TODAY IN HISTORY

1953: Julius Rosenberg, 35, and his wife, Ethel,

37, convicted of conspiring to pass U.S. atomic secrets to the Soviet Union, were executed at Sing Sing Prison in Ossining, New York.

1775: George Washington was commissioned by the Continental Congress as commander in chief of the Continental Army.

1865: Union troops arrived in Galveston, Texas, with news that the Civil War was over, and that all remaining slaves in Texas were free — an event celebrated to this day as “Juneteenth.”