2014 World Cup Day 11

Portugal 2, USA 2

Both teams had a chance to win it, and both teams likely walked off the field feeling that this was a missed opportunity.

The United States, fresh off it's win against Ghana last week, could have clinched a berth in the elimination round with a win, while Portugal was just trying to avoid being eliminated after only two games, having suffered a demoralizing 4-0 loss to Germany in their first game.

Statistically, the game was quite even between the two teams, iwith no hugely significant differences to choose from.

Portugal drew first blood in the 5th minute with a goal by Nani, getting them off to a very solid start early on, and shaking the nerves of another possibly huge letdown like they had in Germany.

And from that point on to well into the second half, it seemed (at least to me) like Portugal was just trying to sit on the lead, content that it would be enough.

It wasn't.

True, it took a long time, but Jermaine Jones was able to kick a rocket into the corner of the net to get the US on the board in the 64th minute. And suddenly, just like, that, the game was tied at 1-1!

Portugal began to step it up again, taking their intensity up a notch or two after that.

Yet, it was the United States, not Portugal, that managed to get the all-important next goal in the 81st minute, providing the US with the first lead of the game, as Clint Dempsey, playing with a mask that rather restricted his breathing in the already hot and stuffy Amazon air in order to protect the broken nose that he had sustained in the last game, was able to convert a beautiful chance. Suddenly, it looked like the United States was on the verge of a huge and historic win!

That was the way that it stayed as regular time ended, and the game with into extra time. Indeed, the US managed to hold off Portugal, and looked to have secured the win, and a ticket to the elimination round, until the very last moment, when Portugal's Silvestre Varela snuck one past American goalkeeper Tim Howard with just seconds left to play, salvaging at least the tie for Portugal.

Both teams kept their hopes alive with the result. The United States will advance with either a win or a tie against Germany (Germany would also advance with either a win or tie). Portugal needs some help, needing to win against Ghana, and needing either the US or Germany to lose against one another, and then win the goal differential battle. Ghana also would need to beat Portugal, and need Germany to lose.

Algeria 4, South Korea 2

In a tournament that has been chock full of upsets and surprises thus far, this game fit right in.

I was, admittedly, expecting South Korea to hand Algeria yet another defeat.

But Algeria broke a scoreless tie in the 26th minute when Islam Slimani got the first of two goals that Algeria earned in a span of two or so minutes, grabbing a 2-0 lead. The second goal was a header by Rafik Halliche from very close range, to give Algeria a sudden, and rather shocking, 2-0 lead!

It did not even take Algeria long to nab yet another goal to go up 3-0 by the half when Abdelmoumene Djabou nailed yet another shot past South Korean goalkeeper Jung Sung-Ryong.

Algeria had a commanding 3-0 lead as the teams halted play for the half. Commentators were saying, probably with a fair degree of accuracy, that those fifteen minutes with three goals by the Algerian side were probably the greatest fifteen minutes in the soccer history of that nation.

South Korea tried to battle back, and in fact, did a little bit, in the second half. Son Heung-Min, with an assist by Ki Sung-Yueng, was able to finally get one past Algerian goalkeeper Rais M'Bolhi. It was a relatively quick goal, and seemed to get South Korea back in the game.

At least, that is, until Algeria's Yacine Brahimi, assisted by a pass from Sofiane Feghouli, was able to get one right to the center of the box in a direct line to the center of the back of the goal. Algeria was up 4-1, with a comfortable three goal margin once again.

Give credit where credit is due, however. South Korea never quite. Assisted by a pass from Lee Keun-Ho, South Korea's Koo Ja-Cheol was able to bury one into Algeria's goal from very close in the 72nd minute, to close the margin to 4-2.

South Korea pressed very hard, and had some nice opportunities and close calls the rest of the way. But they were unable to get any more goals on a day when they were continually flustered and frustrated by a very motivated and well prepared Algerian side, that earned itself a tremendous victory on this night!

Belgium 1, Russia 0

Things just do not seem to be going Russia's way for this World Cup. They keep coming close to their objective, but ultimately, fall short.

Such was the case last week, then they seemed to outplay the South Korean side for much of the game (just barely), only to watch stunned when South Korea suddenly scored a goal, assisted by Russian keeper 's big mistake.

Then yesterday, the Russians had some wonderful scoring opportunities to almost put Belgium on the ropes earlier in the game, but the game remained deadlocked in a scoreless draw.

And just as it was looking like that was the way that this game would end, the Belgians suddenly exploded into life with a sudden goal from Divock Origi off an assist from Eden Hazard following a lightning-paced fast break, giving Belgium a 1-0 lead, with very little time left for Russia to work to get a goal of their own.

Divock Origi is stilla teenager, and one of the youngest men to ever score in a World Cup. It was also the second game in a row where Belgium managed to score a decisive goal very late in the game to clinch the win.

And this win also clinched an appearance in the elimination round for the Belgians, while leaving Russia with a very tough and complicated route to the elimination round themselves, as they next have to take on the inspired Algerian side.

Presbyterians Vote to Divest From Israel

I have a feeling we're going to see a lot more of this.

This is a growing issue that is likely to keep growing, the more the Israeli government truly continues to eliminate the option of a two-state solution.

Right now, Palestinians are continually deprived of basic rights in what is supposed to be their own homeland. And more and more people are recognizing this, and objecting to it. That's only normal, and it's hardly the sign of rabid anti-Semitism that many Zionists want people to believe it to be.

In this case, Presbyterians have decided to divest from Israel in protests of these policies, and this obviously made considerable news headlines.

By a very thin margin (310 to 303), the General Assembly of the Church voted to sell stock owned by the church, because of the use of products from those corporations in the occupied territories. In a similar vote just two years ago, the General Assembly had rejected the idea of divestment.

In an article by Jeff Karoub and Rachel Zoll of The Associated Press (see link below), one prominent figure in the story clarifies why the Presbyterian Church did what it did:

"Because we are a historical peacemaking church, what we have done is, we have stood up for nonviolent means of resistance to oppression and we have sent a clear message to a struggling society that we support their efforts to resist in a nonviolent way the oppression being thrust upon them," said the Rev. Jeffrey DeYoe, of the Israel/Palestine Mission Network.

A church spokeswoman estimated the value of the church's stock holdings in those companies to be valued at around $21 million.

Due to how large the church is, the vote is seen as a huge triumph for the growing BDS (Boycott, Divestment, and Sanctions) movement, although it still receives strong criticism from those who strenuously object to the notion that Israel is somehow similar to South Africa during the days of apartheid, when a massive campaign of boycotting, divestment, and sanctions helped to apply enough pressure on white South African leaders that they, eventually, began the process of reform.

Omar Barghouti, a co-founder of the BDS movement, praised the vote as a "sweet victory for human rights."  
He said Presbyterian supporters of Palestinian rights have introduced divestment into the U.S. mainstream and have given Palestinians "real hope in the face of the relentless and intensifying cruelty of Israel's regime of occupation, settler colonialism and apartheid."  




Here is the link to the article that I got much of the information for this blog entry, and all of the quotes:

Presbyterians to divest as protest against Israel by Jeff Karoub and Rachel Zoll of The Associated Press, June 21, 2014:

http://news.yahoo.com/presbyterians-divest-protest-against-israel-002617938.html

On This Day in History - June 27 Truman Orders US Forces to Korea

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!

http://www.history.com/this-day-in-history

June 27, 1950: Truman orders U.S. forces to Korea

On June 27, 1950, President Harry S. Truman announces that he is ordering U.S. air and naval forces to South Korea to aid the democratic nation in repulsing an invasion by communist North Korea. The United States was undertaking the major military operation, he explained, to enforce a United Nations resolution calling for an end to hostilities, and to stem the spread of communism in Asia. In addition to ordering U.S. forces to Korea, Truman also deployed the U.S. 7th Fleet to Formosa (Taiwan) to guard against invasion by communist China and ordered an acceleration of military aid to French forces fighting communist guerrillas in Vietnam.  

At the Yalta Conference towards the end of World War II, the United States, the USSR, and Great Britain agreed to divide Korea into two separate occupation zones. The country was split along the 38th parallel, with Soviet forces occupying the northern zone and Americans stationed in the south. In 1947, the United States and Great Britain called for free elections throughout Korea, but the Soviets refused to comply. In May 1948 the Korean Democratic People's Republic--a communist state--was proclaimed in North Korea. In August, the democratic Republic of Korea was established in South Korea. By 1949, both the United States and the USSR had withdrawn the majority of their troops from the Korean Peninsula.  

At dawn on June 25, 1950 (June 24 in the United States and Europe), 90,000 communist troops of the North Korean People's Army invaded South Korea across the 38th parallel, catching the Republic of Korea's forces completely off guard and throwing them into a hasty southern retreat. On the afternoon of June 25, the U.N. Security Council met in an emergency session and approved a U.S. resolution calling for an "immediate cessation of hostilities" and the withdrawal of North Korean forces to the 38th parallel. At the time, the USSR was boycotting the Security Council over the U.N.'s refusal to admit the People's Republic of China and so missed its chance to veto this and other crucial U.N. resolutions.  

On June 27, President Truman announced to the nation and the world that America would intervene in the Korean conflict in order to prevent the conquest of an independent nation by communism. Truman was suggesting that the USSR was behind the North Korean invasion, and in fact the Soviets had given tacit approval to the invasion, which was carried out with Soviet-made tanks and weapons. Despite the fear that U.S. intervention in Korea might lead to open warfare between the United States and Russia after years of "cold war," Truman's decision was met with overwhelming approval from Congress and the U.S. public. Truman did not ask for a declaration of war, but Congress voted to extend the draft and authorized Truman to call up reservists.  

On June 28, the Security Council met again and in the continued absence of the Soviet Union passed a U.S. resolution approving the use of force against North Korea. On June 30, Truman agreed to send U.S. ground forces to Korea, and on July 7 the Security Council recommended that all U.N. forces sent to Korea be put under U.S. command. The next day, General Douglas MacArthur was named commander of all U.N. forces in Korea.  

In the opening months of the war, the U.S.-led U.N. forces rapidly advanced against the North Koreans, but Chinese communist troops entered the fray in October, throwing the Allies into a hasty retreat. In April 1951, Truman relieved MacArthur of his command after he publicly threatened to bomb China in defiance of Truman's stated war policy. Truman feared that an escalation of fighting with China would draw the Soviet Union into the Korean War.  

By May 1951, the communists were pushed back to the 38th parallel, and the battle line remained in that vicinity for the remainder of the war. On July 27, 1953, after two years of negotiation, an armistice was signed, ending the war and reestablishing the 1945 division of Korea that still exists today. Approximately 150,000 troops from South Korea, the United States, and participating U.N. nations were killed in the Korean War, and as many as one million South Korean civilians perished. An estimated 800,000 communist soldiers were killed, and more than 200,000 North Korean civilians died.  

