Today in History

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Today in History

June 10

1190 Frederick Barbarossa drowns in a river while leading an army of the Third Crusade.
1692 Bridget Bishop is hanged in Salem, Mass., for witchcraft.
1776 The Continental Congress appoints a committee to write a Declaration of Independence.
1801 Tripoli declares war on the U.S. for refusing to pay tribute.
1854 The U.S. Naval Academy in Annapolis, Maryland, holds its first graduation.
1861 Dorothea Dix is appointed superintendent of female nurses for the Union army.
1864 At the Battle of Brice's Crossroads in Mississippi, Confederate General Nathan Bedford Forrest defeats the numerically superior Union troops.
1898 U.S. Marines land in Cuba.
1905 Japan and Russia agree to peace talks brokered by President Theodore Roosevelt.
1909 An SOS signal is transmitted for the first time in an emergency when the Cunard liner SS Slavonia is wrecked off the Azores.
1916 Mecca, under control of the Turks, falls to the Arabs during the Great Arab Revolt.
1920 The Republican convention in Chicago endorses woman suffrage.
1924 The Italian socialist leader Giacomo Matteotti is kidnapped and assassinated by Fascists in Rome.
1925 Tennessee adopts a new biology text book denying the theory of evolution.
1940 The Norwegian army capitulates to the Germans.
1942 Germany razes the town of Lidice, Czechoslovakia and kills more than 1,300 citizens in retribution of the murder of Reinhard Heydrich.
1943 The Allies begin bombing Germany around the clock.
1944 The U.S. VII and V corps, advancing from Normandy's beaches, link up and begin moving inland.
1948 The news that the sound barrier has been broken is finally released to the public by the U.S. Air Force. Chuck Yeager, piloting the rocket airplane X-1, exceeded the speed of sound on October 14, 1947.
1963 Buddhist monk Ngo Quang Duc dies by self immolation in Saigon to protest persecution by the Diem government.
1970 A 15-man group of special forces troops begin training for Operation Kingpin, a POW rescue mission in North Vietnam.
1985 The Israeli army pulls out of Lebanon after 1,099 days of occupation.
1999 Serb forces begin their withdrawl from Kosovo after signing an agreement with the NATO powers.

Born on June 10

1735 John Morgan, physician-in-chief of the American Continental Army.
1895 Hattie McDaniel, African-American actress.
1901 Frederick Loewe, songwriter.
1915 Saul Bellow, American novelist (Herzog, Humboldt's Gift).
1922 Judy Garland (Frances Ethel Gumm), American actress and singer (The Wizard of Oz, Easter Parade).
1925 Nat Hentoff, journalist.
1928 Maurice Sendak, children's author and illustrator (Where the Wild Things Are).
1933 F. Lee Bailey, American defense attorney.

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Today in History
June 12



1442 Alfonso V of Aragon is crowned King of Naples.
1812 Napoleon Bonaparte and his army invade Russia.
1849 The gas mask is patented by L. P. Haslett.
1862 Confederate General J. E. B. Stuart begins his ride around the Union Army outside of Richmond, Virginia.
1901 Cuba agrees to become an American protectorate by accepting the Platt Amendment.
1918 The first airplane bombing raid by an American unit occurs in France.
1920 Republicans nominate Warren G. Harding for president and Calvin Coolidge for vice president.
1921 President Warren Harding urges every young man to attend military training camp.
1926 Brazil quits the League of Nations in protest over plans to admit Germany.
1931 Gangster Al Capone and 68 of his henchmen are indicted for violating Prohibition laws.
1937 Eight of Stalin's generals are sentenced to death during purges in the Soviet Union.
1942 American bombers strike the oil refineries of Ploesti, Rumania for the first time.
1963 Black civil rights leader Medgar Evers is assassinated by a gunman outside his home in Jackson, Mississippi.
1967 The Supreme Court rules that states cannot ban interracial marriages.
1972 At a hearing in front the of a U.S. House of Representatives committee, Air Force General John Lavalle defends his orders on engagement in Vietnam.
1977 David Berkowitz gets 25 years to life for the Son of Sam murders in New York.
1985 The U.S. House of Representatives approves $27 million in aid to the Nicaraguan Contras.
1991 Mount Pinatubo in the Phillipines begins erupting for the first time in 600 years.

