Once again, it should be reiterated, that this does not pretend to be a very extensive history of what happened on this day (nor is it the most original - the links can be found down below). If you know something that I am missing, by all means, shoot me an email or leave a comment, and let me know!
On this day in 323 B.C.E., Alexander the Great, the young Macedonian military genius who conquered his way to build an empire stretching from the eastern Mediterranean to India, died in Babylon, in present-day Iraq, at the age of 33. In 1325 on this day, Sheik Ibn Battuta began his first world trip, Tangiers to Mecca. On this day in 1373, the Anglo-Portuguese Treaty of Alliance (the world's oldest) was signed in London. In 1381 on this day during the Peasants' Revolt, a large mob of English peasants led by Wat Tyler marched into London and began burning and looting the city. An assassination attempt on Pierre de Craon Van Clisson of France failed on this day in 1392. In 1707 on this day, Hungary declared itself independent under Ferenc Rákóczi II. On this day in 1777 during the American Revolutionary War of Independence, 19-year-old French aristocrat Marquis de Lafayette arrived in South Carolina with the intent to serve as General George Washington's second-in-command. On this day in 1792 during the French Revolution, King Louis XVI effectively fired the Girondin ministry, which had been in power, and replaced it with the Feuillants. It was regarded as a move towards moderation in politics, but provoked public outcry within a week, as people demanded a return to power for the Girondins. In 1807 on this day, President Thomas Jefferson received a subpoena to testify in the treason trial of his former vice president, Aaron Burr. In the subpoena, Burr asked Jefferson to produce documents that might exonerate him. On this day in 1828, Simón Bolívar was effectively turned into a dictator after a junta of notables in Bogotá, led by Colonel Pedro Alcántara Herrán, called on El Libertador to take exclusive control of the republic of Gran Colombia with full, unchecked powers. On this day in 1950, the South African parliament passed the Groups Area Act, which was a cornerstone of apartheid, emphasizing racially segregated neighborhoods for homes and businesses. The American Supreme Court's Miranda decision came on this day in 1966, with the ruling that suspects must be informed of their rights at the time of arrest. On this day in 1967, American President Lyndon Johnson appointed U.S. Court of Appeals Judge Thurgood Marshall to fill the seat of retiring Supreme Court Associate Justice Tom C. Clark. On this day in 1971, the New York Times began publishing what came to be known as the "Pentagon Papers," which irreparably compromised the credibility of Cold War policy, particularly in relation to the war in Vietnam. In 1973 on this day, American Secretary of State Henry Kissinger and Le Duc Tho signed new peace agreement regarding the conflict in Vietnam. On this day in 1986, Archbishop Desmond Tutu, winner of the 1984 Nobel Prize for Peace, met with South African President P.W. Botha to discuss the nationwide state of emergency declared by Botha in response to the anti-apartheid protests.
Here's a more detailed look at events that transpired on this date throughout history:
• On this day in 323 B.C.E., Alexander the Great, the young Macedonian military genius who conquered his way to build an empire stretching from the eastern Mediterranean to India, died in Babylon, in present-day Iraq, at the age of 33. Born in Macedonia to King Phillip II and Queen Olympias, Alexander received a classical education from famed philosopher Aristotle and a military education from his father. At the age of 16, Alexander led his first troops into combat and two years later commanded a large part of his father's army that won the Battle of Chaeronea and brought Greece under Macedonian rule. In 336 B.C., Phillip II was assassinated, and Alexander ascended to the throne. Two years later, the young king led a large army into Asia Minor to carry out his father's plans for conquering Persia. Consistently outnumbered in his battles against superior Persian forces, Alexander displayed an unprecedented understanding of strategic military planning and tactical maneuvers. He never lost a single battle, and by 330 B.C. all of Persia and Asia Minor was under his sway. Within his empire, he founded great and lasting cities, such as Alexandria in Egypt, and brought about sweeping political and economic changes based on the advanced Greek models taught to him in his youth. Although Alexander controlled the largest empire in the history of the world, he launched a new eastern campaign soon after his return from Persia. By 327 B.C., he had conquered Afghanistan, Central Asia, and northern India. In the next year, his army, exhausted after eight years of fighting, refused to go farther, and Alexander led them on a difficult journey home through the inhospitable Makran Desert. Finally reaching Babylon, Alexander began constructing a large fleet to take his army back to Egypt. However, in June 323 B.C., just as the work on his ships was reaching its conclusion, Alexander fell sick after a prolonged banquet and drinking bout and died. Perhaps earnestly believing himself to be a god (as many of his subjects did), he had not selected a successor, and within a year of his death his army and his empire broke into a multitude of warring factions. His body was later returned to Alexandria, where it was laid to rest in a golden coffin.
• In 1325 on this day, Sheik Ibn Battuta began his first world trip, Tangiers to Mecca.
• On this day in 1373, the Anglo-Portuguese Treaty of Alliance (the world's oldest) was signed in London.
