This day in history
Today is Thursday, June 22, the 173rd day of 2023. There are 192 days left in the year.
Birthdays: Actor Prunella Scales is 91. Senator Dianne Feinstein, Democrat of California, is 90. Singer-actor Kris Kristofferson is 87. Singer-musician Todd Rundgren is 75. Democratic Senator Elizabeth Warren of Massachusetts, is 74. Actor Meryl Streep is 74. Pop singer Cyndi Lauper is 70. Jesus Jones singer-musician Mike Edwards is 59. TV personality Carson Daly is 50. Actor Donald Faison is 49. Actor Alicia Goranson is 49. Actor-comedian Mike O’Brien is 47. TV personality/actor Jai Rodriguez is 44. Americana singer-songwriter John Moreland is 38.
▶In 1815, Napoleon Bonaparte abdicated for a second time as emperor of the French.
▶In 1870, the United States Department of Justice was created.
▶In 1935, the Sagamore and Bourne bridges opened; work began in 1933.
▶In 1937, Joe Louis began his reign as world heavyweight boxing champion by knocking out Jim Braddock in the eighth round of their fight in Chicago.
▶In 1940, during World War II, Adolf Hitler gained a stunning victory as France was forced to sign an armistice eight days after German forces overran Paris.
▶In 1941, Nazi Germany launched Operation Barbarossa, a massive invasion of the Soviet Union.
▶In 1944, President Franklin D. Roosevelt signed the Servicemen’s Readjustment Act of 1944, more popularly known as the “GI Bill of Rights.”
▶In 1945, the World War II battle for Okinawa ended with an Allied victory.
▶In 1946, officials declared Quabbin Reservoir full after two decades of construction of the reservoir, then the largest in the world, and destruction of four towns in the Swift River Valley. The reservoir is the principal source of drinking water for people in metropolitan Boston communities.
▶In 1970, President Nixon signed an extension of the Voting Rights Act of 1965 that lowered the minimum voting age to 18.
▶In 1977, John N. Mitchell became the first former US attorney general to go to prison as he began serving a sentence for his role in the Watergate coverup.
▶In 1981, Mark David Chapman pleaded guilty to killing rock star John Lennon.
▶In 1992, the US Supreme Court unanimously ruled that “hate crime” laws banning cross burning and similar expressions of racial bias violated free-speech rights.
▶Last year, a powerful earthquake struck a rugged, mountainous region of eastern Afghanistan, flattening stone and mud-brick homes and killing at least 1,000 people. A bloodhound named Trumpet won the Westminster Kennel Club Dog Show, marking the first time the breed has ever snared most coveted best in show prize.