Born on June 12

1806 John Roebling, civil engineer, pioneer in designing suspension bridges.
1829 Johanna Spyri, Swiss author (Heidi).
1897 Anthony Eden, British Prime Minister (1955-1957).
1915 David Rockefeller, international banker.
1924 George Bush, 41st President of the United States (1989-1993).
1929 Anne Frank, German diarist, victim of the Holocaust.

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Today in History
June 13

1777 The Marquis de Lafayette arrives in the American colonies to help in their rebellion against Britain.
1863 Confederate forces on their way to Gettysburg clash with Union troops at the Second Battle of Winchester, Virginia.
1920 The U.S. Post Office Department rules that children may not be sent by parcel post.
1923 The French set a trade barrier between occupied Ruhr and the rest of Germany.
1927 Charles Lindbergh receives the Distinguished Flying Cross and is treated to a ticker-tape parade to celebrate his successful crossing of the Atlantic.
1940 Paris is evacuated as the Germans advance on the city.
1943 German spies land on Long Island, New York, and are soon captured.
1944 The first Germany V-1 buzz-bomb hits London.
1949 Installed by the French, Bao Dai enters Saigon to rule Vietnam.
1971 The New York Times begins publishing the Pentagon Papers.
1978 Israelis withdraw the last of their invading forces from Lebanon.
1979 Sioux Indians are awarded $105 million in compensation for the 1877 U.S. seizure of the Black Hills in South Dakota.
1983 Pioneer 10, already in space for 11 years, leaves the solar system.

Born on June 13

40 Gnaeus Julius Agricola, Roman general.
1752 Fanny Burney, English writer.
1786 Winfield Scott, U.S. Army general.
1831 James C. Maxwell, scientist.
1865 William Butler Yeats, Irish poet and dramatist.
1893 Dorothy Leigh Sayers, English detective writer, creator of Lord Peter Wimsey.
1894 Mark Van Doren, American poet, writer and educator.
1903 Harold "Red" Grange, American football player.

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Today in History
June 14



1381 The Peasant's Revolt, led by Wat Tyler, climaxes when rebels plunder and burn the Tower of London and kill the Archbishop of Canterbury.
1642 Massachusetts passes the first compulsory education law in the colonies.
1645 Oliver Cromwell's army routs the king's army at Naseby.
1775 The U.S. Army is founded when the Continental Congress authorizes the muster of troops.
1777 The Continental Congress authorizes the "stars and stripes" flag for the new United States.
1789 Captain William Bligh of the HMS Bounty arrives in Timor in a small boat. He had been forced to leave his ship when his crew mutinied.
1846 A group of settlers declare California to be a republic.
1864 At the Battle of Pine Mountain, Georgia, Confederate General Leonidas Polk is killed by a Union shell.
1893 The city of Philadelphia observes the first Flag Day.
1907 Women in Norway win the right to vote.
1919 John William Alcot and Arthur Witten Brown take off from St. John's, Newfoundland, for Clifden, Ireland, on the first nonstop transatlantic flight.
1922 President Warren G. Harding becomes the first president to speak on the radio.
1927 Nicaraguan President Porfirio Diaz signs a treaty with the U.S. allowing American intervention in his country.
1932 Representative Edward Eslick dies on the floor of the House of Representatives while pleading for the passage of the bonus bill.
1940 German forces occupy Paris.
1942 The Supreme Court rules that requiring students to salute the American flag is unconstitutional.
1944 Boeing B-29 bombers conduct their first raid against mainland Japan.
1945 Burma is liberated by the British.
1949 The State of Vietnam is formed.
1951 UNIVAC, the first computer built for commercial purposes, is demonstrated in Philadelphia by Dr. John W. Mauchly and J. Prosper Eckert, Jr.
1954 Americans take part in the first nation-wide civil defense test against atomic attack.
1965 A military triumvirate takes control in Saigon, South Vietnam.
1982 Argentina surrenders to the United Kingdom ending the Falkland Islands War.
1985 Gunmen hijack a passenger jet over the Middle East.
1989 Congressman William Gray, an African American, is elected Democratic Whip of the House of Representatives.
1995 Chechen rebels take 2,000 people hostage in a hospital in Russia.

