Today in History

1690 English king William III departs to Ireland

1770 Captain James Cook discovers Great Barrier Reef off Australia

• 1837 The Broad Street Riot occurs in Boston, fueled by ethnic tensions between English-Americans and Irish-Americans

1940 British Premier Winston Churchill flies to Orleans

1959 Postmaster General bans D H Lawrence's book, Lady Chatterley's Lover (overruled by US Court of Appeals in Mar 1960)

1987 Margaret Thatcher is 1st British Prime Minister in 160 years to win a third consecutive term

1509 King Henry VIII (17) of England marries first wife Catherine of Aragon (23), widow of his brother Arthur

 

Today in history June 14th

1847 Robert von Bunsen invents the Bunsen burner

Note: I'm sure everyone remembers the Bunsen burner from High School Chemistry.

1881 Player piano patented by John McTammany, Jr. (Cambridge, Mass)

Note: He was quoted as saying ‘Even a country clodhopper/bumpkin could play a Beethoven Sonata'

1941 Auschwitz concentration camp opens, 3 million killed there

Note: Auschwitz-Birkenau was the largest of the German Nazi concentration camps and extermination centers.

1942 Anne Frank begins her diary

Note: Holocaust deniers claim parts of Anne Franks Diary was written with a ballpoint pen which wasn't around in 1942.
The page numbers were written in ballpoint pen (at a later time) but the text was in Anne Franks' handwriting and she used an ink pen.

1951 1st commercial computer, UNIVAC 1, enters service at Census Bureau

1954 President Eisenhower signs order adding words 'under God' to the Pledge

1969 John and Yoko appear on David Frost's British TV Show

1976 "The Gong Show" premieres on TV, syndication

Note: The host Chuck Barris was recruited by, and worked for the CIA after he left Hollywood.

1985 Lebanese Shiite Muslim extremists hijacked TWA Flight 847

Note: The incident gave rise to the tongue-twister "Reagan Shells Shiites, by the Seashore"

1989 Zsa Zsa Gabor arrested for slapping Beverly Hills motorcycle patrolman

Note: Zsa Zsa Gabor was sentenced to serve to 3 Days in Jail

 

Today in history June 15th

1215 King John signs the Magna Carta.

1607 Colonists in North America complete James Fort in Jamestown.

1752 Benjamin Franklin and his son fly a kite into a thunderstorm.

1904 Fire aboard the paddle steamer General Slocum on New York's East River kills 1,021, mostly German-Americans.

Note: The Burning of the General Slocum was the deadliest disaster in New York before 9/11

1916 President Woodrow Wilson signs a bill incorporating the Boy Scouts of America.

Note: It's been estimated that nearly 90,000 boys have been sexually molested by scout leaders since 1970.

1920 Three African Americans Elmer Clayton, Issac McGhie, and Elmer Jackson are lynched in Duluth, Minnesota, by a white mob of 5,000.

Teenagers Irene Tusken, 19, and James Sullivan, 18, claimed they were robbed at gunpoint, and irene was raped by six African american men who were hired as day laborers. The Men were arrested and held in jail. The mob used makeshift tools to break into their cells, The trio pleaded for their lives while a mock trial was held. They were all found guilty and were beaten and dragged to the town square and hanged.

Note: Irene Tusken was taken by her father to their local doctor who examined her and found no evidence of any physical assault or rape. Her clothing wasn't torn and no semen was found on her dress, and yet she was viciously raped by what she claimed were six well-endowed young black men. The doctor examined her pelvic area and there were no bruises, scratches, or the slightest evidence of swelling, inflammation or sensitiveness.

1944 U.S. Marines begin the invasion of Saipan in the Pacific.

Note: 3,426 Allies were killed and 10,364 wounded
Japanese: 24,000 killed, 5,000 suicides and 921 taken prisoners

 

Today in History June 16th

1960 The movie "Psycho", a psychological horror film directed by Alfred Hitchcock, starring Janet Leigh, Anthony Perkins,
and Vera Miles, opens in New York City

Note: Paramount studios had no confidence in the movie, so Alfred Hitchcock financed the entire adventure
out-of-pocket for $800,000. It was a huge success and went on to make $50,000,000 dollars.

Note: The movie was filmed in B&W to save money

Note: The blood in the shower scene was chocolate syrup, and the stabbing sounds were a knife repeatedly
plunged into a melon.

Note: It was the first time in movie history that showed a toilet on film.

 

Bible Reading Banned in Public Schools

June 17, 1963

The U.S. Supreme Court rules that school-sponsored Bible reading in public schools is unconstitutional (Abington School District v. Schempp). School prayer had been banned the previous year. One of the plaintiffs, William J. Murray, claimed his refusal to participate in Bible readings at public school resulted in bullying that was condoned by school administrators.

Ballpoint Pen

June 17, 1943

The first commercially successful ball-point pen is patented, by László Biró. While working as a Hungarian newspaper editor, he noticed that the printer's ink dried quickly leaving the paper dry and smudge-free and would make a good ink for writing pens, which often left wet smudges on the paper. However, the ink was too thick for use in a typical fountain pen. So, he developed a ball tip that was free to turn in a socket and would pick up ink from a cartridge as it turned and then deposit the ink on the paper. He originally patented his pen in Paris in 1938 but had to flee to Argentina due to the Nazis. See U.S. Patent 2390636A.
The first patent for a ballpoint pen was issued in 1888, but it and others that followed tended to clog, overflow, and not deliver the ink evenly and were not commercially successful.

