TODAY IN HISTORY

1770:

Captain James Cook, commander of the British ship Endeavour, “discovered” the Great Barrier Reef off Australia by running onto it.

1776:

The Continental Congress formed a committee to draft a Declaration of Independence calling for freedom from Britain.

1942:

The United States and the Soviet Union signed a lend-lease agreement to aid the Soviet war effort in World War II.

1947:

The government announced the end of sugar rationing.

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.

1962:

Three prisoners at Alcatraz in San Francisco Bay staged an escape, leaving the island on a makeshift raft; they were never found or heard from again.

1978:

Joseph Freeman Jr. became the first black priest ordained in the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints.

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.

1987:

Margaret Thatcher became the first British prime minister in 160 years to win a third consecutive term of office as her Conservatives held onto a reduced majority in Parliament.

1993:

The U.S. Supreme Court unanimously ruled that people who commit “hate crimes” motivated by bigotry may be sentenced to extra punishment; the court also ruled religious groups had a constitutional right to sacrifice animals in worship services.

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.

2009:

With swine flu reported in more than 70 nations, the World Health Organization declared the first global flu pandemic in 41 years.