TODAY’S HISTORY LESSON – JUNE 21
1667 The Peace of Breda ends the Second Anglo-Dutch War as the Dutch cede New Amsterdam to the English.
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.
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. “Molly Maguires” were a group of Irish anthracite miners who were fighting for better working and living conditions in the coal fields of Pennsylvania, and were considered militant union activists but to understand the whole story my advice is look up “Molly Maguires” on your favorite search engine to gain a better perspective of the whole story.
1887 Britain celebrates the golden jubilee of Queen Victoria.
1911 Porforio Diaz, the ex-president of Mexico, exiles himself to Paris.
1915 Germany uses poison gas for the first time in warfare in the Argonne Forest.
1938 In Washington, U.S. President Roosevelt signed the $3.75 billion Emergency Relief Appropriation Act.
1958 A federal judge allows Little Rock, Arkansas to delay school integration.
1963 France announces it will withdraw from the NATO fleet in the North Atlantic.
1963 Pope Paul VI crowned the 262nd head of the Roman Catholic Church.
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.
1985 The body of Josef Mengele is identified An international team of scientists confirmed that the skeletal remains found in a cemetery in Embu, Brazil are those of the Nazi war criminal. Mengele was a physician in the Auschwitz concentration camp and conducted horrific experiments on some of the inmates.
1989 The U.S. Supreme Court decided that burning the U.S. flag was protected under the First Amendment.
2001 Pakistan’s military ruler, General Pervez Musharraf, takes on the role of president and chief executive. Following his announcement the constitution and parliament were suspended two days after the announcement. This follows earlier decisions to ban opposition parties holding planned pro-democracy rallies.
2001 Former Haitian Army colonel Carl Dorelien taken into custody in Port St. Lucie. Dorelien had been in exile since 1994 when he was sentenced to life in prison for his role in a 1994 massacre.
2004 SpaceShipOne, designed by Burt Rutan and piloted by Mike Melvill, reached 328,491 feet above Earth in a 90 minute flight. The height is about 400 feet above the distance scientists consider to be the boundary of space.
2006 One of Saddam Hussein’s main defense attorneys, Khamis al-Obeidi, was found dead after being abducted and shot. Hussein was being tried in what many had described as an unfair trial process, especially for defense attorneys who had believed that they were not given the proper protection during the controversial affair.
** history.net, onthisday.com, infoplease.com, timeanddate.com, thepeoplehistory.com, on-this-day.com **
