TODAY’S HISTORY LESSON – JUNE 19
240 BC Eratosthenes estimates the circumference of Earth using two sticks.
1861 Virginians, in what will soon be West Virginia, elect Francis Pierpont 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.
1865 Gen. Gordon Granger informed the citizens of Galveston, Tex., that the slaves were freed. The celebration of the day became known as Juneteenth.
1867 Mexican Emperor Maximilian is executed.
1903 The young school teacher, Benito Mussolini, is placed under investigation by police in Bern, Switzerland.
1905 The world’s first nickelodeon opened showing a silent film called The Great Train Robbery the name nickelodeon was used as it cost 5 cents or a nickel to watch the movie or live vaudeville acts.
1911 In Pennsylvania, the first motion-picture censorship board was established.
1912 The U.S. government established the 8-hour work day.
1913 South Africa implements the Natives Land Act The law limited the areas of land that could be owned by black people to “native reserve” areas, which comprised less than 10 percent of the country’s total area. It was in force until Apartheid was dismantled in the 1990s.
1933 France grants Leon Trotsky political asylum.
1942 Prime Minister Winston Churchill arrives in Washington D.C. to discuss the invasion of North Africa with President Franklin Roosevelt.
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.
1953 Following the conviction for spying on behalf of the Soviet Union and passing U.S. atomic secrets to the Soviet Union. Julius and Ethel Rosenberg are executed at Sing Sing Prison. Spying by both sides in the 1950s was a part of the Cold War.
1958 Nine entertainers refuse to answer a congressional committee’s questions on communism.
1963 Soviet cosmonaut, Valentina Tereshkova, becomes the first woman in space.
1968 50,000 people participated in ” The Poor Peoples March ” organised by Martin Luther King Jr. and the Southern Christian Leadership Conference to address issues of economic justice. The campaign culminated on Washington, D.C. to demand economic aid be given to the poorest communities in the United States. Unlike many of Martin Luther King Jr’s campaigns The Poor People’s Campaign did not focus on just poor blacks but addressed all poor people of every minority.
1978 Garfield, the lazy cat makes his debut
1980 An attack on the British embassy by attackers, armed with automatic weapons and grenades, ends when three of the attackers are shot dead by Iraqi security forces. No British embassy staff were injured during the attack.
1987 The U.S. Supreme Court voids the Louisiana law requiring schools to teach creationism.
1987 An ETA car bomb kills 21 in Barcelona The 1987 Hipercor bombing was one of the bloodiest attacks by Basque separatist organization, Euskadi Ta Askatasuna or ETA.
1998 Gateway was fined more than $400,000 for illegally shipping personal computers to 16 countries subject to U.S. export controls.
1998 Switzerland’s three largest banks offered $600 million to settle claims they’d stolen the assets of Holocaust victims during World War II. Jewish leaders called the offer insultingly low.
2000 The U.S. Supreme Court ruled that a group prayer led by students at public-school football games violated the 1st Amendment’s principle that called for the separation of church and state.
** history.net, onthisday.com, infoplease.com, timeanddate.com, thepeoplehistory.com, on-this-day.com **