• In 1381 on this day during the Peasants' Revolt, a large mob of English peasants led by Wat Tyler marched into London and began burning and looting the city. Several government buildings were destroyed, prisoners were released, and a judge was beheaded along with several dozen other leading citizens. The Peasants' Revolt had its origins in a severe manifestation of bubonic plague in the late 1340s, which killed nearly a third of the population of England. The scarcity of labor brought on by the Black Death led to higher wages and a more mobile peasantry. Parliament, however, resisted these changes to its traditional feudal system and passed laws to hold down wages while encouraging landlords to reassert their ancient manorial rights. In 1380, peasant discontent reached a breaking point when Parliament restricted voting rights through an increase of the poll tax, and the Peasants' Revolt began. In Kent, a county in southeast England, the rebels chose Wat Tyler as their leader, and he led his growing "army" toward London, capturing the towns of Maidstone, Rochester, and Canterbury along the way. After he was denied a meeting with King Richard II, he led the rebels into London on June 13, 1381, burning and plundering the city. The next day, the 14-year-old king met with peasant leaders at Mile End and agreed to their demands to abolish serfdom and restrictions on the marketplace. However, fighting continued elsewhere at the same time, and Tyler led a peasant force against the Tower of London, capturing the fortress and executing the archbishop of Canterbury. On June 15, the king met Tyler at Smithfield, and Tyler presented new demands, including one calling for the abolishment of church property. During the meeting, the mayor of London, angered at Tyler's arrogance in the presence of the king, lunged at the rebel leader with a sword, fatally wounding him. As Tyler lay dying on the ground, Richard managed to keep the peasant mob calm until the mayor returned with armed troops. Hundreds of rebels were executed and the rest dispersed. During the next few days, the Peasant Revolt was put down with severity all across England, and Richard revoked all the concessions he had made to the peasants at Mile End. For several weeks, Wat Tyler's head was displayed on a pole in a London field.
• An assassination attempt on Pierre de Craon Van Clisson of France failed on this day in 1392.
1547 - King Ferdinand of Austria subjects himself on Turkish sultan Suleiman
1611 - John Fabricius dedicates earliest sunspot publication
1655 - Adriana Nooseman-van de Bergh is 1st actress in Amsterdam theater
1665 - Sea battle at Lowestoft: English fleet beats Dutch
• In 1707 on this day, Hungary declared itself independent under Ferenc Rákóczi II.
1721 - England signs Treaty of Madrid
1727 - Spain underwrites Preliminairy of Paris
1753 - Austria, England & Modena sign secret military treaty
1774 - Rhode Island becomes 1st colony to prohibit importation of slaves
1777 - Leonard Norcross patents a submarine diving suit
• On this day in 1777 during the American Revolutionary War of Independence, 19-year-old French aristocrat Marquis de Lafayette arrived in South Carolina with the intent to serve as General George Washington's second-in-command. On this day in 1777, a 19-year-old French aristocrat, Marie-Joseph Paul Roch Yves Gilbert du Motier, Marquis de Lafayette, arrives in South Carolina. Silas Deane, during his service as the Continental Congress envoy to France, had, on December 7, 1776, struck an agreement with Johann de Kalb and Lafayette to offer their military expertise to the American cause. However, Deane was replaced with Benjamin Franklin and Arthur Lee, who were unenthused by the proposal. Meanwhile, King Louis XVI feared angering Britain and prohibited Lafayette's departure. The British ambassador to the French court at Versailles demanded the seizure of Lafayette's ship, which resulted in Lafayette's arrest. Lafayette, though, managed to escape, set sail and elude two British ships dispatched to recapture him. Following his safe arrival in South Carolina, Lafayette traveled to Philadelphia. Although Lafayette's youth made Congress reluctant to promote him over more experienced colonial officers, the young Frenchman's willingness to volunteer his services without pay won their respect and Lafayette a commission as major-general on July 31, 1777. Lafayette served at Brandywine in 1777, as well as Barren Hill, Monmouth and Rhode Island in 1778. Following the formal treaty of alliance with Lafayette's native France in February 1778 and Britain's subsequent declaration of war, Lafayette asked to return to Paris and consult the king as to his future service. Washington was willing to spare Lafayette, who departed in January 1779. By March, Franklin reported from Paris that Lafayette had become an excellent advocate for the American cause at the French court. Following his six-month respite in France, Lafayette returned to aid the American war effort in Virginia, where he participated in the successful siege of Yorktown in 1781, before returning to France and the further service of his own country.
1789 - Mrs Alexander Hamilton serves ice cream for dessert to Washington
An image of a statue of King Louis XVI at the Basilique cathédrale Saint-Denis, near Paris.
• On this day in 1792 during the French Revolution, King Louis XVI effectively fired the Girondin ministry, which had been in power, and replaced it with the Feuillants. It was regarded as a move towards moderation in politics, but provoked public outcry within a week, as people demanded a return to power for the Girondins.
