TODAY’S HISTORY LESSON: JUNE 21
1498 Jews are expelled from Nurenberg Bavaria by Emperor Maximillian
1607 1st Protestant Episcopal parish in America established, Jamestown
1633 Galileo Galilei is forced by Inquisition to “abjure, curse, & detest” his Copernican heliocentric views
1675 Christopher Wren begins work on rebuilding St. Paul’s Cathedral in London after the Great Fire.
1788 US Constitution comes into effect when New Hampshire is the 9th state to ratify it
1834 Cyrus McCormick patented the first practical mechanical reaper for farming. His invention allowed farmers to more than double their crop size.
1879 F W Woolworth opens 1st store (failed almost immediately)
1894 Workers in Pittsburgh strike Pullman sleeping car company
1915 Germany uses poison gas for the first time in warfare in the Argonne Forest.
1939 Doctors reveal Lou Gehrig has amyotrophic lateral sclerosis
1948 Lord Mountbatten resigns as Governor General of India (formerly the last Viceroy)
1948 1st stored computer program run, on Manchester Mark I
1964 Three civil rights workers disappear in Meridian, Mississippi.
1968 Supreme Court Chief Justice Earl Warren resigns
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 American, Brazilian & West German forensic pathologists confirm skeletal remains exhumed in Brazil were Nazi Dr Josef Mengele
1989 The U.S. Supreme Court ruled that burning the American flag as a form of political protest was protected by the First Amendment.
1990 US House of Reps vote 254-177 to stop US flag burning
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 massacr
2004 SpaceShipOne completes the world’s first manned private spaceflight
REFERENCE: HISTORY.NET, ONTHISDAY.COM, TIMEANDDATE.COM, INFOPLEASE.COM, FACTMONSTER.COM, SCOPESYS.COM, ON-THIS-DAY.COM, THEPEOPLEHISTORY.COM
