TODAY IN HISTORY
TODAY IS MONDAY, JUNE 28, the 179th day of 2021. There are 186 days left in the year.
TODAY’S HIGHLIGHTS IN HISTORY:
On this date in 1940, President Franklin D. Roosevelt signed the Alien Registration Act, also known as the Smith Act, which required adult foreigners residing in the U.S. to be registered and fingerprinted.
In 1838, Britain’s Queen Victoria was crowned in Westminster Abbey.
In 1863, during the Civil War, President Abraham Lincoln appointed Maj. Gen. George G. Meade the new commander of the Army of the Potomac, following the resignation of Maj. Gen. Joseph Hooker.
In 1914, Archduke Franz Ferdinand of Austria and his wife, Sophie, were shot to death in Sarajevo by Serb nationalist Gavrilo Princip — an act that sparked World War I.
In 1919, the Treaty of Versailles was signed in France, ending World War I.
In 1950, North Korean forces captured Seoul, capital of South Korea.
In 1951, a TV version of the radio comedy program “Amos ‘N’ Andy” premiered on CBS. (It was the first network TV series to feature an all-Black cast, but came under criticism for racial stereotyping.)
In 1964, civil rights activist Malcolm X declared, “We want equality by any means necessary” during the Founding Rally of the Organization of AfroAmerican Unity in New York.
In 1978, the Supreme Court ordered the University of California-Davis Medical School to admit Allan Bakke, a white man who argued he’d been a victim of reverse racial discrimination.
In 2000, seven months after he was cast adrift in the Florida Straits, Elian Gonzalez was returned to his native Cuba.
In 2010, Sen. Robert C. Byrd, D-W. Va., the longest-serving senator in the nation’s history, died in Falls Church,
Virginia, at 92. The Supreme Court ruled, 5-4, that Americans had the right to own a gun for self-defense anywhere they lived.
In 2013, tens of thousands of supporters and opponents of Egyptian President Mohammed Morsi rallied in Cairo, and both sides fought each other in the country’s second-largest city of Alexandria, where two people — including an American — were killed and scores injured. The four plaintiffs in the U.S. Supreme Court case that overturned California’s same-sex marriage ban tied the knot just hours after a federal appeals court freed gay couples to obtain marriage licenses in the state for the first time in 4½ years.
In 2019, avowed white supremacist James Alex Fields, who deliberately drove his car into a crowd of counterprotesters in Charlottesville, Virginia, killing a young woman and injuring dozens, apologized to his victims before being sentenced to life in prison on federal hate crime charges.
TODAY’S BIRTHDAYS: Comedianmovie director Mel Brooks is 95. Former Sen. Carl Levin, D-Mich., is 87. Comedian-impressionist John Byner is 84. Former Defense Secretary Leon Panetta is 83. Rock musician Dave Knights (Procul Harum) is 76. Actor Bruce Davison is 75. Actor Kathy Bates is 73. Actor Alice Krige is 67. College and Pro Football Hall-of-Famer John Elway is 61. Jazz singer Tierney Sutton is 58. Actor Jessica Hecht and rock musician Saul Davies (James) are 56. Actors Mary Stuart Masterson and John Cusack are 55. Actor Gil Bellows is 54. Actor-singer Danielle Brisebois, jazz musician Jimmy Sommers and actor Tichina Arnold are 52. Actor Steve Burton is 51. Entrepreneur Elon Musk is 50. Actor Alessandro Nivola is 49. Actor Camille Guaty and rock musician Tim Nordwind (OK Go) are 45. Rock musician Mark Stoermer (The Killers) is 44. Country singer Big Vinny Hickerson (Trailer Choir) is 38. Country singer Kellie Pickler is 35.