TODAY IN HISTORY
TODAY IS FRIDAY, JUNE 23, the 174th day of 2017. There are 191 days left in the year.
TODAY’S HIGHLIGHTS IN HISTORY: On this date in 1967, President Lyndon B. Johnson, Soviet Premier Alexei Kosygin and their advisers opened a three-day summit at Glassboro State College in New Jersey. The U.S. Senate voted 92-5 to censure Democrat Thomas J. Dodd of Connecticut for diverting campaign money to his personal use.
In 1314, during the First War of Scottish Independence, the two-day Battle of Bannockburn, resulting in victory for the forces of Robert the Bruce over the army of King Edward II, began near Stirling.
In 1537, Spanish explorer Pedro de Mendoza, the founder of Buenos Aires, died aboard his ship while heading back to Spain.
In 1757, forces of the East India Company led by Robert Clive won the Battle of Plassey, which effectively marked the beginning of British colonial rule in India.
In 1892, the Democratic national convention in Chicago nominated former President Grover Cleveland on the first ballot.
In 1904, President Theodore Roosevelt was nominated for a second term of office at the Republican national convention in Chicago.
In 1931, aviators Wiley Post and Harold Gatty took off from New York on a round-the-world flight that lasted eight days and 15 hours.
In 1947, the Senate joined the House in overriding President Harry S. Truman’s veto of the Taft-Hartley Act, designed to limit the power of organized labor.
In 1950, Northwest Orient Airlines Flight 2501, a DC-4, crashed into Lake Michigan with the loss of all 58 people on board. In 1969, Warren E. Burger was sworn in as chief justice of the United States by the man he was succeeding, Earl Warren.
In 1972, President Richard Nixon and White House chief of staff H.R. Haldeman discussed using the CIA to obstruct the FBI’s Watergate investigation. (Revelation of the tape recording of this conversation sparked Nixon’s resignation in 1974.) President Nixon signed Title IX barring discrimination on the basis of sex for “any education program or activity receiving federal financial assistance.”
In 1985, all 329 people aboard an Air India Boeing 747 were killed when the plane crashed into the Atlantic Ocean near Ireland because of a bomb authorities believe was planted by Sikh separatists.
In 1997, civil rights activist Betty Shabazz, the widow of Malcolm X, died in New York of burns suffered in a fire set by her 12-year-old grandson; she was 61. (Malcolm Shabazz pleaded guilty to arson and other charges, and was placed in juvenile detention.)
TODAY’S BIRTHDAYS: Singer Diana Trask is 77. Musical conductor James Levine is 74. Actor Ted Shackelford is 71. Actor Bryan Brown is 70. Supreme Court Justice Clarence Thomas is 69. Actor Jim Metzler is 66. “American Idol” ex-judge Randy Jackson is 61. Actress Frances McDormand is 60. Rock musician Steve Shelley (Sonic Youth) and actor Paul La Greca are 55. Writerdirector Joss Whedon is 53. Rhythmand-blues singer Chico DeBarge is 47. Actress Selma Blair is 45. Actor Joel Edgerton (“Loving”) is 43. Rock singer KT Tunstall and rhythm-and-blues singer Virgo Williams (Ghostowns DJs) are 42. Actress Emmanuelle Vaugier is 41. Singer-songwriter Jason Mraz is 40. Rock singer Duffy is 33.