The original figure of American troops lost--54,246 killed--became controversial when the Pentagon acknowledged in 2000 that all U.S. troops killed around the world during the period of the Korean War were incorporated into that number. For example, any American soldier killed in a car accident anywhere in the world from June 1950 to July 1953 was considered a casualty of the Korean War. If these deaths are subtracted from the 54,000 total, leaving just the Americans who died (from whatever cause) in the Korean theater of operations, the total U.S. dead in the Korean War numbers 36,516.  
















Jun 27, 1940: Germans get Enigma  

On this day in 1940, the Germans set up two-way radio communication in their newly occupied French territory, employing their most sophisticated coding machine, Enigma, to transmit information.  

The Germans set up radio stations in Brest and the port town of Cherbourg. Signals would be transmitted to German bombers so as to direct them to targets in Britain. The Enigma coding machine, invented in 1919 by Hugo Koch, a Dutchman, looked like a typewriter and was originally employed for business purposes. The German army adapted the machine for wartime use and considered its encoding system unbreakable. They were wrong. The Brits had broken the code as early as the German invasion of Poland and had intercepted virtually every message sent through the system. Britain nicknamed the intercepted messages Ultra.











Jun 27, 1944: U.S. troops liberate Cherbourg, France

On this day in 1944, the Allies capture the fortified town and port of Cherbourg, in northwest France, freeing it from German occupation. Hitler had for all intents and purposes anticipated his own defeat when, in contrast with the analysis of his advisers, he accurately predicted that the D-Day invasion would be focused on Normandy. He knew the Allies needed to take a large port-and Cherbourg fit the bill. (The Brits had actually handpicked Cherbourg as the target for a "Cross-Channel" landing back in 1942.) Once the Allies actually landed on Normandy beaches June 6, the fall of Cherbourg was only a matter of time.




























Jun 27, 1963: JFK visits Ireland

John F. Kennedy, an Irish-American and the first Catholic to become president of the United States, arrives in Ireland for a visit on this day in 1963.  

Kennedy was proud of his Irish roots and made a special visit to his ancestral home in Dunganstown, County Wexford, while in the country. There, he was greeted by a crowd waving both American and Irish flags and was serenaded by a boys choir that sang "The Boys of Wexford." According to the BBC report that day, Kennedy broke away from his bodyguards and joined the choir for the second chorus, prompting misty-eyed reactions from both observers and the press.  

Kennedy met with 15 members of his extended Irish family at the Kennedy homestead in Dunganstown. There he enjoyed a cup of tea and some cake and made a toast to "all those Kennedys who went and all those Kennedys who stayed." His great-grandfather Thomas Fitzgerald had left Ireland for the United States in the middle of the Great Famine of 1848 and settled in Boston, becoming a cooper. Generations of his descendants went on to make their mark on American politics.  

JFK's father, Joseph Kennedy, was a successful businessman who was highly influential in state and national politics. He served as President Franklin D. Roosevelt's chairman of the Securities Exchange Commission from 1933 to 1935 and as ambassador to England from 1938 to 1940. John F. Kennedy served as president from 1961 to 1963, before being assassinated. Robert F. Kennedy, John's brother, served as attorney general during his administration and ran for president in 1968 before he too was assassinated. Another of Joseph's sons, former Massachusetts Senator Edward "Ted" Kennedy, also ran for president in 1979. The Kennedy political tradition continued with a fourth (American-born) generation including, but unlikely to be limited to, U.S. Representative Patrick Kennedy (D-R.I.), Massachusetts Representative Joseph Kennedy II and Maryland state legislator Mark Kennedy Shriver.  

At the time of JFK's visit to Ireland, the predominantly Catholic Irish Republic had been an independent nation for 41 years. The northern counties of the island, however, remained part of the largely Protestant British Empire and still suffered from long-standing sectarian violence. The next day, in Dublin, Kennedy spoke before the Irish parliament, where he openly condemned Britain's history of persecuting Irish Catholics. Two days later, he traveled to England, America's oldest ally, to meet with British Prime Minister Harold MacMillan and his cabinet to discuss setting up a pro-democratic regime in British Guyana.


















Jun 27, 1988: Tyson knocks out Spinks         

On June 27, 1988, heavyweight champion Mike Tyson knocks out challenger Michael Spinks 91 seconds into the first round. The decisive victory left the boxing world wondering if anyone could beat "Iron Mike" Tyson.  

Mike Tyson was born on June 30, 1966, in Brooklyn, New York. He had a troubled childhood in Brooklyn’s Brownsville neighborhood, an area known for its poverty and high crime. As a child he often skipped school, spending his time on Brownsville’s streets engaging in petty crimes. Tyson responded violently to his peers’ teasing about his high, lisping voice, which led to several stints in juvenile detention centers. He was eventually sent to a reform school near Catskill, New York, where he was discovered by legendary boxing trainer Cus D’Amato. D’Amato became a father figure to "Iron" Mike and a stabilizing force in his life: He took the young fighter into his home and dedicated himself to Tyson’s training. D’Amato helped Tyson to focus his aggression and develop the discipline to become a champion.  

Tyson won his first 19 professional fights by knockout, 15 of those coming in the first round. It was during this run that D’Amato died, in November 1985, at the age of 77. D’Amato’s associate Kevin Rooney took over as Tyson’s trainer, and one year later, Tyson beat Trevor Berbick for the WBC heavyweight championship in his first title shot. On March 7, 1987, Mike Tyson defeated James "Bonecrusher" Smith to unify the WBA and WBC heavyweight titles. Already the youngest-ever heavyweight champion, Tyson became the youngest undisputed heavyweight champion in boxing history.  

Over the course of the next year, Tyson defeated four other opponents to retain his title and, in 1988, knocked out Larry Holmes, the only knockout of Holmes’ 76 fights as a pro. After Holmes, Michael Spinks was considered the only boxer with a chance against Tyson. Spinks had won Olympic gold in 1976 as a middleweight, beat Mustafa Muhammad for the light heavyweight championship in 1981 and later became the undisputed light heavyweight champ with a 1983 victory over Dwight Braxton. By 1985, he was struggling to find light heavyweight challengers, so he moved up a class to fight heavyweight Larry Holmes. Spinks outmaneuvered the bigger but older Holmes on his way to a 15-round decision and the IBF heavyweight belt on September 21, 1985. In the rematch a year later, Spinks won again.  

To beat Tyson, Michael Spinks knew he had to dodge and weave to avoid the young champ’s punishing blows. Tyson, meanwhile, planned to charge straight ahead and hurt his shifty challenger early. Tyson’s trainer, Kevin Rooney, said before the fight that he had bet his cut and Iron Mike’s purse on a first-round knockout. When the bell rang, Tyson charged forward, as expected. Spinks could not escape him, and he was battered by right hands until he decided to slug it out. After being hit with a right to the head, Spinks took a left hook to the jaw and was dropped to his knees. He took three counts from the referee, stood up, waited through the mandatory eight count and then was knocked unconscious by another left hook, this one followed by a right hand that landed Spinks flat on his back. Spinks was knocked out 91 seconds into the biggest payday and worst beating of his career.  

The fight was the peak of Tyson’s dominance, the apex of a promising career that turned sour, then tragic and eventually almost comic. Michael Spinks never fought again.


I remember one event in particular that happened on this date: the Mike Tyson-Michael Spinks match. it was highly touted as the decisive match between the two undefeated and dominant heavyweight champions, and many people were divided as to who was going to win. But we all know what happened. Spinks came out, not sweating and looking uncertain, even scared. Tyson came out looking focused and intent to hurt Spinks. And the fight lasted all of 91 seconds. It was perhaps the most iconic match of Tyson's dominance at the time, as it seemed he would take on all comers and knock them out in short order. At that point, he looked absolutely invincible, although that would change, and in much shorter order than anyone could have expected.

Here's a more detailed look at events that transpired on this date throughout history:

363 - The death of Roman Emperor Julian brought an end to the Pagan Revival.

678 - St Agatho begins his reign as Catholic Pope

1358 - Republic of Dubrovnik is founded

1542 - Juan Rodriguez Cabrillo claims California for Spain

1580 - Duke van Alva's army occupies Portugal

1652 - New Amsterdam (now NYC) passes 1st speed limit law in US

1693 - First sea battle of Lagos: England & Holland vs France

1693 - First woman's magazine "Ladies' Mercury" published (London)

1697 - Polish parliament selects monarch August van Saksen as king

1709 - Peter the Great defeats Charles XII of Sweden at the Battle of Poltava.

1743 - English defeat French at Dettingen

1743 - War of the Austrian Succession: Battle of Dettingen: in Bavaria, George II personally leads troops into battle. The last time a British monarch would command troops in the field.

1756 - French fleet conquer St Philips Castle of Minorca

1759 - General James Wolfe begins the siege of Quebec.

1778 - Liberty Bell came home to Phila after the British had left

1806 - Buenos Aires captured by British

1833 - Prudence Crandall, a white woman, arrested for conducting an academy for black females at Canterbury Conn

1847 - NY & Boston linked by telegraph wires

1862 - -28] Battle at Garnett's/Golding's Farms, Virginia

1862 - Battle of Gaines' Mill, VA (Cold Harbor, Chickahominy Bluffs) Day 3

1863 - Skirmish at Fairfax (Courthouse) Virginia

1864 - Atlanta Campaign: Battle of Kennesaw Mountain GA

1867 - Bank of California opens doors

1876 - 1st NLer to get 6 hits in 9 inn game (Dave Force, Phila Athletics)

1876 - Democratic Party elects Samuel Tilden as presidential candidate

1890 - Cecil Rhodes' colonies attack Motlousi at Matabeleland

1890 - George Dixon becomes 1st black boxing champ (Bantam weight)

1893 - Great stock crash on NY stock exchange

1905 - Russian sailors mutiny aboard battleship "Potemkin"

1909 - 23rd US Womens Tennis: Hazel H Wightman beats M Barger-Wallach (60 61)

1909 - Etten-Leur 1st airplane flight in Neth (Belgium count De Lambert)

1914 - Jack Johnson beats Frank Moran in 20 for heavyweight boxing title

1914 - US signs treaty of commerce with Ethiopia

1915 - 100°F (38°C), Fort Yukon Alaska (state record)

1915 - Dutch SDAP demonstrates against conscription

1917 - First baseball player (Hank Gowdy) to enter WW I military service

1922 - Newberry Medal 1st presented for kids literature (Hendrik Van Loon)

1923 - Capt. Lowell H. Smith and Lt. John P. Richter perform the first ever aerial refueling in a DH-4B biplane

1929 - 1st color TV demo (NYC)

1929 - Pres Von Hindenburg refuses to pay German debt of WW I

1931 - 3rd Ryder Cup: US wins, 9-3 at Scioto Country Club (Columbus, Ohio, US)

1933 - 4th Ryder Cup: Great Britain wins, 6½-5½ at Southport & Ainsdale, England

1934 - Federal Savings & Loan Association created

1935 - Danno O'Mahoney beats Jim Londos in Boston, to become wrestling champ

1939 - First night game at Cleveland Municipal Stadium (Indians 5, Tigers 0)