1798 - Mission San Luis Rey de Francia founded in California
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A picture I took of the Jefferson Memorial in Washington during a visit with my son back in 2013.
• In 1807 on this day, President Thomas Jefferson received a subpoena to testify in the treason trial of his former vice president, Aaron Burr. In the subpoena, Burr asked Jefferson to produce documents that might exonerate him. Burr had already been politically and socially disgraced by killing former Treasury secretary and Revolutionary-era hero Alexander Hamilton in a duel in 1804. After killing Hamilton, Burr, still Jefferson's vice president, went into hiding to avoid prosecution for murder. (The charges were later dropped.) Burr then concocted a seditious plan to enlist the help of Britain and Spain to create a separate nation in the southwestern reaches of the American continent, including parts of Mexico, over which Burr would rule. The outrageous plan failed miserably when one of Burr's co-conspirators, General James Wilkinson, betrayed Burr and alerted Jefferson to the plot. Burr was hunted down and arrested in 1806 and indicted for treason. Jefferson expressed in his personal papers that he felt no love or loyalty to Burr despite their former political relationship. Burr had run a close and contentious election against the republican Jefferson in the 1800 campaign. After the election resulted in a tie, the vote went to the House of Representatives. Only after Alexander Hamilton reluctantly lobbied for Jefferson did the House select Jefferson for the presidency instead of Burr. This was only one of the many grievances Burr held against Hamilton that led to the fatal duel. Jefferson refused to appear in Burr's defense and released only a few of the documents Burr had requested, invoking his presidential right to protect the public interest. If Jefferson's intent was to help get Burr convicted, his refusal to supply documentation backfired. In the end, Supreme Court Chief Justice John Marshall found Burr not guilty by lack of evidence.
Statue of Simón Bolívar, el “Libertador de América” in New York City, by Central Park
• On this day in 1828, Simón Bolívar was effectively turned into a dictator after a junta of notables in Bogotá, led by Colonel Pedro Alcántara Herrán, called on El Libertador to take exclusive control of the republic of Gran Colombia with full, unchecked powers.
1837 - 1st Mormon missionaries to British Isles leave Kirtland, Ohio
Military and Political Leader Simon BolivarMilitary and Political Leader Simon Bolivar
1855 - Opera "Les Vêpres Sicilenne" is produced (Paris)
1863 - Battle of Winchester VA
1863 - Samuel Butler publishes 1st part of "Erewhon", Christchurch, NZ
1863 - Skirmish at Berryville Virginia
1865 - Pres Johnson proclaims reconstruction confederate states
1866 - US House of representatives passes 14th Amendment (Civil rights)
1868 - Oscar J Dunn (a black) is elected Lt Governor of Louisiana
1871 - Hurricane kills 300 in Labrador
1874 - 8th Belmont: G Barbee aboard Saxon wins in 2:39.5
• 1878 - Congress of Berlin meets to divide African colonization
1881 - The USS Jeannette is crushed in an Arctic Ocean ice pack.
1886 - Fire destroys nearly 1,000 buildings in Vancouver, BC
• 1886 - King Ludwig II of Bavaria found dead in Lake Starnberg south of Munich at 11:30 PM at 40. Builder of palace of Neuschwanstein and patron of Wagner
1888 - US Congress creates Department of Labor
1889 - 2' of snow accumulates in Rawlins, Wyoming
1889 - 23rd Belmont: W Hayward aboard Eric wins in 2:47.25
1890 - Eagle Ave in the Bronx is cut out & named
1895 - Emile Levassor wins 1st Paris-Bordeaux-Paris auto race (24 kph)
1898 - Yukon Territory of Canada organized, Dawson chosen as capital
• 1900 - In China, Baron von Kettler, the German minister to China, beats two young Boxers with his walking stick; when word of this circulates, rioting and arson spread throughout Peking during the night.
1902 - Prussian Upper house gives 350 million marks to Poland
1905 - NY Giant Christy Mathewson 2nd no-hitter, beats Chicago Cubs, 1-0
1907 - Lowest temp ever in 48 US states for June, 2°F in Tamarack Calif
1908 - Tommy Burns KOs Bill Squires in 8 for heavyweight boxing title
1910 - Pilot Charles Hamilton makes 1st 1-day round-trip from NY to Phila
1910 - William D Crum, a South Carolina physician, appointed minister to Liberia
1912 - NY Giant Christy Mathewson wins his 300th game
1913 - 45th Belmont: Roscoe Troxler aboard Prince Eugene wins in 2:18
1913 - Yanks win 13th game of year after losing 36 games
1914 - 28th US Womens Tennis: Mary K Browne beats Marie Wagner (6-2 1-6 6-1)
1917 - World War I: the deadliest German air raid on London during World War I is carried out by Gotha G bombers and results in 162 deaths, including 46 children, and 432 injuries.
