TODAY’S HISTORY LESSON – JUNE 13
1415 Henry the Navigator, the prince of Portugal, embarked on an expedition to Africa.
1777 The Marquis de Lafayette arrives in the American colonies to help in their rebellion against Britain.
1825 Walter Hunt patented the safety pin. Hunt then then sold the rights for $400.
1866 The 14th Amendment to the U.S. Constitution was passed by the U.S. Congress. It was ratified on July 9, 1868. The amendment was designed to grant citizenship to and protect the civil liberties of recently freed slaves. It did this by prohibiting states from denying or abridging the privileges or immunities of citizens of the United States, depriving any person of his life, liberty, or property without due process of law, or denying to any person within their jurisdiction the equal protection of the laws.
1878 Congress of Berlin begins, determines the territories of the states in the Balkan peninsula following the Russo-Turkish War of 1877–78
1888 The U.S. Congress created the Department of Labor.
1898 The Canadian Yukon Territory was organized.
1900 China’s Boxer Rebellion against foreigners and Chinese Christians erupted into violence.
1920 The U.S. Post Office Department rules that children may not be sent by parcel post.
1933 This was one of the worst years of the Great Depression in the 1930s and homeowners got some relief as Congress gave the nod to the Home Owners Refinancing Act as part of the larger NEW DEAL initiative to get America moving again from President Franklin Roosevelt.
1940 Paris is evacuated as the Germans advance on the city.
1943 German spies land on Long Island, New York, and are soon captured.
1949 Bao Dai entered Saigon to rule Vietnam. He had been installed by the French.
1966 The U.S. Supreme Court set forth in Miranda v. Arizona that the police must advise suspects of their rights upon taking them into custody.
1967 Thurgood Marshall was nominated to become the first African American on the U.S. Supreme Court.
1971 The New York Times begins publishing the Pentagon Papers.
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.
1988 The Liggett Group, a cigarette manufacturer, was found liable for a lung-cancer death. They were, however, found innocent by the federal jury of misrepresenting the risks of smoking.
1994 A jury in Anchorage, Alaska, found Exxon Corp. and Captain Joseph Hazelwood to be reckless in the Exxon Valdez oil spill.
2000 In Pyongyang, North Korea’s leader Kim Jong Il welcomed South Korea’s President Kim Dae for a three-day summit. It was the first such meeting between the leaders of North and South Korea.
2002 The United States withdraw from the Anti-Ballistic Missile Treaty The ABM Treaty was signed in 1972 by the Soviet Union and the United States. It regulated the establishment of anti-ballistic missile shields against nuclear missiles. Critics bemoaned the treaty’s termination for its potential negative effect on nuclear proliferation.
2005 Popular music megastar, Michael Jackson, was found not guilty on all charges after being accused of child molestation and undergoing a very public four month long trial in California. The allegations surrounded the pop singer and a thirteen year old boy named Gavin Arvizo, in which Arvizo accused Jackson of serving him alcohol and molesting him. Jackson continually denied all charges.
2006 The US Energy department has released a report that the State Of Colorado is sitting on about a trillion barrels worth of oil in the form of Oil shale reserves in the Green River basin, which covers portions of Colorado, Utah, and Wyoming, about 70% of this resource is located on federally owned or managed land, nearly as much as the rest of the world’s conventional oil reserves added together.
** history.net, onthisday.com, infoplease.com, timeanddate.com, thepeoplehistory.com, on-this-day.com **
