TODAY’S HISTORY LESSON: JUNE 17
0362 Emperor Julian issues an edict banning Christians from teaching in Syria.
1579 Sir Francis Drake claims San Francisco Bay for England.
1631 Mumtaz Mahal dies during childbirth. Her husband, Mughal emperor Shah Jahan I, then spends more than 20 years building her tomb, the Taj Mahal
1775 The British take Bunker Hill outside of Boston, after a costly battle
1854 The Red Turban revolt breaks out in Guangdong, China.
1856 The Republican Party opened its first national convention in Philadelphia.
1861 President Abraham Lincoln witnesses Dr. Thaddeus Lowe demonstrate the use of a hot-air balloon.
1863 Travelers Insurance Co of Hartford chartered (1st accident insurer)
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.
1885 The Statue of Liberty arrives in New York
1913 U.S. Marines set sail from San Diego to protect American interests in Mexico.
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.
1950 Surgeon Richard Lawler performs the first kidney transplant operation in Chicago.
1953 Riots in East Germany for reunification
1963 The U.S. Supreme Court bans the required reading of the Lord’s prayer and Bible in public schools.
1972 Five men are arrested for burglarizing Democratic Party headquarters at the Watergate complex in Washington, D.C.
1986 Chief Justice Warren Earl Burger resigns Antonin Scalia nominated
1991 The Parliament of South Africa repealed the Population Registration Act. The act had required that all South Africans for classified by race at birth.
1994 Millions of Americans watch former football player O.J. Simpson–facing murder charges–drive his Ford Bronco through Los Angeles, followed by police.
2002 Australian scientists announced that they had “teleported” a laser beam—breaking it up and reconstructing it in another location.
REFERENCE: HISTORY.NET, ONTHISDAY.COM, TIMEANDDATE.COM, INFOPLEASE.COM, FACTMONSTER.COM, SCOPESYS.COM, ON-THIS-DAY.COM, THEPEOPLEHISTORY.COM
