TODAY’S HISTORY LESSON – JUNE 20
0451 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 British soldiers were thrown into the cell known as the “Black Hole of Calcutta.”
1791 King Louis XVI of France was captured while attempting to flee the country in the so-called Flight to Varennes.
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.
1837 Victoria becomes Queen of the United Kingdom
1840 Samuel Morse patents his telegraph
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.
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.
1944 Congress charters Central Intelligence Agency
1947 Benjamin “Bugsy” Siegel is murdered at the Beverly Hills, Calif., mansion of his girlfriend, Virginia Hill
1955 The AFL and CIO agree to combine names for a merged group.
1963 The United States and the Soviet Union agree to establish a hot line between Washington and Moscow.
1967 Boxing champion Muhammad Ali is convicted of refusing induction into the American armed services.
1977 Oil enters Trans-Alaska pipeline exits 38 days later at Valdez
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.
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.
** history.net, onthisday.com, infoplease.com, timeanddate.com, thepeoplehistory.com, on-this-day.com **
