TODAY IN HISTORY
On June 1, 2009, General Motors filed for Chapter 11, becoming the largest U.S. industrial company to enter bankruptcy protection.
Also on this date
In 1533, Anne Boleyn, the second wife of King Henry VIII, was crowned as Queen Consort of England.
In 1792, Kentucky became the 15th state.
In 1796, Tennessee became the 16th state.
In 1813, the mortally wounded commander of the USS Chesapeake, Capt. James Lawrence, gave the order, “Don’t give up the ship” during a losing battle with the British frigate HMS Shannon in the War of 1812.
In 1943, a civilian flight from Portugal to England was shot down by Germany during World War II, killing all 17 people aboard, including actor Leslie Howard.
In 1958, Charles de Gaulle became premier of France, marking the beginning of the end of the Fourth Republic.
In 1980, Cable News Network made its debut.
In 2020, police violently broke up a peaceful and legal protest by thousands of people in Lafayette Park across from the White House, using chemical agents, clubs and punches to send protesters fleeing; the protesters had gathered following the police killing of George Floyd in Minneapolis a week earlier.
In 2022, A federal judge found that John Hinckley, who shot President Ronald Reagan in 1981, was “no longer a danger to himself or others” and should be freed. (Hinckley would be released two weeks later.)
Ten years ago: In a scene reminiscent of the Arab Spring, thousands of people flooded Istanbul’s main square after a crackdown on an anti-government protest turned city streets into a battlefield clouded by tear gas.
Five years ago: After a week of hard-nosed negotiation and diplomatic gamesmanship, President Donald Trump announced that the nuclear-weapons summit with North Korea’s Kim Jong Un that he had earlier canceled would take place on June 12 in Singapore.
One year ago: The U.S. unveiled a $700 million package of sophisticated weapons for Ukraine, in an urgent effort to prevent Russia from seizing the final swaths of land in the Donbas region.