1939 - Brooklyn Dodgers tie Boston Braves, 2-2, in 23 innings

1939 - Headley scores a cricket century in each innings v England at Lord's

1940 - Soviet Army attacks Romania

1940 - USSR returns to Gregorian calendar

1941 - Bialystok Poland falls to Germany

1941 - Nazi manifest against the Jews in Amsterdam

1942 - FBI captures 8 Nazi saboteurs from a sub off NY's Long Island

1942 - PQ-17 convoy leaves Iceland for Archangelsk

1943 - Elly Dammers throws Dutch record spear (41,43m)

1943 - Fanny Blankers-Koen runs Dutch record 200m (24.5)

1944 - Cherbourg, France liberated by Allies

1945 - Foundation 1940-45 established

1947 - 98°F (36.8°C) in De Bilt Netherlands

1947 - WRC TV channel 4 in Washington DC (NBC) begins broadcasting

1949 - "Captain Video & His Video Rangers," debut on DUMONT-TV

1950 - "Liar" closes at Broadhurst Theater NYC after 12 performances

1950 - US sends 35 military advisers to South Vietnam

1950 - North Koreans troop reach Seoul, UN asks members to aid South Korea, Harry Truman orders Air Force & Navy into Korean conflict

1953 - Joseph Laniel appointed French premier

1954 - First atomic power station opens (Obninsk, near Moscow, Russia)

1954 - CIA-sponsored rebels overthrow elected government of Guatemala

1955 - "Julius LaRosa Show," debuts on CBS-TV

1955 - 1st automobile seat belt legislation enacted (Illinois)

1956 - Indians trailing Orioles 9-1 come back to win 12-11 in 11 innings

1957 - Hurricane Audrey, kills 526 in Louisiana & Texas

1958 - Billy Pierce's perfect game bid broken with 2 outs in 9th

1958 - Harry Burrell flies KC-135 record (5:27:42.8) NY to London

1959 - "West Side Story" closes at Winter Garden Theater NYC after 734 perfs

1959 - 14th US Women's Open Golf Championship won by Mickey Wright

1959 - Players vote Henry Aaron unanimously for the All-Star Game

1960 - British Somaliland becomes part of Somalia

1960 - Chlorophyll "A" synthesized Cambridge Mass

1960 - Oil pipe line from Rotterdam-Ruhrgebied opens

1962 - NASA civilian pilot Joseph Walker takes X-15 to 6,606 kph, 37,700 m

1962 - Ross Perot begins Electronic Data Systems

1963 - Bill J Kramer & Dakotas record Lennon & McCartney "I Call Your Name"

1963 - Pres Kennedy spent 1st full day in Ireland

1963 - USAF Major Robert A Rushworth in X-15 reaches 86,900 m

1963 - Phillies Johnny Callison hits for cycle, but Phillie centerfielder Tony Gonzalez's error ends his record 205 consecutive errorless games

1964 - "New Phil Silvers Show," last airs on CBS-TV

1964 - "Sie Liebt Dich (She Loves You)" by Die Beatles peaks at #97

1964 - Jan & Dean release "Little Old Lady From Pasadena"

1965 - Carol Mann wins LPGA Carling Golf Open

1966 - First sci-fi soap opera, "Dark Shadows," premieres on ABC-TV

1966 - 4th Mayor's Trophy Game; Yanks beat Mets 5-2

1967 - Race riot in Buffalo NY (200 arrested)

1967 - The world's first ATM is installed in Enfield, London.

1968 - Ludvik Vaculik publishes "Manifest of 2000 words" in Prague

1969 - 50,000 attend Denver Pop Festival

1969 - Honduras/El Salvador breaks diplomatic relations due to soccer match

1969 - Police raid Stonewall Gay Bar in Greenwich Village, NY, about 400 to 1,000 patrons riot against police, it lasts 3 days

1971 - "You're a Good Man Charlie Brown" closes at Golden NYC after 31 perfs

1973 - "Live & Let Die" premieres in US

1973 - John W Dean tells Watergate Committee about Nixon's "enemies list"

1973 - Uruguay suspends constitution

1973 - The President of Uruguay dissolves Parliament and heads a coup d'état.

1974 - "Flip Wilson Show," last airs on NBC-TV

1974 - US president Nixon visits USSR

1976 - "Pacific Overtures" closes at Winter Garden NYC after 193 perfs

1976 - Air France Airbus hijacked in Germany to Uganda 1976 - Israeli raid on Entebbe, Uganda

1976 - Portuguese general Antonio Eanes elected president

1977 - 5-4 Supreme Court decision allows lawyers to advertise

1977 - Djibouti (Afars & Issas) claims Independence from France

1977 - Willie McCovey smashes 2 HRs in inning for 2nd time (Apr 12, 1973)

1978 - Henry Rono of Kenya sets record for 3,000 m, 7:32.1

1978 - Soyuz 30 carries 2 cosmonauts (1 Polish) to Salyut 6 space station

1978 - US Seasat 1, 1st oceanographic satellite, launched into polar orbit

1979 - Heavyweight Muhammad Ali confirms that his 3rd retirement is final (it isn't)

1979 - Supreme Court rules employers may use quotas to help minorities

1980 - 1st female state police graduates (NJ)

1980 - Dodger's Jerry Reuss' no-hits SF Giants 8-0

1980 - Italian plane crashes into Tyrrheense Sea, kills 81

1980 - US revives draft registration

1981 - "Bette Davis Eyes" by Kim Carnes returns to #1 slot

1981 - Cambodia adopts its constitution

1981 - Pamela Jenks, 21, crowned 14th Miss Black America

1982 - "Dancin'" closes at Broadhurst Theater NYC after 1,774 performances

1982 - "Play Me a Country Song" opens & closes at Virginia Theater NYC

1982 - STS-4 Launch (Columbia)

1983 - Highest price paid for painting by a living artist 960,200 pounds - Miro

1983 - Mariners bat out of order against White Sox in 2nd inning

1983 - NASA launches space vehicle S-205

1983 - Soyuz T-9 carries 2 cosmonauts to Salyut 7 space station

1984 - Emmy 11th Daytime Award presentation - Susan Lucci loses for 5th time

1984 - Fire destroys a set in "A View to the Kill"

1984 - France wins soccer's European Cup

1984 - Late Night's 1st Tower Drop

1984 - Supreme Court ends NCAA monopoly on college football telecasts

1985 - First hotel strike in NY

1985 - Route 66 (Chicago to Santa Monica), is decertified

1986 - Anne White shocks Wimbledon by wearing only a body stocking

1986 - In referendum, Irish uphold ban on divorce

1986 - Robby Thompson (SF) sets record, caught stealing 4 times in 1 game

1986 - SF Giant Robby Thompson is caught stealing record 4 times

1986 - US informs NZ it will not defend it against attack

1986 - World Court rules US aid to Nicaraguan contras illegal

1987 - Supreme Court Justice Powell retires

1988 - Mike Tyson KOs Michael Spink in 91 seconds, in Atlantic City ($67m)

1988 - Reds bat out of order against Padres in 1st inning

1990 - Jose Canseco signs record $4,700,000 per year Oak A's contract

1990 - Salman Rushdie, condemned to death by Iran, contributes $8600 to help their earthquake victims

1991 - Emmy 18th Daytime Award presentation - Susan Lucci loses for 12th time

1991 - Associate Justice Thurgood Marshall resigned from the U.S. Supreme Court. He had been appointed in 1967 by President Lyndon Johnson.

1992 - "57 Channels (and Nothin' on)" by Bruce Springsteen peaks at #68

1992 - 193rd ranked Andrei Olhovsky defeats #1 seed Jim Courier at Wimbledon

1992 - Dan O'Brien fails on pole vault & eliminated from Olympics decathlon

1992 - Daryl Gates retires as LA police chief

1993 - "Falsettos" closes at John Golden Theater NYC after 487 performances

1993 - NY Met pitcher Anthony Young loses record 24th straight game

1993 - Don Henley booed in Milwaukee when he dedicates the song "It's Not Easy Being Green" to President Clinton

1994 - "Gray's Anatomy" closes at Beaumont Theater NYC after 8 performances

1994 - 118°F (47.8°C) at Lakewood New Mexico[dup]

1994 - 118°F (47.8°C) at Lakewood New Mexico (state record)

1994 - NY Daily News increases prices to 50 cents

1994 - Aerosmith become first major band to let fans download a full new track free from the internet

1995 - Holland's debut in English domestic comp (v Northants, NatWest)

1995 - Mason City Iowa's TV news personality Jodi Huisentruit disappears

1995 - Space shuttle STS-71 (Atlantis 14), launches

1995 - Former WMMS engineer William Alford is sentenced to 10 days & $1,000 fine for cutting feed during Howard Stern's broadcast from Cleveland

1995 - Qatar's Crown Prince Sheik Hamad bin Khalifa al-Thani ousted his father in a bloodless palace coup.

1998 - An English woman was impregnated with her dead husband's sperm after two-year legal battle over her right to the sperm.

1998 - In a live joint news conference in China U.S. President Clinton and President Jiang Zemin offered an uncensored airing of differences on human rights, freedom, trade and Tibet.

1998 - Opening of the Kuala Lumpur International Airport in Malaysia.

1999 - ATB go to No.1 on the UK singles chart with '9pm, Till I Come'

1999 - The Chemical Brothers go to No.1 on the UK album chart with 'Surrender', their second No.1 album

2001 - Pope John Paul II beatifies 28 Ukrainian Greek Catholics, including 27 martyrs most of whom were killed by the Soviet secret police. Beatification takes place at the service in Lviv, western Ukraine during his first visit to this country.

2001 - The International Court of Justice finds against the United States in its judgement in the LaGrand Case.

2002 - In the U.S., the Securities and Exchange Commission required companies with annual sales of more than $1.2 billion to submit sworn statements backing up the accuracy of their financial reports.

2003 - The United States National Do Not Call Registry, formed to combat unwanted telemarketing calls and administered by the Federal Trade Commission, enrolls almost three-quarters of a million phone numbers on its first day.

2005 - In Alaska's Denali National Park, a roughly 70-million year old dinosaur track was discovered. The track was form a three-toed Cretaceous period dinosaur.

2005 - AMD files broad antitrust complaints against Intel Corporation in U.S. Federal District Court, alleging abuse of monopoly powers and antitrust violations.

2007 - The Brazilian Military Police invades the favelas of Complexo do Alemão in an episode which is remembered as the Complexo do Alemão massacre.

