TODAY’S HISTORY LESSON: JUNE 21
1633 Galileo Galilei is forced by Inquisition to “abjure, curse, & detest” his Copernican heliocentric views
1675 Christopher Wren begins work on rebuilding St. Paul’s Cathedral in London after the Great Fire.
1788 The U.S. Constitution went into effect when New Hampshire became the 9th state to ratify it.
1791 The French royal family is arrested in Varennes.
1805 Great Stoneface Mt found in NH
1877 Ten members of the Irish Miners Group The “Molly Maguires” were hanged for murder, the hangings bought about an end to the group as members now feared for their lives and loved ones lives.
1887 Britain celebrates the golden jubilee of Queen Victoria.
1915 Germany uses poison gas for the first time in warfare in the Argonne Forest.
1916 A U.S. military expedition against Mexican revolutionary Pancho Villa brings the United States and Mexico closer to war when Mexican government troops attack U.S. Brigadier General John J. Pershing’s force at Carrizal, Mexico.
1939 Baseball legend Lou Gehrig is forced to quit baseball because of amyotrophic lateral sclerosis–a disease which wastes muscles.
1963 Cardinal Giovanni Battista Montini becomes Pope Paul VI
1964 Three civil rights workers—James E. Chaney, 21; Andrew Goodman, 21; and Michael Schwerner, 24—disappeared in Philadelphia, Miss. In 2005, 41 years after the disappearance, Edgar Killen was convicted of their murders.
1973 The U.S. Supreme Court ruled that states may ban materials found to be obscene according to local standards.
1974 The U.S. Supreme Court decided that pregnant teachers could no longer be forced to take long leaves of absence.
1982 John Hinckley Jr. is found not guilty by reason of insanity for attempting to assassinate President Ronald Reagan.
1989 The United States Supreme Court ruled that flag burning as a form of political protest is an act of protected speech under the First Amendment to the Constitution.
2004 SpaceShipOne completes the world’s first manned private spaceflight
REFERENCE: history.net, onthisday.com, thepeopleshistory.com, timeanddate.com, scopesys.com, on-this-day.com
