TODAY IN HISTORY

On June 18, 1812, the War of 1812 began as President James Madison declared war against Britain.

In 1815, Napoleon Bonaparte met defeat at Waterloo as British and Prussian troops defeated the French in Belgium.

In 1940, Charles de Gaulle delivered a speech on the BBC in which he rallied his countrymen after the fall of France to Nazi Germany.

In 1953, Egypt’s 148-yearold Muhammad Ali Dynasty ended with the proclamation of a republic.

In 1964, President Lyndon B. Johnson and Japanese Prime Minister Hayato Ikeda spoke by telephone as they inaugurated the first trans-Pacific cable between Japan and Hawaii.

In 1971, Southwest Airlines began operations, with flights between Dallas and San Antonio, and Dallas and Houston.

In 1979, President Jimmy Carter and Soviet President Leonid I. Brezhnev signed the SALT II (strategic arms limitation) treaty in Vienna.