2008 - Bill Gates steps down as Chairman of Microsoft Corporation to work full time for the Bill & Melinda Gates Foundation




 1693 - "The Ladies' Mercury" was published by John Dunton in London. It was the first women's magazine and contained a "question and answer" column that became known as a "problem page."   1743 - King George II of England defeated the French at Dettingen, Bavaria, in the War of the Austrian Succession.   1787 - Edward Gibbon completed "The Decline and Fall of the Roman Empire." It was published the following May.   1801 - British forces defeated the French and took control of Cairo, Egypt.   1847 - New York and Boston were linked by telegraph wires.   1871 - The yen became the new form of currency in Japan.   1885 - Chichester Bell and Charles S. Tainter applied for a patent for the gramophone. It was granted on May 4, 1886.   1893 - The New York stock market crashed. By the end of the year 600 banks and 74 railroads had gone out of business.   1905 - The battleship Potemkin succumbed to a mutiny on the Black Sea.   1918 - Two German pilots were saved by parachutes for the first time.   1923 - Yugoslav Premier Nikola Pachitch was wounded by Serb attackers in Belgrade.   1924 - Democrats offered Mrs. Leroy Springs for vice presidential nomination. She was the first woman considered for the job.   1927 - The U.S. Marines adopted the English bulldog as their mascot.   1929 - Scientists at Bell Laboratories in New York revealed a system for transmitting television pictures.   1931 - Igor Sikorsky filed U.S. Patent 1,994,488, which marked the breakthrough in helicopter technology.   1940 - Robert Pershing Wadlow was measured by Dr. Cyril MacBryde and Dr. C. M. Charles. They recorded his height at 8' 11.1." He was only 22 at the time of his death on July 15, 1940.   1942 - The FBI announced the capture of eight Nazi saboteurs who had been put ashore from a submarine on New York's Long Island.   1944 - During World War II, American forces completed their capture of the French port of Cherbourg from the German army.   1949 - "Captain Video and His Video Rangers" premiered on the Dumont Television Network.   1950 - Two days after North Korea invaded South Korea, U.S. President Truman ordered the Air Force and Navy into the Korean conflict. The United Nations Security Council had asked for member nations to help South Korea repel an invasion from the North.   1954 - The world's first atomic power station opened at Obninsk, near Moscow.   1955 - The first "Wide Wide World" was broadcast on NBC-TV.   1955 - The state of Illinois enacted the first automobile seat belt legislation.   1958 - NBC's "Matinee Theatre" was seen for the final time.   1959 - The play, "West Side Story," with music by Leonard Bernstein, closed after 734 performances on Broadway.   1961 - Arthur Michael Ramsey was enthroned as the 100th Archbishop of Canterbury.   1964 - Ernest Borgnine and Ethel Merman were married. It only lasted 38 days.   1966 - "Dark Shadows" began running on ABC-TV.   1967 - The world's first cash dispenser was installed at Barclays Bank in Enfield, England. The device was invented by John Sheppard-Barron. The machine operated on a voucher system and the maximum withdrawal was $28.   1967 - Two hundred people were arrested during a race riot in Buffalo, NY.   1969 - Patrons at the Stonewall Inn, a gay bar in New York City's Greenwich Village, clashed with police. This incident is considered to be the birth of the homosexual rights movement.   1972 - Bobby Hull signed a 10-year hockey contract for $2,500,000. He became a player and coach of the Winnipeg Jets of the World Hockey Association.   1973 - Former White House counsel John W. Dean told the Senate Watergate Committee about an "enemies list" that was kept by the Nixon White House.   1973 - Nixon vetoed a Senate ban on bombing Cambodia.   1980 - U.S. President Carter signed legislation reviving draft registration.   1984 - The U.S. Supreme Court ruled that individual colleges could make their own TV package deals.   1984 - The Federal Communications Commission moved to deregulate U.S. commercial TV by lifting most programming requirements and ending day-part restrictions on advertising.   1985 - Route 66 was officially removed from the United States Highway System.   1985 - The U.S. House of Representatives voted to limit the use of combat troops in Nicaragua.   1986 - The World Court ruled that the U.S. had broken international law by aiding Nicaraguan rebels.


1844 Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints founder Joseph Smith was murdered by a mob in Carthage, Ill. 1898 Joshua Slocum became the first person to successfully circumnavigate the earth alone when he landed his sloop Spray in Newport, R.I., a 46,000-mile trip. 1922 The Newbery Medal for children’s literature was first awarded. 1950 President Harry S. Truman ordered the Air Force and Navy into the Korean War. 1954 The world's first atomic power station opened at Obninsk, near Moscow. 1969 Police and gays clashed at the Stonewall Inn in New York City, fostering the gay rights movement. 1985 The legendary Route 66, running from Chicago to Santa Monica, Calif., was decertified, the victim of the Interstate Highway System. 2003 The national do-not-call registry, formed to combat unwanted telemarketing calls and administered by the Federal Trade Commission, enrolled almost three-quarters of a million phone numbers on its first day.



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/jun27.htm

http://www.history.com/this-day-in-history

http://www.infoplease.com/dayinhistory

On This Day in History - June 26 U.N. Charter Signed, The Berlin Airlift and "Ich Bin Ein Berliner"

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!

http://www.history.com/this-day-in-history


Jun 26, 1945: U.N. Charter signed

In the Herbst Theater auditorium in San Francisco, delegates from 50 nations sign the United Nations Charter, establishing the world body as a means of saving "succeeding generations from the scourge of war." The Charter was ratified on October 24, and the first U.N. General Assembly met in London on January 10, 1946.  

Despite the failure of the League of Nations in arbitrating the conflicts that led up to World War II, the Allies as early as 1941 proposed establishing a new international body to maintain peace in the postwar world. The idea of the United Nations began to be articulated in August 1941, when U.S. President Franklin D. Roosevelt and British Prime Minister Winston Churchill signed the Atlantic Charter, which proposed a set of principles for international collaboration in maintaining peace and security. Later that year, Roosevelt coined "United Nations" to describe the nations allied against the Axis powers--Germany, Italy, and Japan. The term was first officially used on January 1, 1942, when representatives of 26 Allied nations met in Washington, D.C., and signed the Declaration by the United Nations, which endorsed the Atlantic Charter and presented the united war aims of the Allies.  

In October 1943, the major Allied powers--Great Britain, the United States, the USSR, and China--met in Moscow and issued the Moscow Declaration, which officially stated the need for an international organization to replace the League of Nations. That goal was reaffirmed at the Allied conference in Tehran in December 1943, and in August 1944 Great Britain, the United States, the USSR, and China met at the Dumbarton Oaks estate in Washington, D.C., to lay the groundwork for the United Nations. Over seven weeks, the delegates sketched out the form of the world body but often disagreed over issues of membership and voting. Compromise was reached by the "Big Three"--the United States, Britain, and the USSR--at the Yalta Conference in February 1945, and all countries that had adhered to the 1942 Declaration by the United Nations were invited to the United Nations founding conference.  

On April 25, 1945, the United Nations Conference on International Organization convened in San Francisco with 50 nations represented. Three months later, during which time Germany had surrendered, the final Charter of the United Nations was unanimously adopted by the delegates. On June 26, it was signed. The Charter, which consisted of a preamble and 19 chapters divided into 111 articles, called for the U.N. to maintain international peace and security, promote social progress and better standards of life, strengthen international law, and promote the expansion of human rights. The principal organs of the U.N., as specified in the Charter, were the Secretariat, the General Assembly, the Security Council, the Economic and Social Council, the International Court of Justice, and the Trusteeship Council.  

On October 24, 1945, the U.N. Charter came into force upon its ratification by the five permanent members of the Security Council and a majority of other signatories. The first U.N. General Assembly, with 51 nations represented, opened in London on January 10, 1946. On October 24, 1949, exactly four years after the United Nations Charter went into effect, the cornerstone was laid for the present United Nations headquarters, located in New York City. Since 1945, the Nobel Peace Prize has been awarded more than ten times to the United Nations and its organizations or to individual U.N. officials, most recently to both the organization as a whole and Secretary-General Kofi Annan in 2001.
























June 26, 1948: U.S. begins Berlin Airlift

On this day in 1948, U.S. and British pilots begin delivering food and supplies by airplane to Berlin after the city is isolated by a Soviet Union blockade.  

When World War II ended in 1945, defeated Germany was divided into Soviet, American, British and French zones of occupation. The city of Berlin, though located within the Soviet zone of occupation, was also split into four sectors, with the Allies taking the western part of the city and the Soviets the eastern. In June 1948, Josef Stalin's government attempted to consolidate control of the city by cutting off all land and sea routes to West Berlin in order to pressure the Allies to evacuate. As a result, beginning on June 24 the western section of Berlin and its 2 million people were deprived of food, heating fuel and other crucial supplies.  

Though some in U.S. President Harry S. Truman's administration called for a direct military response to this aggressive Soviet move, Truman worried such a response would trigger another world war. Instead, he authorized a massive airlift operation under the control of General Lucius D. Clay, the American-appointed military governor of Germany. The first planes took off from England and western Germany on June 26, loaded with food, clothing, water, medicine and fuel.  

By July 15, an average of 2,500 tons of supplies was being flown into the city every day. The massive scale of the airlift made it a huge logistical challenge and at times a great risk. With planes landing at Tempelhof Airport every four minutes, round the clock, pilots were being asked to fly two or more round-trip flights every day, in World War II planes that were sometimes in need of repair.  

The Soviets lifted the blockade in May 1949, having earned the scorn of the international community for subjecting innocent men, women and children to hardship and starvation. The airlift--called die Luftbrucke or "the air bridge" in German--continued until September 1949, for a total delivery of more than 1.5 million tons of supplies and a total cost of over $224 million. When it ended, the eastern section of Berlin was absorbed into Soviet East Germany, while West Berlin remained a separate territory with its own government and close ties to West Germany. The Berlin Wall, built in 1961, formed a dividing line between East and West Berlin. Its destruction in 1989 presaged the 1991 collapse of the Soviet Union and marked the end of an era and the reemergence of Berlin as the capital of a new, unified German nation.











Jun 26, 1963: Kennedy claims solidarity with the people of Berlin

President John F. Kennedy expresses solidarity with democratic German citizens in a speech on this day in 1963. In front of the Berlin Wall that separated the city into democratic and communist sectors, he declared to the crowd, "Ich bin ein Berliner" or "I am also a citizen of Berlin."  

In his speech, Kennedy assured West Germans that free nations still stood by the people of the democratically controlled sectors of Berlin who had lived within the hostile borders of East Germany since the end of World War II. Immediately after the war, the city of Berlin was divided into West Berlin, comprised of American, British and French-administered democratic enclaves, and East Berlin, an East German communist-controlled area. In an early confrontation of the Cold War, West Berliners had endured a Soviet-imposed blockade of their part of the city between June 1948 and May 1949 that cut off their food and energy supplies. In response, the Allied Military Air Transport Service had flown food, coal and school supplies into the city in an unprecedented logistical feat known as "Operation Vittles" or the "Berlin Airlift."  

At the time of Kennedy's speech to West Berliners in 1963, the city's democratic enclave remained a tiny but strategically important foothold for democracy within communist-controlled Eastern Europe.





















Jun 26, 1917: First U.S. troops arrive in France

During World War I, the first 14,000 U.S. infantry troops land in France at the port of Saint Nazaire. The landing site had been kept secret because of the menace of German submarines, but by the time the Americans had lined up to take their first salute on French soil, an enthusiastic crowd had gathered to welcome them. However, the "Doughboys," as the British referred to the green American troops, were untrained, ill-equipped, and far from ready for the difficulties of fighting along the Western Front.  

