This Week in History
by Dianne Hermann
“History is a vast early warning system.” Norman Cousins
June 19-25, 2023
June 19
1846 – The New York Knickerbocker Club plays the New York Club in the first baseball game at the Elysian Field in Hoboken, New Jersey. It was the first organized baseball game.
1934 – Congress establishes the Federal Communications Commission (FCC) to regulate radio (and later TV) broadcasting.
1951 – President Harry S. Truman signs the Universal Military Training and Service Act, which extended Selective Service until July 1, 1955 and lowered the draft age to 18.
1956 – Jerry Lewis and Dean Martin end their partnership after starring together in 16 films. Dean Martin died in 1995 at age 78. Jerry Lewis died in 2017 at age 91.
1961 – The Supreme Court strikes down a provision in Maryland’s constitution requiring state office holders to believe in God.
1964 – The Civil Rights Act of 1964 passes by a vote of 73-27, with a majority of Republicans voting in favor of the act and half of Democrats opposing it.
1981 – “Superman II” sets the (then) all-time, one-day record for theater box-office receipts when it takes in $5.5 million. Watch the movie trailer. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=I3BkmYsz6-s
1987 – The Supreme Court strikes down the Louisiana law that requires that schools teach creationism.
2000 – The Supreme Court rules that a group prayer led by students at public school football games violates the First Amendment’s establishment of religion principle. In June 2022, however, the Supreme Court ruled in a 6-3 decision that football coach Joe Kennedy had the right to kneel in quiet prayer after football games. Kennedy had been fired for his practice.
2017 – Russia warns the U.S. it will target U.S. and allied aircraft after a U.S. fighter jet shoots down a Syrian warplane.
June 20
1782 – Congress approves the Great Seal of the U.S. and the eagle as its symbol.
1871 – The Ku Klux Klan trial begins in federal court in Oxford, Mississippi, following the Meridian Race Riot. No one was ever convicted in the deaths resulting from the riots.
1893 – Lizzie Borden is acquitted in the axe murders of her father and stepmother in New Bedford, Massachusetts. Lizzie died in 1927 at age 66.
1911 – The NAACP (National Association for the Advancement of Colored People) incorporates in New York.
1944 – Congress charters the Central Intelligence Agency (CIA).
1948 – “Toast of the Town” hosted by Ed Sullivan premieres on TV and airs until 1971. Sullivan died in 1974 at age 73. Watch a short promo for Ed’s show.
1955 – The AFL and CIO unions agree to combine their names and a merge into a single group.
1967 – Cassius Clay (Muhammad Ali) is convicted of refusing induction into the armed services. Ali was sentenced to five years in prison, fined $10,000, and banned from boxing for three years. He stayed out of prison while his case was appealed and returned to boxing in 1970. Ali died in 2016 at age 74.
1977 – Oil enters the Trans-Alaska pipeline and exits 38 days later at Valdez. The pipeline carries an estimated 700,000 barrels of oil per day.
1997 – The tobacco industry agrees to a massive settlement in exchange for major relief from mounting lawsuits and legal bills.
2011 – The first Critics’ Choice Television Awards are held. “Modern Family” wins best comedy series and “Mad Men” wins for best drama series.
June 21
1684 – King Charles II revokes the Massachusetts Bay Colony’s charter due to insubordination for violating the terms of the charter.
1788 – The U.S. Constitution goes into effect when New Hampshire becomes the 9th colony to ratify it.
1879 – F. W. Woolworth opens his first store in Utica, New York, but it fails the following year. He opened a new store in Lancaster, Pennsylvania, in 1881 and within a few years Woolworth was a millionaire. Woolworth died in 1919 at age 66.
1893 – The first Ferris wheel premieres at Chicago’s Columbian Exposition. It was designed and built by George Washington Gale Ferris. Ferris died of TB in 1896 at age 37.
1939 – The New York Yankees announce Lou Gehrig’s retirement after doctors reveal he has amyotrophic lateral sclerosis (ALS). Gehrig made his farewell speech on July 4th.
