Also on this date
In 1770,
Captain James Cook, commander of the British ship Endeavour, “discovered” the Great Barrier Reef off Australia by running onto it.
In 1947,
the government announced the end of sugar rationing for households and “institutional users” (e.g., restaurants and hotels) as of midnight.
In 1955,
in motor racing’s worst disaster, more than 80 people were killed during the 24 Hours of Le Mans in France when two of the cars collided and crashed into spectators.
In 1985,
Karen Ann Quinlan, the comatose patient whose case prompted a historic right-to-die court decision, died in Morris Plains, New Jersey, at age 31.
In 1993,
the U.S. Supreme Court unanimously ruled that people who commit “hate crimes” motivated by bigotry may be sentenced to extra punishment.
In 2001,
Timothy McVeigh, 33, was executed by injection at the federal prison in Terre Haute, Indiana, for the 1995 Oklahoma City bombing that killed 168 people.
In 2009,
with swine flu reported in more than 70 nations, the World Health Organization declared the first global flu pandemic in 41 years.
Ten years ago:
Twenty campers in a southwestern Arkansas gorge died in a pre-dawn flash flood of the Little Missouri River.
Five years ago:
Gen. Martin Dempsey, chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff, said the U.S. military’s reach could extend even further into Iraq if the anti-Islamic State campaign were to gain momentum, and held out the possibility of a greater role for U.S troops on the ground.
One year ago:
At a House committee hearing, comedian Jon Stewart scolded Congress for failing to ensure that a victims’ compensation fund set up after the Sept. 11 attacks never runs out of money. (A measure ensuring that the fund would remain permanent won final approval the following month and was signed into law by President Donald Trump.)
Associated Press