Born on June 14

1811 Harriet Beecher Stowe, American author (Uncle Tom's Cabin).
1820 John Bartlett, editor, compiler of Barlett's Familiar Quotations.
1855 Robert Marion "Fighting Bob" La Follette, reform movement leader, Governor of Wisconsin, U.S. Senator and Progressive Party presidential candidate.
1906 Margaret Bourke-White, American photojournalist.
1925 Pierre Salinger, press secretary for John F. Kennedy.
1933 Jerzy Kosinski, Polish-American novelist (The Painted Bird, Being There).
1946 Donald Trump, New York real estate mogul.

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Today in History
June 17



362 Emperor Julian issues an edict banning Christians from teaching in Syria.
1579 Sir Francis Drake claims San Francisco Bay for England.
1775 The British take Bunker Hill outside of Boston, after a costly battle.
1799 Napoleon Bonaparte incorporates Italy into his empire.
1848 Austrian General Alfred Windischgratz crushes a Czech uprising in Prague.
1854 The Red Turban revolt breaks out in Guangdong, China.
1856 The Republican Party opens its first national convention in Philadelphia.
1861 President Abraham Lincoln witnesses Dr. Thaddeus Lowe demonstrate the use of a hot-air balloon.
1863 On the way to Gettysburg, Union and Confederate forces skirmish at Point of Rocks, Maryland.
1872 George M. Hoover begins selling whiskey in Dodge City, Kansas–a town which had previously been "dry."
1876 General George Crook's command is attacked and bested on the Rosebud River by 1,500 Sioux and Cheyenne under the leadership of Crazy Horse.
1912 The German Zeppelin SZ 111 burns in its hanger in Friedrichshafen.
1913 U.S. Marines set sail from San Diego to protect American interests in Mexico.
1917 The Russian Duma meets in secret session in Petrograd and votes for an immediate Russian offensive against the German Army.
1924 The Fascist militia marches into Rome.
1926 Spain threatens to quit the League of Nations if Germany is allowed to join.
1930 The Smoot-Hawley Tariff Bill becomes law, placing the highest tariff on imports to the United States.
1931 British authorities in China arrest Indochinese Communist leader Ho Chi Minh.
1932 The U.S. Senate defeats the Bonus Bill as 10,000 veterans mass around the Capitol.
1940 The Soviet Union occupies Lithuania, Latvia, and Estonia.
1942 Yank a weekly magazine for the U.S. armed services, begins publication.
1944 French troops land on the island of Elba in the Mediterranean.
1950 Surgeon Richard Lawler performs the first kidney transplant operation in Chicago.
1953 Soviet tanks fight thousands of Berlin workers rioting against the East German government.
1963 The U.S. Supreme Court bans the required reading of the Lord's prayer and Bible in public schools.
1965 27 B-52s hit Viet Cong outposts, but lose two planes in South Vietnam.
1970 North Vietnamese troops cut the last operating rail line in Cambodia.
1972 Five men are arrested for burglarizing Democratic Party headquarters at the Watergate complex in Washington, D.C.
1994 Millions of Americans watch former football player O.J. Simpson–facing murder charges–drive his Ford Bronco through Los Angeles, followed by police.

Born on June 17

1239 Edward I (Longshanks), King of England (1272-1307).
1703 John Wesley, English evangelist and theologian, founder of the Methodist movement.
1742 William Hooper, signer of the Declaration of Independence.
1871 James Weldon Johnson, African-American poet and novelist (The Autobiography of an Ex-Colored Man).
1880 Carl Van Vechten, writer.
1882 Igor Stravinsky, Russian-born U.S. composer (The Rite of Spring, The Firebird).
1914 John Hersey, novelist and journalist (Men of Bataan, Hiroshima).
1942 Rod Padgett, poet.