1918 - Phillies & Cards tie 8-8 in 19 innings
1920 - Post Office says children could not be sent by parcel post
1921 - Yanks' pitcher Babe Ruth hits 2 HRs beating Tigers 11-8
1922 - Longest attack of hiccups begins Charlie Osborne, 98 hiccupped over 435 million times before it stops, He dies 11 months after it stops
1924 - Bene Berak Palestine founded
1924 - Gaston Doumergue elected as 1st protestant French premier
1924 - Yanks win by forfeit over Tigers, their 3rd forfeit win
1925 - 57th Belmont: Albert Johnson aboard American Flag wins in 2:16.8
Aviator Charles LindberghAviator Charles Lindbergh 1927 - Ticker-tape parade welcomes Charles A Lindbergh to NYC
1930 - 1st Nudist Colony opens
1930 - 22 people killed by hailstones in Siatista Greece
1931 - 63rd Belmont: Charley Kurtsinger aboard Twenty Grand wins in 2:29.6
1932 - Air force's Marmaduke Brutal becomes leader of revolutionary junta
1932 - Great Britain & France sign peace treaty
1933 - 1st sodium vapor lamps installed (Schenectady NY)
1933 - Federal Home Owners Loan Corporation authorized
1933 - German Secret State Police (Gestapo - Geheime Staats Polizei) established
1935 - Hammond scores his 100th hundred, 116 for Gloucs v Somerset
1935 - James J Braddock beats Max Baer in 15 for heavyweight boxing title
1936 - 2nd Belgian government of Van Zealand forms
1937 - Joe DiMaggio hits 3 consecutive HRs against St Louis Browns
1937 - Stalin executes Russian officers Tuchachevski, Jakir, Putna & Uberevitch
1938 - Great Cricket innings of 232 by Stan McCabe v England at Trent Bridge
Soviet Union Premier Joseph StalinSoviet Union Premier Joseph Stalin 1938 - Jews injured & property destroyed in Przemyal, Poland
1940 - Paris evacuates before German advance
1942 - 1st V-2 rocket launch, Peenemunde, Germany; reached 1.3 km
1942 - FDR creates Office of War with Elmer Davis as head
1942 - Germany puts 4 saboteurs on Long Island
1942 - US Office of Strategic Services (OSS) formed
1942 - The United States opens its Office of War Information.
1944 - German counter attack on Villers-Bocage, Normandy
1944 - Nazi Germany begins V-1 (Fieseler Fi-103) flying bomb (doodle-bugs) attacks
1945 - Heerjansdam soccer team forms
1945 - Orokoe peninsula Okinawa captured, with 6,000 dead
1946 - 1st transcontinental round-trip flight in 1-day, California-Maryland
1946 - King Umberto II of Italy abdicates
Flag of South Africa during the apartheid era
• On this day in 1950, the South African parliament passed the Groups Area Act, which was a cornerstone of apartheid, emphasizing racially segregated neighborhoods for homes and businesses.
• 1951 - UN arm forces reach Pyongyang Korea
1952 - Soviet fighters shoot Swedish Dakota down over East Sea, kills 8
1954 - Cornerstone of Albert Einstein College of Medicine, laid in Bronx
1955 - Mercedes racing car kills 77 at Le Mans France
1956 - "Shangri-La" opens at Winter Garden Theater NYC for 21 performances
1956 - After 72 years, Britain gives up Suez Canal to Egyptian control
1956 - Parliamentary election: Dutch Democrates 50/KVP 49
1956 - Real Madrid wins 1st Europe Cup
1957 - Mayflower II from Plymouth, England, reaches Plymouth Mass
Baseball Player Ted WilliamsBaseball Player Ted Williams 1957 - Ted Williams becomes 1st ALer to have 2, 3-HR games in a season
1958 - Frank Zappa graduates from Antelope Valley High School in Lancaster Ca
1960 - "Alley-Oop" by Dyna-Sores peaks at #59
1960 - Prince Norodom Sihanoek becomes head of Cambodia
1961 - "Billy Barnes People" opens at Royale Theater NYC for 8 performances
1962 - "Bob Newhart Show" last airs on NBC-TV
1962 - Norway named ombudsman
1963 - Vostok 6 launched, pilot is 1st woman cosmonaut
• The American Supreme Court's Miranda decision came on this day in 1966, with the ruling that suspects must be informed of their rights at the time of arrest.
