TODAY’S HISTORY LESSON – 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.
1782 The U.S. Congress approved the Great Seal of the United States.
1793 Eli Whitney applied for a cotton gin patent. He received the patent on March 14. The cotton gin initiated the American mass-production concept.
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.
1893 Lizzie Borden, accused of murdering her parents, was found innocent by a jury in New Bedford, Mass.
1898 On the way to the Philippines to fight the Spanish, the U.S. Navy seizes the island of Guam.
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.
1928 Washburn-Crosby Company merged with 26 other mills to become General Mills.
1941 The U.S. Army Air Forces was established, replacing the Army Air Corps. The Army Air Forces were abolished with the creation of the United States Air Force in 1947.
1943 Race-related rioting erupted in Detroit. Federal troops were sent in two days later to end the violence that left more than 30 dead.
1947 Benjamin “Bugsy” Siegel is murdered at the Beverly Hills, Calif., mansion of his girlfriend, Virginia Hill, at the order of mob associates angered over the soaring costs of Siegel’s pet project, the Flamingo resort now costing in the region of $6,000,000 in Las Vegas, Nev. In the 1972 movie the Godfather the character of Moe Greene is heavily based on Siegel.
1955 The AFL and CIO agree to combine names for a merged group.
1963 The “Red Telephone” is instituted The hotline between the U.S. and the Soviet Union was established following Cuban Missile Crisis. Contrary to popular belief, communications between the two superpowers occurred via teletype or fax, and today, via email.
1967 After appearing for his scheduled induction into the U.S. Armed Forces on April 28th, 1967 in Houston, he refused three times to step forward at the call of his name. On 20th June Muhammad Ali is convicted in Houston of violating Selective Service laws by refusing to be drafted. The decision is later overturned by the U.S. Supreme Court.
1977 Crude oil from North Alaska begins flowing south down the trans-Alaska pipeline to the ice-free port of Valdez, Alaska.
1979 ABC News correspondent Bill Stewart was shot to death in Managua, Nicaragua, by a member of President Anastasio Somoza’s national guard.
1983 The U.S. Supreme Court ruled that employers must treat male and female workers equally in providing health benefits for their spouses.
1991 The German parliament moves to Berlin Bonn had been the capital of West Germany until the country’s reunification in 1990. The “Hauptstadtbeschluss” (capital decision) stipulated that the seat of government and the parliament also be moved to the “new” capital Berlin.
2002 A gas explosion caused by a build up of gas in a Chinese coal mine kills 111 workers. China has a poor safety record in mining due to poor safety regulations.
2002 The U.S. Supreme Court ruled that the execution of mentally retarded murderers was unconstitutionally cruel. The vote was 6 in favor and 3 against.
2007 A crowd in Texas beat a passenger involved in an accident to death. David Rivas Morales was a passenger in an accident in which a driver hit a young child, and when Morales left the car to check on the injured child the gathering crowd of about twenty people turned on him and attacked, leaving him for dead. The driver was able to escape the scene safely and the child who was hit did not suffer any serious injuries.
** history.net, onthisday.com, infoplease.com, timeanddate.com, thepeoplehistory.com, on-this-day.com **