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Today in History
June 17

1994 Millions of Americans watch former football player O.J. Simpson–facing murder charges–drive his Ford Bronco through Los Angeles, followed by police.

I was one of them. Walked into mom's bedroom to see what was keeping her, and she was essentially fascinated by a slow-motion car chase, the Bronco tooling along at 35 mph down the highway, with a bunch of police cars on its tail, keeping their distance. She told me what was up, remained riveted; I got bored and wandered off. The most amazing part to me was that the Bronco had that entire empty LA highway in front of it (no other cars), but the thrill wore off pretty quick.

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Today in History
June 19



240 BC Eratosthenes estimates the circumference of Earth using two sticks.
1536 Anne Boleyn, Henry VIII's second wife, is beheaded.
1778 General George Washington's troops finally leave Valley Forge after a winter of training.
1821 The Ottomans defeat the Greeks at the Battle of Dragasani.
1846 The New York Knickerbocker Club plays the New York Club in the first baseball game at Elysian Field, Hoboken, New Jersey.
1848 The first Women's Rights Convention convenes in Seneca Falls, New York.
1861 Virginians, in what will soon be West Virginia, elect Francis Pierpoint as their provisional governor.
1862 President Abraham Lincoln outlines his Emancipation Proclamation. News of the document reaches the South.
1864 The USS Kearsarge sinks the CSS Alabama off of Cherbourg, France.
1867 Mexican Emperor Maximillian is executed.
1885 The Statue of Liberty arrives in New York City from France.
1903 The young school teacher, Benito Mussolini, is placed under investigation by police in Bern, Switzerland.
1919 Mustafa Kemal founds the Turkish National Congress at Ankara and denounces the Treaty of Versailles.
1933 France grants Leon Trotsky political asylum.
1934 The National Archives and Records Administration is established.
1937 The town of Bilbao, Spain, falls to the Nationalist forces.
1942 Prime Minister Winston Churchill arrives in Washington D.C. to discuss the invasion of North Africa with President Roosevelt.
1944 U.S. Navy carrier-based planes shatter the remaining Japanese carrier forces in the Battle of the Marianas.
1951 President Harry S. Truman signs the Universal Military Training and Service Act, which extends Selective Service until July 1, 1955 and lowers the draft age to 18.
1958 Nine entertainers refuse to answer a congressional committee's questions on communism.
1961 Kuwait regains complete independence from Britain.
1963 Soviet cosmonaut, Valentia Tereshkova, becomes the first woman in space.
1965 Air Marshall Nguyen Cao Ky becomes South Vietnam's youngest premier at age 34.
1968 Over 50,000 people march on Washington, D.C. to support the Poor People's Campaign.
1973 The Case-Church Amendment prevents further U.S. involvement in Southeast Asia.
1987 The U.S. Supreme Court voids the Louisiana law requiring schools to teach creationism.
1995 The Richmond Virginia Planning Commission approves plans to place a memorial statue of tennis professional Arthur Ashe.

Born on June 19

1566 James I, King of England (1603-1625).
1623 Blaise Pascal, French mathematician, physicist, and religious philosopher.
1897 Moe Howard, comic actor, one of the Three Stooges.
1900 Laura Hobson, novelist (Gentleman's Agreement).
1903 Henry Louis Gehrig, professional baseball player.
1919 Pauline Kael, American film critic, author.
1945 Aung San Suu Kyi, Myanmar human rights activist, Nobel Peace Prize recipient (1991).
1945 Tobias Wolff, American writer (This Boy's Life: A Memoir, The Night in Question).
1947 Salman Rushdie, British author (Midnight's Children, The Satanic Verses).

