Today in history

Today is Wednesday, June 4, the 155th day of 2014. There are 210days left in the year.

Today’s Highlights in History:

On June 4, 1944, during World War II, U-505, a German submarine, was captured by a U.S. Navy task group in the south Atlantic; it was the first such capture of an enemy vessel at sea by the U.S. Navy since the War of 1812. The U.S. Fifth Army began liberating Rome.

On this date:

In 1783, the Montgolfier brothers first publicly demonstrated their hot-air balloon, which did not carry any passengers, over Annonay, France. In 1784, opera singer Elisabeth Thible became the first woman to make a nontethered flight aboard a Montgolfier hot-air balloon, over Lyon, France. In 1892, the Sierra Club was incorporated in San Francisco. In 1919, Congress approved the 19th Amendment to the U.S. Constitution, guaranteeing citizens the right to vote regardless of their gender and sent it to the states for ratification. In 1939, the German ocean liner MS St. Louis, carrying more than 900Jewish refugees from Germany, was turned away from the Florida coast by U.S. officials. In 1940, during World War II, the Allied military evacuation of more than 338,000troops from Dunkirk, France, ended. In 1942, the World War II Battle of Midway began, resulting in a decisive American victory against Japan and marking the turning point of the war in the Pacific. In 1954, French Premier Joseph Laniel and Vietnamese Premier Buu Loc signed treaties in Paris according “complete independence” to Vietnam.