One of U.S. General John J. Pershing's first duties as commander of the American Expeditionary Force was to set up training camps in France and establish communication and supply networks. Four months later, on October 21, the first Americans entered combat when units from the U.S. Army's First Division were assigned to Allied trenches in the Luneville sector near Nancy, France. Each American unit was attached to a corresponding French unit. Two days later, Corporal Robert Bralet of the Sixth Artillery became the first U.S. soldier to fire a shot in the war when he discharged a French 75mm gun into a German trench a half mile away. On November 2, Corporal James Gresham and privates Thomas Enright and Merle Hay of the 16th Infantry became the first American soldiers to die when Germans raided their trenches near Bathelemont, France.  

After four years of bloody stalemate along the Western Front, the entrance of America's well-supplied forces into the conflict was a major turning point in the war. When the war finally ended on November 11, 1918, more than two million American soldiers had served on the battlefields of Western Europe, and more than 50,000 of these men had lost their lives.





















Jun 26, 1541: Conqueror of the Incas assassinated

Francisco Pizarro, the governor of Peru and conqueror of the Inca civilization, is assassinated in Lima by Spanish rivals.  

The illegitimate son of a Spanish gentleman, Pizarro served under Spanish conquistador Alonso de Ojeda during his expedition to Colombia in 1510 and was with Vasco Nunez de Balboa when he discovered the Pacific Ocean in 1513. Hearing legends of the great wealth of the Incas in South America, Pizarro formed an alliance with fellow conquistador Diego de Almagro in 1524 and sailed back to the Americas. Their first expedition only penetrated as far as present-day Ecuador, but their second reached farther and discovered evidence of the existence of the Inca kingdom.  

Securing aid from Emperor Charles V, and a guarantee that he, not Almagro, would receive the majority of the expedition's future profits, Pizarro sailed to Peru and landed at Tumbes in 1532. He led his army up the Andes Mountains to the Inca city of Cajamarca and met with Atahualpa, the king of the Inca kingdom of Quito. After winning his trust, Pizarro captured Atahualpa, exacted a room full of gold as ransom for his life, and then treacherously had him executed. The conquest of Peru came quickly to Pizarro and his army, and in 1533 Inca resistance came to an end with their defeat at Cuzco.  

Pizarro, now the governor of Peru, founded new settlements, including Lima, and granted Almagro the conquest of Chile as appeasement for claiming the riches of the Inca civilization for himself. However, Pizarro failed to provide Almagro with all the land he had promised, and Almagro responded by seizing Cuzco in 1538. Pizarro sent his half brother, Hernando, to reclaim the city, and Almagro was defeated and put to death. Three years later, on June 26, 1541, a group hired by Almagro's former adherents penetrated Pizarro's palace and slew the conquistador while he was eating dinner. Shortly after his death, Diego el Monzo, Almagro's son, proclaimed himself governor of Peru.



















Jun 26, 1959: St. Lawrence Seaway opened

In a ceremony presided over by U.S. President Dwight D. Eisenhower and Queen Elizabeth II, the St. Lawrence Seaway is officially opened, creating a navigational channel from the Atlantic Ocean to all the Great Lakes. The seaway, made up of a system of canals, locks, and dredged waterways, extends a distance of nearly 2,500 miles, from the Atlantic Ocean through the Gulf of St. Lawrence to Duluth, Minnesota, on Lake Superior.  

Work on the massive project was initiated by a joint U.S.-Canadian commission in 1954, and five years later, in April 1959, the icebreaker D'Iberville began the first transit of the St. Lawrence Seaway. Since its official opening, more than two billion tons of cargo, with an estimated worth of more than $300 billion, have moved along its canals and channels.


Ironic that I have been posting quite a bit about Berlin the last couple of days, and then, this winds up being the anniversary of a very important date and events in Berlin history. Didn't plan it like this, but hey, if it works....

This date is an important one in the history of Berlin. There was the Soviet blockade of Berlin, which the Western Allies (France, Great Britain, and the United States) responded to with the Berlin Airlift, allowing crucial supplies that enabled the small western section of the city to continue. Well over a decade later, shortly following the construction of the Berlin Wall, President John F. Kennedy visited the site of the Brandenburg Gate, with the Wall in between the West and the famous landmark, which lay on the eastern side. Kennedy uttered those now famous words, "Ich bin ein Berliner", which famously literally translates to "I am a doughnut". Yet, the spirit of his words of resistance to tyranny and the harsh division which the Berlin Wall represented were well understood, and lived on.

Some other things also happened on this date in history. The Roman Emperor Julian was killed, and General Jovian was proclaimed Emperor by his troops on the battlefield.  The Duke of Gloucester appointed himself King Richard III of England. Now, here's something surprising that I always thought was a fairy tale, but apparently actually happened: : the Pied Piper actually led children of Hamelin away. The Lewis and Clark Expedition reached a landmark at the end of the Kansas River. The bicycle was patented in the United States, and the first pure food laws were established in the States, as well (think we could use pure food laws these days as well, actually). This date marked the end of the June Days Uprising in Paris. The first section of the famous Atlantic City boardwalk was completed. Wagner's "Valkyrie" premiered in Munich. Karl Benz of Germany received an American patent for a gasoline run automobile. The first movie theater in the United States opened on this date. The Soviet Union gave up on it's special calendar. The three New York baseball teams played a unique game in history, in which all three participated, alternating during innings, promoting war bonds. The Freedom Charter was agreed to in South Africa. The Beatles released "A Hard Day's Night" and on the same day, blacks and whites in St. Augustine rioted over racial segregation. Italian Somaliland became independent from Italy, on the same day that Madagascar gained independence from France. Kuwait rejected Iraq's annexation plans. Indian Prime Minister Indira Gandhi declared a state of emergency on grounds of a conspiracy. The CN Tower opened in Toronto. Elvis performed in his last concert ever in Indianapolis. The Palace of Versailles was bombed by separatists from Bretagne. Muhammad Ali retired as heavyweight boxing champion. The Supreme Court ruled that 16 year olds can be given the death sentence. Nelson Mandela addressed Congress the year after his infamous imprisonment. On this date in 1994, record setting hot temperatures were set throughout the American southwest, and on the same day, Yassir Arafat returned to Palestine after 27 years.

Here's a more detailed look at events that transpired on this date throughout history:



363 - Roman Emperor Julian was killed during the retreat from the Sassanid Empire. General Jovian is proclaimed Emperor by the troops on the battlefield.

684 -  St Benedict II begins his reign as Catholic Pope

1096 - Peter the Hermit's crusaders forced their way across Sava, Hungary.

1243 - The Seljuk Turkish army in Asia Minor was wiped out by the Mongols.

1284 - Pied Piper lures 130 children of Hamelin away (actually happened)

1409 - Council of Pisa selects Petros Philargi as 3rd Pope: Alexander V

1483 - Duke of Gloucester appointed himself King Richard III of England

1498 - Toothbrush invented

1553 - Christ's Hospital in England granted a charter

1630 - Swedish troops under Gustaf II Adolf lands at Peenemunde

1714 - Spain and Netherlands sign peace/trade agreement

1718 - Tsarevich Alexei Petrovich of Russia, Peter the Great's son, mysteriously dies after being sentenced to death by his father for plotting against him.

1721 - Dr Zabdiel Boylston gives 1st smallpox inoculations in America

1723 - After a lasting siege and bombardment by cannons, Baku surrenders to the Russians.

1794 - Battle of Colors: France under Jourdan beats Austrian army at the Battle of Fleurus.

1797 - Charles Newbold patents first cast-iron plow. He can't sell it to farmers, though, they fear effects of iron on soil!

1804 - The Lewis and Clark Expedition reached the mouth of the Kansas River after completing a westward trek of nearly 400 river miles.

1807 - Lightning hits gunpowder warehouse in Luxembourg; 230 die

1819 - The bicycle was patented by W.K. Clarkson, Jr.

1843 - Hong Kong was proclaimed a British crown colony.

1844 - John Tyler took Julia Gardiner as his bride, thus becoming the first U.S. President to marry while in office.

1848 - First pure food law enacted in US

1848 - End of the June Days Uprising in Paris.

1857 - 62 receive Victoria Cross

1857 - Cawnpore England massacre

1862 - Battle of Beaver Dam Creek-Union repulses Confederacy in Virginia

1862 - Day 2 of 7 Days-Battle of Mechanicsville VA (Meadow Bridge)

1862 - US Army of Virginia established under Gen John Pope

1870 - The first section of the boardwalk in Atlantic City, NJ, was opened to the public.

1870 - Wagner's opera "Valkyrie" premieres in Munich

1870 - The Christian holiday of Christmas is declared a federal holiday in the United States.

1879 - Ismael Pasha resigns as khedive of Egypt

1894 - Karl Benz of Germany receives US patent for gasoline-driven auto

1894 - The American Railway Union called a general strike in sympathy with Pullman workers.

1896 - First movie theater in US opens, charging 10 cents for admission

1900 - A commission that included Dr. Walter Reed began the fight against the deadly disease yellow fever.

1900 - The United States announced that it would send troops to fight against the Boxer rebellion in China.

1902 - Order of Merit instituted by King Edward VII

1902 - Start of Sherlock Holmes "Adventure of 3 Garidebs" (BG)

1906 - Hongar Szisz wins first Grand-Prix (Le Mans, France)

1907 - Russia's nobility demanded drastic measures to be taken against revolutionaries.

1907 - Bolsheviks overthrows transport in Tiflis

1908 - Shah Muhammad Ali's forces squelched the reform elements of Parliament in Persia.

1909 - 23rd US Womens Tennis: H Hotchkiss beats Maud Barger-Wallach (60 61)

1909 - Victoria & Albert Museum opens in London

1910 - 24th US Womens Tennis: H Hotchkiss Wightman beats L Hammond (64 62)

1910 - Hazel Hotchkiss wins US Lawn Tennis Association championship

1911 - Nieuport sets an aircraft speed record of 83 mph (133 kph)

1912 - Gustav Mahler's 9th Symphony premieres in Vienna

1915 - Germany suppresses its "Vorwarts" newspaper after it called for peace

1916 - Cleveland Indians experiment with #s on their jerseys (one game)

1917 - First US Expeditionary Force arrive in France during WW I

1917 - General John "Black Jack" Pershing arrived in France with the American Expeditionary Force.

1919 - NY Daily News begins publishing

1924 - After eight years of occupation, American troops left the Dominican Republic.

1924 - Ziegfeld Follies opens on Broadway

1925 - Charlie Chaplin's comedy, "The Gold Rush," premiered in Hollywood.

1926 - A memorial to the first U.S. troops in France was unveiled at St. Nazaire.