Jun 13, 1966: The Miranda rights are established On this day in 1966, the Supreme Court hands down its decision in Miranda v. Arizona, establishing the principle that all criminal suspects must be advised of their rights before interrogation. Now considered standard police procedure, "You have the right to remain silent. Anything you say can, and will, be used against you in court of law. You have the right to an attorney. If you cannot afford one, one will be appointed to you," has been heard so many times in television and film dramas that it has become almost cliche. The roots of the Miranda decision go back to March 2, 1963, when an 18-year-old Phoenix woman told police that she had been abducted, driven to the desert and raped. Detectives questioning her story gave her a polygraph test, but the results were inconclusive. However, tracking the license plate number of a car that resembled that of her attacker's brought police to Ernesto Miranda, who had a prior record as a peeping tom. Although the victim did not identify Miranda in a line-up, he was brought into police custody and interrogated. What happened next is disputed, but officers left the interrogation with a confession that Miranda later recanted, unaware that he didn't have to say anything at all. The confession was extremely brief and differed in certain respects from the victim's account of the crime. However, Miranda's appointed defense attorney (who was paid a grand total of $100) didn't call any witnesses at the ensuing trial, and Miranda was convicted. While Miranda was in Arizona state prison, the American Civil Liberties Union took up his appeal, claiming that the confession was false and coerced. The Supreme Court overturned his conviction, but Miranda was retried and convicted in October 1966 anyway, despite the relative lack of evidence against him. Remaining in prison until 1972, Ernesto Miranda was later stabbed to death in the men's room of a bar after a poker game in January 1976. As a result of the case against Miranda, each and every person must now be informed of his or her rights when arrested.
1967 - Thurgood Marshall nominated as 1st black Supreme Court justice
• On this day in 1967, American President Lyndon Johnson appointed U.S. Court of Appeals Judge Thurgood Marshall to fill the seat of retiring Supreme Court Associate Justice Tom C. Clark. On August 30, after a heated debate, the Senate confirmed Marshall's nomination by a vote of 69 to 11. Two days later, he was sworn in by Chief Justice Earl Warren, making him the first African American in history to sit on America's highest court. The great-grandson of slaves, Marshall was born in Baltimore, Maryland, in 1908. In 1933, after studying under the tutelage of civil liberties lawyer Charles H. Houston, he received his law degree from Howard University in Washington, D.C. In 1936, he joined the legal division of the National Association for the Advancement of Colored People (NAACP), of which Houston was director, and two years later succeeded his mentor in the organization's top legal post. As the NAACP's chief counsel from 1938 to 1961, he argued 32 cases before the U.S. Supreme Court, successfully challenging racial segregation, most notably in public education. He won 29 of these cases, including a groundbreaking victory in 1954's Brown v. Board of Education, in which the Supreme Court ruled that segregation violated the 14th Amendment to the Constitution and was thus illegal. The decision served as a great impetus for the African American civil rights movement of the 1950s and 1960s and ultimately led to the abolishment of segregation in all public facilities and accommodations. In 1961, President John F. Kennedy appointed Marshall to the U.S. Court of Appeals, but his nomination was opposed by many Southern senators, and he was not confirmed until the next year. In June 1967, President Johnson nominated him to the Supreme Court, and in late August he was confirmed. During his 24 years on the high court, Associate Justice Marshall consistently challenged discrimination based on race or sex, opposed the death penalty, and supported the rights of criminal defendants. He also defended affirmative action and women's right to abortion. As appointments by a largely Republican White House changed the politics of the Court, Marshall found his liberal opinions increasingly in the minority. He retired in 1991, and two years later passed away.
1969 - Mick Taylor leaves John Mayall Band & joins Rolling Stones
1970 - "In The Summertime" by Mungo Jerry hit #1 in UK
• 1970 - Beatles' "Let It Be" album goes #1 & stays #1 for 4 weeks
1970 - Beatles' "Long & Winding Road" single goes #1 & stays #1 for 2 weeks
• On this day in 1971, the New York Times began publishing what came to be known as the "Pentagon Papers," which irreparably compromised the credibility of Cold War policy, particularly in relation to the war in Vietnam. The New York Times begins to publish sections of the so-called "Pentagon Papers," a top-secret Department of Defense study of America's involvement in the Vietnam War. The papers indicated that the American government had been lying to the people for years about the Vietnam War and the papers seriously damaged the credibility of America's Cold War foreign policy. In 1967, Secretary of Defense Robert McNamara ordered his department to prepare an in-depth history of American involvement in the Vietnam War. McNamara had already begun to harbor serious doubts about U.S. policy in Vietnam, and the study--which came to be known as the "Pentagon Papers"--substantiated his misgivings. Top-secret memorandums, reports, and papers indicated that the U.S. government had systematically lied to the American people, deceiving them about American goals and progress in the war in Vietnam. The devastating multi-volume study remained locked away in a Pentagon safe for years. In 1971, Daniel Ellsberg, a Defense Department employee who had turned completely against the war, began to smuggle portions of the papers out of the Pentagon. These papers made their way to the New York Times, and on June 13, 1971, the American public read them in stunned amazement. The publication of the papers added further fuel to the already powerful antiwar movement and drove the administration of President Richard Nixon into a frenzy of paranoia about information "leaks." Nixon attempted to stop further publication of the papers, but the Supreme Court refused to issue an injunction. The "Pentagon Papers" further eroded the American public's confidence in their nation's Cold War foreign policy. The brutal, costly, and seemingly endless Vietnam War had already damaged the government's credibility, and the publication of the "Pentagon Papers" showed people the true extent to which the government had manipulated and lied to them. Some of the most dramatic examples were documents indicating that the Kennedy administration had openly encouraged and participated in the overthrow of South Vietnamese President Ngo Dinh Diem in 1963; that the CIA believed that the "domino theory" did not actually apply to Asia; and that the heavy American bombing of North Vietnam, contrary to U.S. government pronouncements about its success, was having absolutely no impact on the communists' will to continue the fight.