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Today in History
June 20

451 Roman and barbarian warriors halt Attila's army at the Catalaunian Plains in eastern France.
1397 The Union of Kalmar unites Denmark, Sweden, and Norway under one monarch.
1756 Nearly 150 British soldiers are imprisoned in the 'Black Hole' cell of Calcutta. Most die.
1793 Eli Whitney applies for a cotton gin patent.
1819 The paddle-wheel steamship Savannah arrives in Liverpool, England, after a voyage of 27 days and 11 hours–the first steamship to successfully cross the Atlantic.
1837 18-year-old Victoria is crowned Queen of England.
1863 President Abraham Lincoln admits West Virginia into the Union as the 35th state.
1898 On the way to the Philippines to fight the Spanish, the U.S. Navy seizes the island of Guam.
1901 Charlotte M. Manye of South Africa becomes the first native African to graduate from an American University.
1910 Mexican President Porfirio Diaz proclaims martial law and arrests hundreds.
1920 Race riots in Chicago, Illinois leave two dead and many wounded.
1923 France announces it will seize the Rhineland to assist Germany in paying her war debts.
1941 The U.S. Army Air Force is established, replacing the Army Air Corps.
1955 The AFL and CIO agree to combine names for a merged group.
1963 The United States and the Soviet Union agree to establish a hot line between Washington and Moscow.
1964 General William Westmoreland succeeds General Paul Harkins as head of the U.S. forces in Vietnam.
1967 Boxing champion Muhammad Ali is convicted of refusing induction into the American armed services.
1972 President Richard Nixon names General Creigton Abrams as Chief of Staff of the United States Army.
1999 NATO declares an official end to its bombing campaign of Yugoslavia.

Born on June 20

1723 Adam Ferguson, Scottish historian and philopsopher (Principals of Moral and Political Science).
1858 Charles Chesnutt, African-American novelist.
1887 Kurt Schwitters, German artist.
1899 Jean Moulin, French Resistance fighter during World War II.
1907 Lillian Hellman, playwright (The Little Foxes, Toys in the Attic).
1909 Errol Flynn, film actor (The Adventures of Robin Hood, Captain Blood).
1910 Chester Arthur Burnett, blues singer.
1910 Josephine Johnson, Pulitzer Prize-winning author (Jordanstown, Wildwood).
1924 Chet Atkins, guitarist.
1924 Audie Murphy, American soldier during World War II, author and actor.
1928 Jean-Marie Le-Pen, leader of the National Front party in France.
1946 Andre Watts, pianist.

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Today in History
June 21



217 BC Carthaginian forces led by Hannibal destroy a Roman army under consul Gaius Flaminicy in a battle at Lake Trasimenus in central Italy.
1314 The Scots, under Robert the Bruce, defeat Edward II's army at Bannockburn.
1377 Richard II, who is still a child, succeeds his grandfather, Edward III.
1667 The Peace of Breda ends the Second Anglo-Dutch War as the Dutch cede New Amsterdam to the English.
1675 Christopher Wren begins work on rebuilding St. Paul's Cathedral in London after the Great Fire.
1791 The French royal family is arrested in Varennes.
1834 C. H. McCormick patents the first practical reaper.
1862 Union and Confederate forces skirmish at the Chickahominy Creek.
1863 In the second day of fighting, Confederate troops fails to dislodge a Union force at the Battle of LaFourche Crossing.
1887 Britain celebrates the golden jubilee of Queen Victoria.
1900 General Arthur MacArthur offers amnesty to Filipinos rebelling against American rule.
1908 Mulai Hafid again proclaims himself the true sultan of Morocco.
1911 Porforio Diaz, the ex-president of Mexico, exiles himself to Paris.
1915 Germany uses poison gas for the first time in warfare in the Argonne Forest.
1919 Germans scuttle their own fleet at Scapa Flow, Scotland.
1939 Baseball legend Lou Gehrig is forced to quit baseball because of amyotrophic lateral sclerosis–a disease which wastes muscles.
1942 German General Erwin Rommel captures the port city of Tobruk in North Africa.
1945 Japanese forces on Okinawa surrender to American troops.
1948 Dr. Peter Goldmark demonstrates his "long-playing" record.
1958 A federal judge allows Little Rock, Arkansas to delay school integration.
1963 France announces it will withdraw from the NATO fleet in the North Atlantic.
1964 Three civil rights workers disappear in Meridian, Mississippi.
1982 John Hinkley Jr. is found not guilty by reason of insanity for attempting to assassinate President Ronald Reagan.
1995 The U.S. Senate votes against the nomination of Dr. Henry W. Foster for Surgeon General.