1927 - Comet 7P/Pons-Winnecke approaches within 0.0394 AUs of Earth

1927 - The Cyclone roller coaster opens on Coney Island

1929 - ENKA/Vereinigte Glanzstoff Factory merge AKU (Genl Kunstzijde Union)

1934 - FDR signs Federal Credit Union Act, establishing Credit Unions

1934 - Germany & Poland sign no-attack treaty

1934 - W E B Du Bois resigns position at NAACP

1935 - Andrew Sandham's 100th FC hundred, 103 v Hants

1935 - Lloyd Waner sets record of 18 putouts in center in doubleheader

1935 - SDAP & CPH achieve majority in city council in Amsterdam

1935 - Work service for recent graduate obligatory in Germany

1936 - 1st flight of Fw61 helicopter

1936 - Everett Marshall beats Ali Baba in Columbus, to become wrestling champ

1937 - Test cricket debut of Len Hutton v NZ at Lord's, scores 0 & 1

1938 - Cin Red Lonny Frey hits 8 doubles in a doubleheader

1940 - End of USSR experimental calendar; Gregorian readopted 6/27

1941 - Finland enters WW II against Russia

1941 - Lithuanian fascist massacre 2,300 Jews in Kovno

1942 - The Grumman F6F Hellcat fighter was flown for the first time.

1942 - German assault on British at Mersa Matruh

1944 - Second British army reaches Grainville-Mouen line

1944 - Yanks, Dodgers and Giants play unique 6 inn game for War Bonds, each playing successive innings, final score Dodgers-5, Yanks-1 and Giants-0

1945 - England win the second Victory test cricket at Bramall Lane by 41 runs

1945 - The U.N. Charter was signed by 50 nations in San Francisco, CA.    

1946 - Dutch Nazi collaborator Arnold Meijer sentenced to 5 years

1946 - Fred Allen's last radio show, his guest is Jack Benny

1948 - The Berlin Airlift began as the U.S., Britain and France started ferrying supplies to the isolated western sector of Berlin.

1949 - 1st Belgian parliamentary election where women can vote (CVP gains)

1950 - Pres Gottwald of Czech confirms Milada Horakova's death sentence

1951 - The Soviet Union proposed a cease-fire in the Korean War.

1952 - Dutch social democratic party wins elections (29%)

1952 - Nelson Mandela and 51 others infringe South Africa curfew

1953 - KCTV (now KLST) TV channel 8 in San Angelo, TX (CBS) 1st broadcast

1953 - Russian vice-premier/interior minister Beria arrested

1954 - Jim Peters runs marathon in 2:17:39.4

1955 - Freedom Charter signed in South-Africa

1955 - Patty Berg wins LPGA Western Golf Open

1958 - Gaston Eyskens becomes premier of Belgium

1958 - Mackinac Straits Bridge, Michigan dedicated

1958 - Vanguard SLV-2 launched for Earth orbit (failed)

1959 - CBS journalist Edward R. Murrow interviewed Lee Remick. It was his 500th and final guest on "Person to Person."

1959 - U.S. President Eisenhower joined Britain's Queen Elizabeth II in ceremonies officially opening the St. Lawrence Seaway.

1959 - Ingemar Johansson TKOs Floyd Patterson in 3 for heavyweight boxing title

1960 - British Somaliland (now Somalia) gains independence from Britain

1960 - Hall of Fame allows veteran committee to vote annually

1960 - Italian Somaliland declares independence from Italian-administration

1960 - Madagascar (formerly Malagasy Rep) declared independence from France

1961 - A Kuwaiti vote opposed Iraq's annexation plans.

1962 - Blacks begin passive resistance in Cairo Ill

1962 - Boston Red Sox Earl Wilson no-hits LA Angels, 2-0

1962 - WSEC (now WLRN) TV channel 17 in Miami, FL (PBS) begins broadcasting

1963 - Alfons Gorbach forms Austrian government

1963 - Dutch 2nd Chamber condemns commercial TV

1963 - U.S. President John Kennedy announced "Ich bin ein Berliner" (I am a Berliner) at the then newly constructed Berlin Wall.

1964 - Beatles release "A Hard Day's Night" album

1964 - Blacks and Whites riot over racial segregation in St Augustine

1964 - Moise Tsjombe forms government in Congo

1965 - Wallon party forms in Belgium

1966 - "Time for Singing" closes at Broadway Theater NYC after 41 perfs

1966 - Kanton Bazel leads female suffrage in Switzerland

1967 - Pope Paul VI names 27 new cardinals

1968 - Executive Council decides both AL & NL to divide into 2 divisions

1968 - Iwo Jima & Bonin Islands returned to Japan by US

1970 - Frank Robinson hits 2 grand slams as Orioles beat Senators 12-2

1971 - "Man of La Mancha" closes at ANTA Wash Sq Theater NYC after 2329 perfs

1971 - Angels suspend Alex Johnson (after 5 benchings & 29 fines)

1971 - The U.S. Justice Department issued a warrant for Daniel Ellsberg, accusing him of giving away the Pentagon Papers.   "

1972 - Bob Massie takes 16 wickets (8-84 & 8-53) on Test cricket debut v Eng

1972 - IRA proclaims resistant in North-Ireland

1973 - London production of "Grease" premieres

1973 - On Plesetsk Cosmodrome 9 people are killed in an explosion of a Cosmos 3-M rocket.

1974 - Liz Taylor's 5th divorce (Richard Burton)

1974 - The Universal Product Code is scanned for the first time to sell a package of Wrigley's chewing gum at the Marsh Supermarket in Troy, Ohio

1975 - Cher divorces Sonny Bono

1975 - Indian Prime Minister Indira Gandhi declared a state of emergency due to "deep and widespread conspiracy."

1975 - Two FBI agents and a member of the American Indian Movement are killed in a shootout on the Pine Ridge Indian Reservation in South Dakota; Leonard Peltier is later convicted of the murders in a controversial trial.

1976 - WS shortstop Toby Harrah plays DH without touching a batted ball

1976 - The CN (Canadian National) Tower in Toronto opened, the world's tallest free-standing structure.

1977 - 42 die in fire inmate causes at Maury County Jail in Columbia Tenn

1977 - Elvis Presley sings in Indianapolis, last performance of his career

1977 - The Yorkshire Ripper kills 16 year old shop assistant Jayne MacDonald in Leeds, changing public perception of the killer as she was the first victim who was not a prostitute.

1978 - Brittany separatists bomb Palace of Versailles in France

1978 - First dedicated oceanographic satellite, SEASAT 1, launched

1978 - Air Canada Flight 189 to Toronto overruns the runway and crashes into the Etobicoke Creek ravine. Two of 107 passengers on board perish.

1979 - Muhammad Ali, at 37 years old, announced that he was retiring as world heavyweight boxing champion.

1979 - Rocker Nigel Olsson runs a stop sign, crashes & kills a driver

1981 - "For Your Eyes Only" premieres in US

1981 - In Mountain Home, Idaho, Virginia Campbell took her coupons and rebates and bought $26,460 worth of groceries. She only paid 67 cents after all the discounts.

1982 - Carlos Lopes runs Europe record 10k (27:34.39)

1982 - US vetos UN Security Council resolution for a limited withdrawal from Beirut of Israeli & Palestine Liberation Organization forces

1983 - "Loving" premieres on TV

1983 - "Show Boat" closes at Uris Theater NYC after 73 performances

1983 - Ayako Okamoto wins LPGA Rochester Golf International

1984 - 1st flight of Shuttle Discovery (41-D) scrubbed at T -4

1984 - Barbra Streisand records "Here We Are at Last"

1985 - Wilbur Snapp was ejected after playing "Three Blind Mice" during a baseball game. The incident followed a call made by umpire Keith O'Connor.

1986 - South African journalist Zwelakhe Sisulu arrested

1987 - Losing 9-0 to Red Sox, Yanks score 11 in 3rd and win 12-11 in 10 inn

1987 - Supreme Court Justice Lewis F Powell Jr announces his retirement

1987 - The movie "Dragnet" opened in the U.S.

1989 - Canada updates coins with a new potrait of the Queen

1989 - Supreme Court rules 16 year olds can receive death penalty

1990 - 122°F in Phoenix Arizona

1990 - 8 Kansas and Oklahoma radio stations boycott K D Lang, due to her anti-meat ad

1990 - New Kid on the Block Donnie Wahlberg release from hospital after fall

1991 - "Getting Married" opens at Circle in Sq Theater NYC for 70 perfs

1991 - ANC leader Nelson Mandela addresses congress

1991 - Amy Elizabeth Goodman, of California, crowned America's Junior Miss

1991 - Charlotte Hornets make Larry Johnson of UNLV, NBA's #1 draft pick

1991 - Ky medical examiner announces Zachary Taylor died of natural causes

1992 - India leases Tin Bigha corridor to Bangladesh

1992 - NYC's MTA votes to ban cigarette ads on Jan 1, 1993

1992 - Supreme Court rules fund soliciting can be banned at airports

1992 - Denmark upsets German 2-0, to win European Soccer championship

1993 - "Late Night with David Letterman" airs for last time on NBC-TV

1993 - Actress Julia Roberts and country singer Lyle Lovett wed

1993 - NY Met Eddie Murray is 20th to get 1,600 RBIs

1993 - Rebecca Jones, of Georgia, 18, crowned America's Junior Miss

1993 - US Tomahawk-rockets hit Iraqi secret service, Baghdad

1993 - The U.S. launches a missile attack targeting Baghdad intelligence headquarters in retaliation for a thwarted assassination attempt against former President George H.W. Bush in April in Kuwait.

1994 - "Broken Glass" closes at Booth Theater NYC after 73 performances

1994 - "Medea" closes at Longacre Theater NYC after 82 performances

1994 - 104°F (40°C) at Denver Colorado

1994 - 107°F (41.6°C) at Albuquerque New Mexico 1994 - 112°F (44.4°C) at El Paso Texas

1994 - 122°F (50°C) at Laughlin Nevada

1994 - 126°F (52.2°C) in Death Valley Calif

1994 - Air Ivory Fokker's-27 crashes at Abidjan (16 killed/1 lives)

1994 - Donna Andrews wins ShopRite LPGA Golf Classic

1994 - Kirby Puckett pass Rod Carew with 2,088 hit as Twin's top hit leader

1994 - PLO-leader Yasser Arafat returns to Gaza after 27 years

1994 - US loses to Romania 1-0 in 1994 soccer world cup

1995 - Gunmen ambush Egyptian pres Hosni Mubarak, escapes unharmed

1995 - Hamad bin Khalifa al-Thani deposes his father Khalifa bin Hamad al-Thani, the Emir of Qatar, in a bloodless coup.

1996 - Irish Journalist Veronica Guerin is shot in her car while in traffic in the outskirts of Dublin

1996 - The U.S. Supreme Court ordered the Virginia Military Institute to admit women or forgo state support.

1997 - The U.S. Supreme Court struck down the Communications Decency Act of 1996 that made it illegal to distribute indecent material on the Internet.

1997 - The U.S. Supreme Court upheld state laws that allow for a ban on doctor-assisted suicides.

1997 - Galileo, Ganymede Observations (Orbit 9)

1997 - The U.S. Supreme Court ruled that the Communications Decency Act violates the First Amendment

1998 - The U.S. and Peru open school to train commandos to patrol Peru's rivers for drug traffickers.

1998 - The U.S. Supreme Court ruled that employers are always potentially liable for supervisor's sexual misconduct toward an employee.

2000 - The Human Genome Project and Celera Genomics Corp. jointly announced that they had created a working draft of the human genome.

