TODAY IN HISTORY

TODAY’S HIGHLIGHT

1967

The 25th Amendment to the U.S. Constitution, dealing with presidential disability and succession, was ratified as Minnesota and Nevada adopted it.

1763

Britain, Spain and France signed the Treaty of Paris, ending the Seven Years’ War.

1840

Britain’s Queen Victoria married Prince Albert of Saxe-coburg and Gotha.

1933

The first singing telegram was introduced by the Postal Telegram Co. in New York.

1936

Nazi Germany’s Reichstag passed a law investing the Gestapo secret police with absolute authority, exempt from any legal review.

1959

A major tornado tore through the St. Louis area, killing 21 people and causing heavy damage.

1962

The Soviet Union exchanged captured American U-2 pilot Francis Gary Powers for Rudolf Abel, a Soviet spy held by the United States.

1992

Boxer Mike Tyson was convicted in Indianapolis of raping Desiree Washington, a Miss Black America contestant. “Roots” author Alex Haley died in Seattle at age 70.

1997

A civil jury heaped $25 million in punitive damages on O.J. Simpson for the slayings of his ex-wife and her friend, on top of $8.5 million in compensatory damages awarded earlier.

2005

Britain’s Prince Charles announced he would marry his divorced lover, Camilla Parker Bowles, in April. North Korea boasted publicly for the first time that it possessed nuclear weapons.

2006

Dr. Norman Shumway, who performed the first successful U.S. heart transplant, died in Palo Alto, California, at age 83.

2014

Former film star and diplomat Shirley Temple Black, 85, died at her home near San Francisco.