Born on June 21

1764 Willaim Sydney Smith, British seaman during the Napoleonic Wars.
1859 Henry Ossawa Tanner, African-American painter.
1880 Arnold Lucius Gesell, psychologist and pediatrician.
1882 Rockwell Kent, artist, book illustrator.
1892 Reinhold Niebuhr, Protestant theologian.
1905 Jean-Paul Sartre, French philosopher and existentialist.
1911 Albert Hirschfield, illustrator.
1912 Mary McCarthy, American novelist (Memories of Catholic Girlhood, The Group).
1922 Judy Holliday, actress.
1927 Carl Stokes, the first black mayor of Cleveland, Ohio.
1928 Judith Raskin, soprano.

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Today in History
June 24

1314 Scottish forces, led by Robert the Bruce, win an overwhelming victory against English King Edward II at the Battle of Bannockburn.
1340 The English fleet defeats the French fleet at Sluys, off the Flemish coast.
1497 Explorer John Cabot lands in North America in present-day Canada.
1509 Henry VIII is crowned King of England.
1664 The colony of New Jersey, named after the Isle of Jersey, is founded.
1647 Margaret Brent, demands a voice and a vote for herself in the Maryland colonial assembly.
1675 King Philip's War begins.
1812 Napoleon crosses the Nieman River and invades Russia.
1859 At the Battle of Solferino, also known as the Battle of the Three Sovereigns, the French army, led by Napoleon III, defeats the Austrian army under Franz Joseph I.
1861 Federal gunboats attack Confederate batteries at Mathias Point, Virginia.
1862 U.S. intervention saves the British and French at the Dagu forts in China.
1896 Booker T. Washington becomes the first African American to receive an honorary MA degree from Harvard University.
1910 The Japanese army invades Korea.
1913 Greece and Serbia annul their alliance with Bulgaria following border disputes over Macedonia and Thrace.
1931 The Soviet Union and Afghanistan sign a treaty of neutrality.
1940 France signs an armistice with Italy.
1941 President Franklin Roosevelt pledges all possible support to the Soviet Union.
1943 Royal Air Force Bombers hammer Muelheim, Germany, in a drive to cripple the Ruhr industrial base.
1948 The Soviet Union begins the Berlin Blockade, America responds with the Berlin Airlift.
1953 John F. Kennedy and Jacqueline Bouvier announce their engagement.
1955 Soviet MIG's down a U.S. Navy patrol plane over the Bering Strait.
1964 The Federal Trade Commission announces that, starting in 1965, cigarette makers must include warning labels about the harmful effects of smoking.
1970 The U.S. Senate votes overwhelmingly to repeal the Gulf of Tonkin Resolution

Born on June 24

1813 Henry Ward Beecher, clergyman.
1842 Ambrose Bierce, American writer and satirist (The Friend's Delight, The Devil's Dictionary).
1848 Brooks Adams, American historian, son of Charles Francis Adams (The Law of Civilization and Decay).
1883 Victor Francis Hess, physicist.
1895 Jack Dempsey, American boxer and world heavyweight champion.
1901 Harry Partch, composer.
1912 Norman Cousins, editor of the Saturday Review.
1915 Fred Hoyle, British mathematician and astronomer.
1916 John Ciardi, poet.
1930 Claude Chabrol, French film director (The Cousins, Madame Bovary

