TODAY IN HISTORY

TUESDAY JUN 22, 2021 1970

President Richard Nixon signed an extension of the Voting Rights Act of 1965 that lowered the minimum voting age to 18.

1611

English explorer Henry Hudson, his son and several other people were set adrift in present-day Hudson Bay by mutineers aboard the Discovery.

1815

Napoleon Bonaparte abdicated for a second time as Emperor of the French.

1870

The United States Department of Justice was created.

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.

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.

1941

Nazi Germany launched Operation Barbarossa, a massive invasion of the Soviet Union.

1944

President Franklin D. Roosevelt signed the Servicemen’s Readjustment Act of 1944, more popularly known as the “GI Bill of Rights.”

1969

Singer-actor Judy Garland died in London at age 47.

1977

John N. Mitchell became the first former U.S. Attorney General to go to prison as he began serving a sentence for his role in the Watergate cover-up.

1981

Mark David Chapman pleaded guilty to killing rock star John Lennon. Abolhassan Bani-sadr was deposed as president of Iran.

1992

The U.S. Supreme Court, in R.A.V. v. City of St. Paul, unanimously ruled that “hate crime” laws that banned cross burning and similar expressions of racial bias violated free-speech rights.