In 1973 on this day, American Secretary of State Henry Kissinger and Le Duc Tho signed new peace agreement regarding the conflict in Vietnam. Representatives of the original signers of the January 27 cease-fire sign a new 14-point agreement calling for an end to all cease-fire violations in South Vietnam. Coming at the end of month-long negotiations between Henry Kissinger and Le Duc Tho, the settlement included an end to all military activities at noon on June 15; an end to U.S. reconnaissance flights over North Vietnam and the resumption of U.S. minesweeping operations in North Vietnamese waters; the resumption of U.S. talks on aid to North Vietnam; and the meeting of commanders of opposing forces in South Vietnam to prevent outbreaks of hostilities. Fighting had erupted almost immediately after the original cease-fire that had been initiated as part of the Paris Peace Accords. Both sides repeatedly violated the terms of the cease-fire as they jockeyed for position and control of the countryside. This new agreement proved no more effective than the original peace agreement in stopping the fighting, which continued into early 1975 when the North Vietnamese launched a massive offensive that overran South Vietnam in less than 55 days. The war was finally over on April 30, 1975, when North Vietnamese tanks rolled into Saigon.
1974 - Henry Aaron addresses House of Representatives
1976 - 4th du Maurier Golf Classic (Peter Jackson Classic): Donna Caponi
1976 - Bob Marley performs in Amsterdam
1976 - Inge Helten runs female European record 100m (11.04)
• 1977 - Convicted Martin Luther King assassin James Earl Ray recaptured
1978 - Israeli Defense Forces withdraw from Lebanon.
Reggae Musician Bob MarleyReggae Musician Bob Marley 1979 - "Madwoman of Central Park West" opens at 22 Steps NYC for 86 perfs
1979 - Sioux nation receives $100 million in compensation for Black Hills SD
1980 - Billy Joel's "Glass Houses" hits #1
1980 - Deborah Harry/Meat Loaf film, "Roadie," premieres
1980 - Paul McCartney releases "Waterfall"
1980 - Rep John Jenrette Jr (D-SC) indicted in "Abscam" investigation
1980 - UN Security Council calls for South Africa to free Nelson Mandela
1981 - 39 Unification church couples wed in Germany
1982 - Fahd becomes king of Saudi Arabia when King Khalid dies at 69
1983 - Pioneer 10 is 1st man-made object to leave Solar System
• 1986 - Pres Reagan criticizes South African state of emergency
State of Archbishop Desmond Tutu in Cape Town, South Africa
• On this day in 1986, Archbishop Desmond Tutu, winner of the 1984 Nobel Prize for Peace, met with South African President P.W. Botha to discuss the nationwide state of emergency declared by Botha in response to the anti-apartheid protests. "This is not likely to help restore law and order and peace and calm," Tutu said of the government crackdown after the meeting. "If we do have any calm, it will be very brittle, it will be superficial, it will be sullen, and at the slightest chance, it will be broken again." In 1948, South Africa's white minority government institutionalized its policy of racial segregation and white supremacy known as apartheid--Afrikaans for "apartness." Eighty percent of the country's land was set aside for white use, and black Africans entering this territory required special passes. Blacks, who had no representation in the government, were subjected to different labor laws and educational standards than whites and lived in extreme poverty while white South Africans prospered. Organized anti-apartheid protests began in the 1950s, and in the 1960s Nelson Mandela and other anti-apartheid leaders were imprisoned. In the 1970s, a new phase of protest began, with black trade unions organizing strikes and Steve Biko, leader of the Black Consciousness movement, calling on blacks to defend their African culture. After the Soweto uprising of June 1976, more than 500 black activists, including Biko, were killed by police. By the time Pieter W. Botha took power as South African prime minister in 1978, ongoing domestic turmoil and increasing international condemnation made it clear that the South African government could not long sustain the apartheid status quo. Botha's administration undertook many reforms, including an end to some racial segregation, a repeal of the "pass laws," and an end to the ban on black trade unions, but made no fundamental change to South Africa's power structure. Protests continued, and Botha resorted to strong-arm tactics, using the military and police to suppress opposition to his minority government. Thousands of blacks were killed. Meanwhile, a black Anglican minister named Desmond Tutu, who in 1975 became the first black dean of St. Mary's