1964 – Bryon de la Beckwith is arrested for the murder of Medgar Evers. Two trials in 1964 ended in hung juries with all white jurors. Beckwith was found guilty 30 years later based on new evidence. He was sentenced to life in prison without parole and died in prison in 2001 at age 80.
1964 – Three civil rights workers, Michael H. Schwerner Andrew Goodman, and James E. Chaney, disappear after their release from a Mississippi jail. Their remains were found six weeks later buried in an earthen dam. In 1967, 19 men, including the county’s Deputy, were arrested and tried for federal civil rights violations. An all-white jury convicted seven, acquitted nine, and deadlocked on three others. In 2005, then 80-year-old Edgar Ray Killen was convicted on three counts of manslaughter and sentenced to 60 years in prison. Killen died in 2018 at age 92.
1982 – John Hinckley, Jr. is found not guilty by reason of insanity for the 1981 assassination attempt on President Reagan and committed to St. Elizabeths Hospital. Hinckley, now 68, was granted full release in June 2022.
1989 – The Supreme Court rules that burning the American flag as a form of political protest is protected by the First Amendment.
2004 – SpaceShipOne, designed by Burt Rutan and piloted by Mike Melvill, reaches 328,491 feet above Earth in a 90-minute flight. The height was about 400 feet above the distance scientists consider to be the boundary of space. It won the $10 million Ansari X Prize for being the first non-governmental manned spacecraft to go into space twice within two weeks. Watch the flights.
June 22
1611 – Mutineers from his ship Discovery set Henry Hudson, his son, and seven supporters adrift in the Hudson Bay. They were never seen again. The mutineers sailed back to England and were arrested.
1847 – Elizabeth Gregory creates the doughnut when she makes a large batch for her son’s voyage. She gave the recipe to Captain Gregory’s cook so he could make doughnuts for him and his crew.
1870 – Congress creates the Department of Justice (DOJ).
1922 – Striking coal miners of the United Mine Workers massacred 19 non-union strikebreakers during after they had peacefully left the mine in Herrin, Illinois. Not one of the striking coal miners was ever convicted of the murders.
1941 – President Franklin Roosevelt signs the “GI Bill of Rights.”
1946 – President Truman sets up the Central Intelligence Agency (CIA).
1970 – President Nixon signs the 26th Amendment, lowering the voting age from 21 to 18.
1992 – In R.A.V. (petitioner for juveniles) v. City of St. Paul the Supreme Court ruled 9-0 that “hate crime” laws violate free-speech rights. The court struck down a city ordinance that made it a crime to place a burning cross or swastika anywhere.
1998 – In Pennsylvania Board of Probation and Parole v. Scott the Supreme Court rules 5-4 that evidence illegally obtained by authorities can be used at revocation hearings for a convicted criminal’s parole.
2015 – Former Republican South Carolina Governor Nikki Haley calls for the removal of the Confederate flag from statehouse grounds in the wake of murders of 9 people in a Charleston church. The Confederate flag was removed from the statehouse grounds on July 10th and placed in a museum. Watch a PBS report.
June 23
1683 – William Penn signs a friendship treaty with the Lenni Lenape Indians, the Six Nations (Mengwes), the Shawanese Nation, the Gawanese, and the Conestogas (Mingoes) in Pennsylvania. It was said that an exchange of wampum belts took place, but in 1782 Chief Killbuck lost the historic wampum that contained the treaty that had been made with Penn one hundred years earlier.
1860 – The U.S. Secret Service is created to combat counterfeiting of U.S. currency. Congress requested that the Secret Service provide protection for presidents after the assassination of William McKinley in 1901.
1888 – Frederick Douglass is the first African-American nominated for president when he received one vote from the Kentucky Delegation at the Republican Convention in Chicago.
1931 – Wiley Post and Harold Gatty take off for a record-setting flight around the world. Their trip took 8 days.