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Today in History
June 25



841 Charles the Bald and Louis the German defeat Lothar at Fontenay.
1658 Aurangzeb proclaims himself emperor of the Moghuls in India.
1767 Mexican Indians riot as Jesuit priests are ordered home.
1857 Gustave Flaubert goes on trial for public immorality regarding his novel, Madame Bovary.
1862 The first day of the Seven Days' campaign begins with fighting at Oak Grove, Virginia.
1864 Union troops surrounding Petersburg, Virginia, begin building a mine tunnel underneath the Confederate lines.
1868 The U.S. Congress enacts legislation granting an eight-hour day to workers employed by the federal government.
1876 General George A. Custer and over 260 men of the Seventh Cavalry are wiped out by Sioux and Cheyenne Indians at Little Big Horn in Montana.
1903 Marie Curie announces her discovery of radium.
1920 The Greeks take 8,000 Turkish prisoners in Smyrna.
1921 Samuel Gompers is elected head of the American Federation of Labor for the 40th time.
1941 Finland declares war on the Soviet Union.
1946 Ho Chi Minh travels to France for talks on Vietnamese independence.
1948 The Soviet Union tightens its blockade of Berlin by intercepting river barges heading for the city.
1950 North Korea invades South Korea, beginning the Korean War.
1959 The Cuban government seizes 2.35 million acres under a new agrarian reform law.
1962 The U.S. Supreme Court bans official prayers in public schools.
1964 President Lyndon Johnson orders 200 naval personnel to Mississippi to assist in finding three missing civil rights workers.
1973 White House Counsel John Dean admits President Nixon took part in the Watergate cover-up.
1986 Congress approves $100 million in aid to the Contras fighting in Nicaragua.

Born on June 25

1881 Crystal Eastman, suffragist.
1886 Henry (Hap) Arnold, U.S. Army Air Force general during World War II.
1887 George Abbott, American playwright, director and producer (Three Men on a Horse, Damn Yankees).
1903 George Orwell (Eric Arthur Blair), novelist, essayist and critic (Animal Farm, 1984).

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Today in History
June 26



1096 Peter the Hermit's crusaders force their way across Sava, Hungary.
1243 The Seljuk Turkish army in Asia Minor is wiped out by the Mongols.
1541 Former followers murder Francisco Pizarro, the Spanish Conqueror of Peru.
1794 The French defeat an Austrian army at the Battle of Fleurus.
1804 The Lewis and Clark Expedition reaches the mouth of the Kansas River after completing a westward trek of nearly 400 river miles.
1844 Julia Gardiner and President John Tyler are married in New York City.
1862 General Robert E. Lee attacks McClellen's line at Mechanicsville during the Seven Days' campaign.
1863 Jubal Early and his Confederate forces move into Gettysburg, Pennsylvania.
1900 The United States announces it will send troops to fight against the Boxer Rebellion in China.
1907 Russia's nobility demands drastic measures to be taken against revolutionaries.
1908 Shah Muhammad Ali's forces squelch the reform elements of Parliament in Persia.
1916 Russian General Aleksei Brusilov renews his offensive against the Germans.
1917 General Pershing arrives in France with the American Expeditionary Force.
1918 The Germans begin firing their huge 420 mm howitzer, "Big Bertha," at Paris.
1926 A memorial to the first U.S. troops in France is unveiled at St. Nazaire.
1924 After eight years of occupation, American troops leave the Dominican Republic.
1942 The Grumman F6F Hellcat fighter flies for the first time.
1945 The U.N. Charter is signed by 50 nations in San Francisco, California.
1951 The Soviet Union proposes a cease-fire in the Korean War.
1961 A Kuwaiti vote opposes Iraq's annexation plans.
1963 President John Kennedy announces "Ich bin ein Berliner" at the Berlin Wall.
1971 The U.S. Justice Department issues a warrant for Daniel Ellsberg, accusing him of giving away the Pentagon Papers.
1975 Indian Prime Minister Indira Gandhi is convicted of election fraud.
1993 Roy Campanella, legendary catcher for the Negro Leagues and the Los Angeles Dodgers, dies.

Born on June 26

1742 Arthur Middleton, signer of the Declaration of Independence.
1819 Abner Doubleday, Civil War general.
1892 Pearl S. Buck, American novelist (The Good Earth).
1893 William "Big Bill" Broonzy, blues singer and guitarist.
1898 Wilhelm Emil Messerschmitt, German engineer.
1902 William P. Lear, American engineer and industrialist.
1904 Peter Lorre, film actor (Casablanca, M).
1909 Tom Parker, Elvis Presley's manager.
1914 Laurie Lee, British writer (Cider with Rosie).
1915 Charlotte Zolotow, American children's writer.
1931 Colin Henry Wilson, British author (The Outsider).