TODAY IN HISTORY

Today is Sunday, June 18, the 169th day of 2017. There are 196 days left in the year. This is Father’s Day.

Today’s Highlights in History:

On June 18, 1940, during World War II, British Prime Minister Winston Churchill urged his countrymen to conduct themselves in a manner that would prompt future generations to say, “This was their finest hour.” Charles de Gaulle delivered a speech on the BBC in which he rallied his countrymen after the fall of France to Nazi Germany.

On this date:

In 1778, American forces entered Philadelphia as the British withdrew during the Revolutionary War.

In 1812, the War of 1812 began as the United States Congress approved, and President James Madison signed, a declaration of war against Britain.

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

In 1817, London’s original Waterloo Bridge, commemorating Britain’s victory over France two years earlier, was opened by the Prince Regent (the future King George IV) and the Duke of Wellington.

In 1873, suffragist Susan B. Anthony was found guilty by a judge in Canandaigua, New York, of breaking the law by casting a vote in the 1872 presidential election. (The judge fined Anthony $100, but she never paid the penalty.)

In 1908, William Howard Taft was nominated for president by the Republican National Convention in Chicago.