1967 – The Senate censures Thomas J. Dodd (D-CT) for misusing campaign funds. It was only the 7th time in the Senate’s history that it censured one of its own members. He was the father of former Senator Chris Dodd (D-CT).
1972 – President Nixon signs Title IX of the Education Amendments, barring sex discrimination in college sports.
1986 – Speaker of the House Tip O’Neill refuses to let President Reagan address House before its critical vote on funding for the anti-communist “Contra” rebels in Nicaragua.
2013 – Aerialist Nik Wallenda completes a quarter mile tightrope walk over the Little Colorado River Gorge in Arizona. Watch and listen to Nik talk to his crew as he walks across the gorge.
June 24
1795 – The Senate ratifies the Jay Treaty between the U.S. and Great Britain It was the first treaty that used arbitration to resolve issues. Negotiated by Supreme Court Chief Justice John Jay, the treaty resolved trading and land issues. Jay was the first Chief Justice of the Supreme Court.
1853 – President Franklin Pierce signs the Gadsden Purchase (29,670 square miles) from Mexico (now southern Arizona and New Mexico) for $10 million.
1940 – TV cameras are used for the first time in a political convention as the Republicans convene in Philadelphia, Pennsylvania. Watch and listen to the sights and sounds of the convention with commentary.
1957 – In Roth v. United States the Supreme Court rules that obscenity is not protected by the First Amendment. The ruling upheld the conviction of Samuel Roth for sending “obscene, lewd, lascivious or filthy” materials through the mail.
1968 – “Resurrection City,” a shantytown constructed as part of the Poor People’s March on Washington D.C., is closed down by authorities. Watch actual news footage. https://ww
1972 – Bernice Gera becomes the first female umpire in a minor league baseball game. She resigned when none of the other umpires would work with her on the field. Gera died in 1992 at age 61. Only nine women have ever umpired minor league baseball games.
1982 – In Nixon v. Fitzgerald the Supreme Court rules 5-4 that the president can’t be sued for his actions while in office.
1997 – The U.S. Air Force releases a report titled “The Roswell Report, Case Closed” that dismisses the claims that an alien spacecraft crashed in Roswell, New Mexico, in 1947.
2002 – In Roper v. Simmons the Supreme Court rules 5-4 that juries, not judges, must make the decision to give a convicted killer the death penalty.
June 25
1798 – The U.S. passes the Alien and Sedition Act, allowing the president to deport aliens considered “dangerous to the peace and safety of the United States.”
1876 – George Armstrong Custer and his 7th Cavalry (262 men) are wiped out by the Sioux and Cheyenne Indians at Little Big Horn in Montana. In 1863, Custer (age 23) was appointed a Union Brigadier General. He graduated last in his class from West Point in 1957.
1948 – President Harry Truman signs the Displaced Persons Bill, allowing 205,000 European victims of Nazi persecution into the U.S.
1962 – In Engel v. Vitale the Supreme Court rules 6-1 that the use of unofficial non-denominational prayer in public schools is unconstitutional.
1985 – ABC’s “Monday Night Football” begins the season with a new line-up. The trio includes Frank Gifford, Joe Namath, and O.J. Simpson. Watch an interview with Joe Namath about OJ on The Howard Stern Show.
1990 – In Cruzan v. Missouri the Supreme Court, in a 5-4 ruling, upholds the right of an individual, whose wishes are clearly made, to refuse life-sustaining medical treatment in “The right to die” decision.
2008 – Facebook (now Meta) agrees to transfer over 1.2 million common shares and pay $20 million in cash to settle a lawsuit. In 2004, Harvard students Cameron Winklevoss, Tyler Winklevoss, and Divya Narendra sued Zuckerberg for misleading them and using their ideas to develop Facebook.
2015 – A 6-3 Supreme Court ruling preserves the Obamacare subsidies in the Affordable Care Act. Chief Justice Roberts wrote the majority decision and the late Justice Scalia wrote the dissenting opinion.
Image from: nationalcenter.org/ncppr