Cathedral in Johannesburg, was emerging as an important leader of the anti-apartheid movement. He advocated nonviolence and pushed for international sanctions against South Africa. In 1984, he was awarded the Nobel Prize for Peace. The next year, he was installed as Johannesburg's first black Anglican bishop. In 1984, a new constitution took effect that made Botha president of South Africa but failed to grant blacks representation in his government. Demonstrations escalated, and on June 12, 1986, Botha declared martial law as a means of preventing demonstrations planned to commemorate the 10th anniversary of the 1976 Soweto uprising. Thousands of black community leaders, clergymen, union organizers, and anti-apartheid activists were arrested, and heavily armed policemen and troops patrolled the black ghettoes. On June 13, as a conciliatory gesture, Botha met with Desmond Tutu in Cape Town, but the meeting failed to temper Tutu's public criticism of Botha's policies. In the fall of 1986, the U.S. government and the European Community authorized economic sanctions against South Africa in an effort to end apartheid. In September, Desmond Tutu was elected the first black archbishop of Cape Town, thus becoming the spiritual leader of three million Anglicans in southern Africa. In his new position, he continued his outspoken criticism of apartheid and the oppressive South African government. With the South African economy in decline, P.W. Botha stepped down as president in 1989 and was succeeded by F.W. de Klerk, who set about dismantling apartheid. Nelson Mandela was freed, a new constitution enfranchised blacks, and in 1994 Mandela and the African National Congress were elected to power in South Africa's first free elections. Desmond Tutu retired as Anglican archbishop in 1996, though he continues to speak out against human rights abuses and is active in the fight against HIV and AIDS in Africa.
1986 - Steve Garvey 1st ejection from a game, after Atlanta's triple-play
US President & Actor Ronald ReaganUS President & Actor Ronald Reagan 1987 - Daniel Buettner, Bret Anderson, Martin Engel & Anne Knabe complete cycling journey of 15,266 mi from Prudhoe Bay, Alaska to Argentina
1988 - Fed jury finds Liggett liable in death of NJ woman of lung cancer
1988 - George Harrison releases "This is Love"
1988 - US Supreme Court refuses to hear Yonkers argument they aren't racist
1990 - Boeing 767 sets nonstop commercial flight, Seattle to Narobi Kenya
• 1990 - Nelson & Winnie Mandela welcomed in NYC
1990 - Wash DC mayor Marion Barry announces he will not seek a 4th term
1991 - A spectator is killed by lightning at US Open Golf tournament
1991 - NHL owners present contract to players (leads to Apr 1, 1992 strike)
Country Singer Jerry Lee LewisCountry Singer Jerry Lee Lewis 1991 - The National, 1st all-sports daily newspaper, ceases publication
1993 - Akbar Hashemi Rafsanjani re-elected president of Iran
1993 - YokoZuna beats Hulk Hogan to become WWF champ
1994 - Chicago Cub 2nd baseman Ryne Sandberg, retires due to poor play, he forfeits $15.7 million of his $25 million contract
1994 - Don Mattingly plays 1st base 1,469 game for Yankees (2nd most)
• 1994 - A jury in Anchorage, Alaska, blames recklessness by Exxon and Captain Joseph Hazelwood for the Exxon Valdez disaster, allowing victims of the oil spill to seek $15 billion in damages.
1995 - Indians' Dennis Martinez no-hits Balt 11-0
1995 - NJ Devils beat Phila Flyers, to go to their 1st Stanley Cup finals
1996 - Freeman in Montana give up to FBI after 81 days
1996 - The Montana Freemen surrender after an 81-day standoff with FBI agents.
1997 - 51st NBA Championship: Chicago Bulls beat Utah Jazz 4, games to 2
1997 - Jurors in Oklahoma City bombing trial sentence Timothy McVeigh to death
1997 - Red Wings Vladimir Konstantinov & Slava Fetisov hurt in car crash
WWF Wrestler Hulk HoganWWF Wrestler Hulk Hogan 1997 - American fugitive Ira Einhorn is arrested in France for the murder of Holly Maddux after 16 years on the run, though he would not return for another four years.
2000 - Italy pardons Mehmet Ali Agca, the Turkish gunman who tried to kill Pope John Paul II in 1981.
2000 - President Kim Dae Jung of South Korea meets Kim Jong-il, leader of North Korea, for the beginning of the first ever inter-Korea summit, in the northern capital of Pyongyang.
2001 - 35th TNN & CMT Country Weekly Music Awards: George Strait, Faith Hill & Alan Jackson wins
• 2002 - The United States of America withdraws from the Anti-Ballistic Missile Treaty.
2005 - A jury in Santa Maria, California acquits pop singer Michael Jackson of molesting 13-year-old Gavin Arvizo at his Neverland Ranch.
2007 - The Al Askari Mosque is bombed again.