Houdini vs. Sherlock Holmes

June 17, 1922

Sir Arthur Conan Doyle's wife performs a séance for Harry Houdini in which Houdini's deceased mother sends him a message. Houdini felt that the message couldn't have been from his mother since it was in English (a language she barely spoke and never used with her son). Doyle, (creator of Sherlock Holmes) was a believer in mysticism, fairies, and psychic powers. Houdini famously made it a life mission to debunk such beliefs. Doyle and Houdini had been close friends for years. This event created a rift between the two that even included threats of lawsuits as Houdini went on to debunk Doyle's favorite mediums.

 

Today in history June 17th

1579 English navigator Francis Drake lands on the coast of California and names it "New Albion"

1775 The British take Bunker Hill outside of Boston, after a costly battle.

1861 President Abraham Lincoln witnesses Dr. Thaddeus Lowe demonstrate the use of a hot-air balloon.

1876 General George Crook's command is attacked and beaten on the Rosebud River by 1,500 Sioux and Cheyenne under the leadership of Crazy Horse.

1972 Five men are arrested for burglarizing Democratic Party headquarters at the Watergate complex in Washington, D.C.

Note: The five men that broke in the DNC headquarters, were Bernard Barker, Virgilio Gonzales, Eugenio Martinez, James McCord and Frank Sturgis. under the command of E. Howard Hunt, and G. Gordon Liddy.

Note: In a 2005 interview with Vanity Fair magazine, Mark Felt, the former FBI second-in-command revealed he was "Deep Throat"

Note; During the Watergate hearings, former aide Alexander Butterfield revealed that Nixon had been secretly recording all of his White House conversations since 1971.

Note: To this day no one understands why President Nixon didn't destroy the tapes that could have saved his presidency.

1994 Millions of Americans watch former football player O.J. Simpson--facing murder charges--drive his Ford Bronco through Los Angeles, followed by police.

 

JUNE 18th: 1942 - "Happy Birthday Macca"

Born: 18 June 1942, Walton, Liverpool
- McCartney, The Beatles Wings, solo. The most successful rock composer of all time.
McCartney first met John Lennon on July 6th 1957, who was impressed that Paul could tune a guitar.
With The Beatles he scored 21 US No.1 & 17 UK No.1 singles plus McCartney has scored over 30 US & UK solo Top 40 hit singles.
He has written and co-written 188 charted records, of which 91 reached the Top 10 and 33 made it to No.1 totalling 1,662 weeks on the chart.

 

JUNE 18th: 1948 "Long Playing Phonograph Record / LP

Columbia Records publicly unveiled its new long-playing phonograph record, the 33 1/3, in New York City.
Columbia Records is the oldest record brand in the industry, dating back to 1888 when sound was recorded on black cylinders rather than albums, and begin mass production.

 

JUNE 18th: 2013 "Hungary Charges Nazi"

Prosecutors in Hungary have charged ninety-eight year old Laszlo Csatary for Nazi war crimes.
Csatary was accused of assisting in the murder of Jews while serving as a Nazi police officer in Kosice. Csatary denied the charges saying that he only acted as an intermediary between German and Hungarian forces.
Hungary charges Laszlo Csatary, over Nazi war crimes - BBC News

 

JUNE 18th: 1977 "Get the Pistols!"

Johnny Rotten and Paul Cook of the Sex Pistols were stabbed and beaten when they were attacked in a car park outside a London pub.
They objected to the Pistols' anti-monarchist song 'God Save the Queen'.
The next day, members of the Pistols were beaten by a gang armed with iron pipes.

 

JUNE 18th: 2003 "Fuller pride"

Pop Idol creator Simon Fuller became the first British music manager since The Beatles Brian Epstein to hold the top three positions in the US singles chart. Fuller, who steered the Spice Girls and S Club 7 to success, was in charge of bestselling artists Clay Aiken and Ruben Studdard, together with the American Idol 2 Final 10.
During 2003 Fuller sold more than ten million records around the world and has had 96 No.1 singles and 79 top-placed albums in both the US and UK during his career.
He was named in the latest Sunday Times Rich List as the 359th wealthiest person in the UK with assets of £90 million ($153 million).

 

JUNE 19th: 2000- "Illegal Immigrants to UK Dead"

The bodies of 58 Chinese illegal immigrants have been found in the back of a Dutch-registered lorry at the English port of Dover during a routine search of the lorry. The illegal trafficking of immigrants has been increasing through British Ports as immigration rules are tightened.
BBC News | UK | 58 dead in port lorry

 

JUNE 19th: 1938- "Another Custer Disaster"
A flood in Custer Creek in Terry, Montana washes out a bridge over the Custer Creek river used by trains and when the Olympian Special came through, it crashes into the raging waters with the loss of 46 lives.


Custer Creek train wreck - Wikipedia

 

JUNE 19th: 2007- "Britney Sues"

Lawyers for Britney Spears demanded a Florida radio station remove "offensive" advertisements, which featured her with a shaved head.
The WFLZ billboards included the slogans "Total nut jobs", "Shock Therapy" and "Certifiable", which ran across pictures of a bald Spears. Law firm Lavely and Singer demanded the "immediate removal" of the banners in a letter to the station. Spears was photographed shaving her own head in a Californian hair salon earlier this year.
Brit fights back at ads - Chicago Tribune

 

We lived in Montana for many years but had never heard of this disaster. Of course we didn’t live there in 1938!

 

JUNE 19th: 2020 "Dylan Disc Delights"
. . .
Bob Dylan released his 39th studio album Rough and Rowdy Ways.
It became Dylan's highest-charting album on the Billboard 200 in more than a decade and it marked his seventh consecutive decade of charting top 40 albums, making him the only artist to date to accomplish this feat.
Rough and Rowdy Ways - Wikipedia

 

JUNE 20th: 1975- "If you are going to sea, - take a BIG boat"

The summer blockbuster movie "Jaws" is released about a great white shark attacking swimmers at Amity Island, a fictional summer resort town.


Jaws (film) - Wikipedia