2000 - Indonesia's President Abdurrahman Wahid declared a state of emergency in the Moluccas due to the escalation of fighting between Christians and Muslims.

2000 - The first map of the human genome, which required decoding more than 3 billion biochemical "letters" of human DNA, is completed.

2001 - Ray Bourque (Colorado Avalanche) announced his retirement just 17 days after winning his first Stanley Cup. Bouque retired after 22 years and held the NHL record for highest-scoring defenseman and playing in 19 consecutive All-Star games.

2002 - David Hasseloff checked into The Betty Ford Center for treatment of alcoholism.

2002 - WorldCom Inc. filed for Chapter 11 bankruptcy protection.

2003 - Former South Carolina senator Strom Thurmond died at age 100.

2003 - The U.S. Supreme Court rules in Lawrence v. Texas that gender-based sodomy laws are unconstitutional.

2008 - The U.S. Supreme Court rules in District of Columbia v. Heller that the ban on handguns in the District of Columbia is unconstitutional.





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/jun26.htm

http://www.history.com/this-day-in-history

http://www.infoplease.com/dayinhistory

On This Day in History - June 25 Korean War Begins

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!

http://www.history.com/this-day-in-history

Jun 25, 1950: Korean War begins

Armed forces from communist North Korea smash into South Korea, setting off the Korean War. The United States, acting under the auspices of the United Nations, quickly sprang to the defense of South Korea and fought a bloody and frustrating war for the next three years.  

Korea, a former Japanese possession, had been divided into zones of occupation following World War II. U.S. forces accepted the surrender of Japanese forces in southern Korea, while Soviet forces did the same in northern Korea. Like in Germany, however, the "temporary" division soon became permanent. The Soviets assisted in the establishment of a communist regime in North Korea, while the United States became the main source of financial and military support for South Korea.  

On June 25, 1950, North Korean forces surprised the South Korean army (and the small U.S. force stationed in the country), and quickly headed toward the capital city of Seoul. The United States responded by pushing a resolution through the U.N.'s Security Council calling for military assistance to South Korea. (Russia was not present to veto the action as it was boycotting the Security Council at the time.) With this resolution in hand, President Harry S. Truman rapidly dispatched U.S. land, air, and sea forces to Korea to engage in what he termed a "police action." The American intervention turned the tide, and U.S. and South Korean forces marched into North Korea. This action, however, prompted the massive intervention of communist Chinese forces in late 1950. The war in Korea subsequently bogged down into a bloody stalemate. In 1953, the United States and North Korea signed a cease-fire that ended the conflict. The cease-fire agreement also resulted in the continued division of North and South Korea at just about the same geographical point as before the conflict.  

The Korean War was the first "hot" war of the Cold War. Over 55,000 American troops were killed in the conflict. Korea was the first "limited war," one in which the U.S. aim was not the complete and total defeat of the enemy, but rather the "limited" goal of protecting South Korea. For the U.S. government, such an approach was the only rational option in order to avoid a third world war and to keep from stretching finite American resources too thinly around the globe. It proved to be a frustrating experience for the American people, who were used to the kind of total victory that had been achieved in World War II. The public found the concept of limited war difficult to understand or support and the Korean War never really gained popular support.
























June 25, 1876: Battle of Little Bighorn

On this day in 1876, Native American forces led by Chiefs Crazy Horse and Sitting Bull defeat the U.S. Army troops of Lieutenant Colonel George Armstrong Custer in a bloody battle near southern Montana's Little Bighorn River.  

Crazy Horse and Sitting Bull, leaders of the Sioux tribe on the Great Plains, strongly resisted the mid-19th-century efforts of the U.S. government to confine their people to reservations. In 1875, after gold was discovered in South Dakota's Black Hills, the U.S. Army ignored previous treaty agreements and invaded the region. This betrayal led many Sioux and Cheyenne tribesmen to leave their reservations and join Sitting Bull and Crazy Horse in Montana. By the late spring of 1876, more than 10,000 Native Americans had gathered in a camp along the Little Bighorn River--which they called the Greasy Grass--in defiance of a U.S. War Department order to return to their reservations or risk being attacked.  

In mid-June, three columns of U.S. soldiers lined up against the camp and prepared to march. A force of 1,200 Native Americans turned back the first column on June 17. Five days later, General Alfred Terry ordered Custer's 7th Cavalry to scout ahead for enemy troops. On the morning of June 25, Custer drew near the camp and decided to press on ahead rather than wait for reinforcements.  

At mid-day, Custer's 600 men entered the Little Bighorn Valley. Among the Native Americans, word quickly spread of the impending attack. The older Sitting Bull rallied the warriors and saw to the safety of the women and children, while Crazy Horse set off with a large force to meet the attackers head on. Despite Custer's desperate attempts to regroup his men, they were quickly overwhelmed. Custer and some 200 men in his battalion were attacked by as many as 3,000 Native Americans; within an hour, Custer and every last one of his soldier were dead.  

The Battle of Little Bighorn--also called Custer's Last Stand--marked the most decisive Native American victory and the worst U.S. Army defeat in the long Plains Indian War. The gruesome fate of Custer and his men outraged many white Americans and confirmed their image of the Indians as wild and bloodthirsty. Meanwhile, the U.S. government increased its efforts to subdue the tribes. Within five years, almost all of the Sioux and Cheyenne would be confined to reservations. 

















Jun 25, 1915: Germans release statement on use of poison gas at Ypres

On this day in 1915, the German press publishes an official statement from the country's war command addressing the German use of poison gas at the start of the Second Battle of Ypres two months earlier.  

The German firing of more than 150 tons of lethal chlorine gas against two French colonial divisions at Ypres in Belgium on April 22, 1915, had shocked and horrified their Allied opponents in World War I and provoked angry outbursts against what was seen as inexcusable barbarism, even in the context of warfare. As Sir John French, commander in chief of the British Expeditionary Force (BEF), wrote heatedly of the German attacks at Ypres: "All the scientific resources of Germany have apparently been brought into play to produce a gas of so virulent and poisonous a nature that any human being brought into contact with it is first paralyzed and then meets with a lingering and agonizing death."  

The German statement of June 25, 1915, was a response to this outraged reaction by the Allies; they considered it hypocritical, claiming that their opponents–namely the French–had been manufacturing and employing gas in battle well before the Second Battle of Ypres. "For every one who has kept an unbiased judgment," the statement began, "the official assertions of the strictly accurate and truthful German military administration will be sufficient to prove the prior use of asphyxiating gases by our opponents." It went on to quote from a memorandum issued by the French War Ministry on February 21, 1915, containing instructions for using "these so-called shells with stupefying gases that are being manufactured by our central factories?[that] contain a fluid which streams forth after the explosion, in the form of vapors that irritate the eyes, nose, and throat."  

This memo, the Germans concluded, proved that "the French in their State workshops manufactured shells with asphyxiating gases fully half a year ago at least" and that they must have manufactured sufficient numbers for the War Ministry to issue directions on how to use the shells. "What hypocrisy when the same people grow indignant because the Germans much later followed them on the path they had pointed out!"  

Though the French were, in fact, the first to employ gas during World War I–in August 1914 they used tear-gas grenades containing xylyl bromide to confront the initial German advance in Belgium and northeastern France–Germany was undoubtedly the first belligerent nation during the war to put serious thought and work into the development of chemical weapons that were not merely irritants, like xylyl bromide, but could be used in large quantities to inflict a major defeat on the enemy. In addition to chlorine gas, first used to deadly effect by the Germans at Ypres, phosgene gas and mustard gas were also employed on the battlefields of World War I, mostly by Germany but also by Britain and France, who were forced to quickly catch up to the Germans in the realm of chemical-weapons technology. Though the psychological impact of poison gas was undoubtedly great, its actual impact on the war–like that of the tank–is debatable, due to the low rate of fatality associated with the gas attacks. In total, the war saw some 1.25 million gas casualties but only 91,000 deaths from gas poisoning, with over 50 percent of those fatalities suffered by the poorly equipped Russian army.























Jun 25, 1942: Eisenhower assumes command of U.S. troops in Europe

On this day in 1942, General Dwight D. Eisenhower becomes commander of all U.S. troops in the European theater of World War II, continuing the steady ascent in military rank that would culminate in his appointment as supreme Allied commander of all forces in Europe in 1943. As U.S. commander, Ike developed diplomatic skills that he would later employ as America's 34th president.  

U.S. Army military historians Carl Vuono and M.P.W. Stone have described Eisenhower as a dynamic leader who successfully planned and oversaw military strategy in a complex global environment. These qualities came in handy when Eisenhower was elected president in 1952. The Cold War between democratic and communist nations was in full swing and Eisenhower's ability to form cooperative relationships, his military experience and calm demeanor reassured anxious Americans.  

Ike attended the U.S. Military Academy at West Point from 1911 to 1915, where he cultivated friendships with future generals Omar Bradley, James A. Van Fleet and Joseph T. McNarney. After graduating, Eisenhower served in relative obscurity stateside and in Panama, rising to the rank of lieutenant colonel. He went to the Army War College in 1928 and a year later worked as an assistant in the secretary of war's office. In 1935, he served as an assistant to General Douglas MacArthur in the Philippines. With war with Japan seeming imminent, Eisenhower returned to the states in 1941 to become a brigadier general in the Third Army. Between February and June 1942, Eisenhower was assigned to the War Department and rose rapidly within its ranks. As the leading general of the U.S. forces in Europe, Eisenhower was directly involved with planning and executing U.S. military strategy in the fight to liberate Europe from Germany and fascist Italy.  

In November 1942, Eisenhower went on to become the commander of all Allied forces in North Africa, where he led the successful invasions of Sicily and Italy and dealt with irascible British General Bernard Montgomery and exiled French leader Charles de Gaulle. A year later he was appointed supreme commander of Allied Expeditionary Forces and planned and led the invasion of Normandy, France, more commonly referred to as D-Day. Eisenhower stayed on as general of the U.S. Army until 1951, when he resigned his commission to run his successful campaign for president. For two terms, Ike the war hero presided as the nation's commander in chief. 

In a speech he gave upon leaving office in 1961, Eisenhower famously warned Americans of the growing power of what he termed the military-industrial complex, or the potential for danger that existed from the relation of the nation's commercial and military interests.  

There was a slaughter of Jews in Germany during the first Crusade. Barbed wire was patented on this day in history.Three states were admitted back to the United States more than three years after the official end to the Civil War. The Battle of the Little Bighorn took place on this date. Hitler played the part of triumphant conqueror, visiting Paris. One year later, Finland declared war on the Soviet Union, and Germany invaded Dubno in Poland, and allowed the Ukranians to do with the Jews there as they would (12,000 died). The Korean War began on this day in history. The first color television transmission ever was broadcast by CBS. The tennis shoe was introduced. Madagascar gained independence from France. Iraq claimed that Kuwait belonged to it. This was an important date a couple of times in relatively early Beatles history. The 1,500th goal in World Cup history was scored, and record hot temperatures in Texas and New Mexico came on this date in 1994.