2011 - Christchurch, New Zealand is hit by another strong earthquake measuring magnitude 6.3
2012 - A series of bombings across Iraq kill 93 and wound 300 people
1415 - Henry the Navigator, the prince of Portugal, embarked on an expedition to Africa. 1777 - The Marquis de Lafayette arrived in the American colonies to help with their rebellion against the British. 1789 - Ice cream was served to General George Washington by Mrs. Alexander Hamilton. 1825 - Walter Hunt patented the safety pin. Hunt then then sold the rights for $400. 1866 - The 14th Amendment to the U.S. Constitution was passed by the U.S. Congress. It was ratified on July 9, 1868. The amendment was designed to grant citizenship to and protect the civil liberties of recently freed slaves. It did this by prohibiting states from denying or abridging the privileges or immunities of citizens of the United States, depriving any person of his life, liberty, or property without due process of law, or denying to any person within their jurisdiction the equal protection of the laws. 1888 - The U.S. Congress created the Department of Labor. 1898 - The Canadian Yukon Territory was organized. 1900 - China's Boxer Rebellion against foreigners and Chinese Christians erupted into violence. 1912 - Captain Albert Berry made the first successful parachute jump from an airplane in Jefferson, Mississippi. 1920 - The U.S. Post Office Department ruled that children may not be sent by parcel post. 1922 - Charlie Osborne started the longest attack on hiccups. He hiccuped over 435 million times before stopping. He died in 1991, 11 months after his hiccups ended. 1923 - The French set a trade barrier between the occupied Ruhr and the rest of Germany. 1927 - Charles Lindbergh was honored with a ticker-tape parade in New York City. 1927 - For the first time, an American Flag was displayed from the right hand of the Statue of Liberty. 1940 - Paris was evacuated before the German advance on the city. 1943 - German spies landed on Long Island, New York. They were soon captured. 1944 - Germany launched 10 of its new V1 rockets against Britain from a position near the Channel coast. Of the 10 rockets only 5 landed in Britain and only one managed to kill (6 people in London). 1944 - Marvin Camras patented the wire recorder. 1949 - Bao Dai entered Saigon to rule Vietnam. He had been installed by the French. 1951 - U.N. troops seized Pyongyang, North Korea. 1966 - The landmark "Miranda vs. Arizona" decision was issued by the U.S. Supreme Court. The decision ruled that criminal suspects had to be informed of their constitutional rights before being questioned by police. 1967 - Solicitor General Thurgood Marshall was nominated by President Lyndon B. Johnson to become the first black justice on the U.S. Supreme Court. 1971 - The New York Times began publishing the "Pentagon Papers". The articles were a secret study of America's involvement in Vietnam. 1978 - Israelis withdrew the last of their invading forces from Lebanon. 1979 - Sioux Indians were awarded $105 million in compensation for the U.S. seizure in 1877 of their Black Hills in South Dakota. 1983 - The unmanned U.S. space probe Pioneer 10 became the first spacecraft to leave the solar system. It was launched in March 1972. The first up-close images of the planet Jupiter were provided by Pioneer 10. 1988 - The Liggett Group, a cigarette manufacturer, was found liable for a lung-cancer death. They were, however, found innocent by the federal jury of misrepresenting the risks of smoking. 1989 - The Detroit Pistons won their first National Basketball Association title. They beat the L.A. Lakers in four games. 1989 - U.S. President George H.W. Bush exercised his first Presidential veto on a bill dealing with minimum wage. 1992 - Future U.S. President Bill Clinton criticized rap singer Sister Souljah for making remarks "filled with hatred" towards whites. 1994 - A jury in Anchorage, Alaska, found Exxon Corp. and Captain Joseph Hazelwood to be reckless in the Exxon Valdez oil spill. 1995 - France announced that they would conduct eight more nuclear tests in the South Pacific. 2000 - In Pyongyang, North Korea's leader Kim Jong Il welcomed South Korea's President Kim Dae for a three-day summit. It was the first such meeting between the leaders of North and South Korea.
1900 The Boxer Rebellion began in China. 1966 The U.S. Supreme Court set forth in Miranda v. Arizona that the police must advise suspects of their rights upon taking them into custody. 1967 Thurgood Marshall was nominated to become the first African American on the U.S. Supreme Court. 1971 The New York Times began publishing the "Pentagon Papers." 1983 The U.S. space probe Pioneer 10, launched in 1972, became the first spacecraft to leave the solar system. 1986 Bandleader and clarinetist Benny Goodman died. 2000 The first meeting between Pres. Kim Jong Il of North Korea and Pres. Kim Dae Jung of South Korea occurred.
The following links are to web sites that were used to complete this blog entry:
http://www.historyorb.com/today/events.php
http://on-this-day.com/onthisday/thedays/alldays/jun13.htm
http://www.history.com/this-day-in-history
http://www.infoplease.com/dayinhistory
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