Karmah Bombing: A suicide bomber dressed as an Iraqi policeman detonates an explosive vest, killing 25 people.

2010 – Ahmed Mohamed Mohamoud is elected as President of Somaliland.

2012 – The Waldo Canyon Fire descends into the Mountain Shadows neighbourhood in Colorado Springs burning 347 homes in a matter of hours and killing two people.

2013 – The US Supreme Court rules that Section 3 of the Defence of Marriage Act is unconstitutional and in violation of the Fifth Amendment to the United States Constitution.

2013 – Riots in China’s Xinjiang region kill at least 36 people and injuring 21 others.

2013 – Abdullah bin Nasser bin Khalifa Al Thani became Prime Minister of Qatar.