Here's a more detailed look at events that transpired on this date throughout history:



253 - St Lucius I begins his reign as Catholic Pope

524 - Battle of Vézeronce, the Franks defeat the Burgundians.

841 - Charles the Bald and Louis the German defeated Lothar at the Battle of Fontenay.

1080 - At Brixen, a council of bishops declared Pope Gregory to be deposed and Archbishop Guibert as antipope Clement III.

1096 - First Crusade slaughter Jews of Werelinghofen Germany

1139 - Battle of Ourique: Afonso I defeats Moors

1178 - 5 Canterbury monks report something exploding on Moon

1183 - Peace of Konstanz

1243 - Sinibaldo dei Fieschi elected as Pope Innocentius IV

1298 - Rindfleish Persecutions-250 Jews killed in Rothenburg Germany

1500 - Pope Alexander VI accept Treaty of Granada

1580 - The Book of Concord was first published. The book is a collection of doctrinal standards of the Lutheran Church.

1606 - Alkmaarse clergy asks "Great Dertelheyt"

1606 - St Jansday is forbidden

1607 - Mentally ill emperor Rudolf II signs Treaty of Lieben, giving up Austria, Hungary & Moravia

1621 - French government army occupies Fort St Jean d'Angély at La Rochelle

1630 - Fork introduced to American dining by Gov Winthrop

1638 - Lunar eclipse is 1st astronomical event recorded in US

1646 - Thomas Fairfax' New Model-army occupies Oxford

1658 - Aurangzeb proclaimed himself emperor of the Moghuls in India.

1658 - Spanish garrison at Duinkerk surrenders to French and British

1667 - Dr Jean-Baptiste Denys, French doctor, performs 1st blood transfusion

1672 - First recorded monthly Quaker meeting in US held, Sandwich, Mass

1675 - Battle at Rathenow: Brandenburgers beat Sweden

1678 - Elena Cornaro Piscopia is the first woman awarded a doctorate of philosophy.

1716 - Eugenius of Savoye named land guardian of Austrian Netherlands

1749 - General fast because of drought in MA

1767 - Mexican Indians rioted as Jesuit priests were ordered home.

1788 - Virginia ratified the U.S. Constitution and became the 10th state of the United States.

1794 - French troops occupy Charleroi

1798 - US passes Alien Act allowing president to deport dangerous aliens

1834 - Pope Gregory XVI's encyclical "Singulari nos" published

1835 - First building constructed at Yerba Buena (now SF)

1861 - Western Virginia campaign

1862 - Battle of Oak Grove, VA (Orchard, Henrico, French's Field) (Kings's Schoolhouse) Day 1 of 7 Days

1863 - US General George Meade replaces General Hooker to be more aggressive

1864 - Horse tramway at the Hague, opened

1864 - Union troops surrounding Petersburg, VA, began digging tunnels and building a mine tunnel underneath the Confederate lines.

1867 - First barbed wire patented by Lucien B Smith of Ohio

1868 - The U.S. Congress enacted legislation granting an eight-hour day to workers employed by the Federal government.

1868 - Florida, Alabama, Louisiana, Georgia, North Carolina and South Carolina were readmitted to the Union.

1868 - Pres Andrew Johnson passes a law that government workers would work 8 hr day

1870 - Opera "Die Walkure" is produced (Munich)

1870 - In Spain, Queen Isabella abdicated in favor of Alfonso XII.

1876 - Battle of the Little Bighorn: 7th Cavalry wiped out by Sioux and Cheyenne, death of Lieutenant Colonel George Armstrong Custer and the 210 men of U.S. 7th Cavalry were killed by Sioux and Cheyenne Indians at Little Big Horn in Montana. The event is known as "Custer's Last Stand."

1877 - In Philadelphia, PA, Alexander Graham Bell demonstrated the telephone for Sir William Thomson (Baron Kelvin) and Emperor Pedro II of Brazil at the Centennial Exhibition.

1888 - Republican Convention, in Chicago, nominates Benjamin Harrison

1894 - American Railway Union under Eugene V Debs goes on strike

1903 - Yanks and White Sox end deadlocked at 6-6 in 18

1903 - Boston Beaneater Wiley Piatt is only 20th-century pitcher to lose 2 complete games in one day, falling to Pittsburgh 1-0 & 5-3

1905 - Warsaw & Lodz revolt against Russian occupation

1906 - Pittsburgh millionaire Harry Kendall Thaw, the son of coal and railroad baron William Thaw, shot and killed Stanford White. White, a prominent architect, had a tryst with Florence Evelyn Nesbit before she married Thaw. The shooting took place at the premeire of Mamzelle Champagne in New York.  

1909 - George Sargent wins US Open golf tournament

1910 - Mann Act passed (no women across state lines for immoral purposes)

1910 - The U.S. Congress authorized the use of postal savings stamps.

1913 - Dutch Parliamentary election (confess party looses majority)

1913 - American Civil War veterans begin arriving at the Great Reunion of 1913.

1916 - Tsar Nicolaas II fires minister of Foreign affairs Sasonov

1917 - The first American fighting troops landed in France.  

1918 - Baku-Turkish communist party forms

1919 - First advanced monoplane airliner flight (Junkers F13)

1919 - Revolt of Spartacus in Hamburg

1920 - League of Nations places Intl head of Justice in Hague

1920 - The Greeks took 8,000 Turkish prisoners in Smyrna.

1921 - Samuel Gompers was elected head of the AFL for the 40th time.

1921 - Charlie McCartney scores 300 in 205 mins Aust v Notts

1925 - Military putsch under Gen Theodorus Pangulos in Greece

1927 - WVO soccer team forms in Oosterhout

1928 - NY Giant Fred Lindstrom ties record of 9 hits in a doubleheader

1929 - Pres Hoover authorizes building of Boulder Dam (Hoover Dam)

1932 - 36th US Golf Open: Gene Sarazen shoots a 286 at Fresh Meadows NY

1932 - Commencement of India's 1st Test cricket, v England at Lord's

1934 - Hedley Verity takes 15 wickets v Australia (7-61 & 8-43)

1934 - NY Yankee Lou Gehrig hits for the cycle beating White Sox 11-2

1934 - Yank pitcher John Broaca ties record by striking out 5 times

1935 - Joe Louis defeats Primo Carnera at Yankee Stadium

1937 - Cub Augie Galan becomes 1st player to switch hit HRs in a game

1938 - "A Tisket A Tasket" by Ella Fitzgerald with Chick Webb hits #1

1938 - Gaelic scholar Douglas Hyde was inaugurated as the first president of the Irish Republic.

1938 - Federal minimum wage law guarantees workers 25 cents per hour (rising to 40 cents by 1945) and a maximum 44 hour working week

1940 - Adolf Hitler viewed Eiffel Tower and grave of Napoleon in France

1941 - -26] Russian counter attack at Rovno

1941 - FDR issues Executive Order 8802 forbidding discrimination

1941 - Fair Employment Practices Commission established

1941 - Finland declared war on Soviet Union

1941 - Germans invade Dubno Poland, giving permission to Ukrainians to do whatever they want to 12,000 Jews living there

1942 - British RAF staged a 1,000 bomb raid on Bremen Germany (WW II)

1942 - British premier Winston Churchill travels from US to London

1942 - Maj Gen Dwight Eisenhower appointed commander of US forces in Europe

1943 - Crematory III at Birkenau is finished

1943 - Racial unrest in Detroit

1943 - Seyss-Inquart orders mass arrests of Dutch physicians

1944 - British assault at Caen Normandy

1945 - Allied landing at Ternate Molukkas

1945 - Imperial General Headquarters in Tokyo announce fall of Okinawa

1946 - Ho Chi Minh traveled to France for talks on Vietnamese independence.  

1947 - First edition of Anne Frank's "The Back of House" published

1947 - Heavyweight Joe Louis KOs Tami Mauriello

1947 - Tennis shoe introduced

1948 - The Soviet Union tightened its blockade of Berlin by intercepting river barges heading for the city.

1948 - Joe Louis KOs Jersey Joe Walcott in 11 for heavyweight boxing title

1948 - Harry Truman signs Displaced Persons Bill (205,000 Europeans to US)

1949 - Presidential election in Syria (some women allowed to vote)

1949 - Long-Haired Hare is released in Theaters starring Bugs Bunny.

1950 - Israeli airline El Al begins service

1950 - Johnny Pramesa (Reds) and Hank Thompson (Giants) hit inside the park HRs

1950 - Korean conflict begins; as North Korea invaded South Korea

1950 - UN member states begin using integrated forces against N Korea

1951 - In New York, the first regular commercial color TV transmissions were presented on CBS using the FCC-approved CBS Color System. The public did not own color TV's at the time. It was transmitted by CBS from New York to Baltimore, Philadelphia, Boston, and Washington, DC.

1952 - "Wish You Were Here" opens at Imperial Theater NYC for 597 perfs

1952 - Dutch social democratic party wins 2nd-Parliamentary election

1953 - First passenger to fly commercially around the world < 100 hours

1953 - 86°F in Anchorage Alaska

1955 - "Can Can" closes at Shubert Theater NYC after 892 performances

1955 - "Imogene Coca Show," last airs on NBC-TV

1956 - 51 die in collision of "Andrea Doria" & "Stockholm" (Cape Cod)

1956 - WKNO TV channel 10 in Memphis, TN (PBS) begins broadcasting

1957 - "Jonathan Winters Show," last airs on NBC-TV

1959 - The Cuban government seized 2.35 million acres under a new agrarian reform law.

1959 - Eamon De Valera became president of Ireland at the age of 76.

1960 - Earthquake in NE Belgium

1960 - Madagascar gains independence of France

1961 - Balt and California use a record 16 pitchers in a game (8 each) in 14 inns

1961 - Iraq announces that Kuwait is a part of Iraq (Kuwait disagrees)

1962 - Inonu government forms in Turkey

1962 - Mozambique Liberation Front (FRELIMO) forms

1962 - The U.S. Supreme Court ruled that the use of unofficial non-denominational prayer in public schools was unconstitutional.

1963 - Famous cricket draw at Lord's as England hang on against the Windies

1963 - JFK speaks at Pauls Church in Frankfurt

1963 - South Africa worker's union leader Curnick Ndlovu arrested

1964 - Prince A Taylor becomes 1st black methodist bishop (NJ)

1964 - WMCA (NYC) plays Beatles' Hard Days Night Album (10 days prior to its scheduled release date), they decide to release it June 26th

1964 - U.S. President Lyndon Johnson ordered 200 naval personnel to Mississippi to assist in finding three missing civil rights workers.  

1965 - Gyula Kallai succeeds Janos Kádár as premier of Hungary

1966 - Beatles' "Paperback Writer," single goes #1 and; stays #1 for 2 weeks

1966 - Dmitri Shostakovitch's 13th Symphony, premieres in Leningrad

1966 - Kosmos 122, 1st Soviet weather satellite, launched

1967 - 400 million watch Beatles "Our World" TV special

1967 - KPBS TV channel 15 in San Diego, CA (PBS) begins broadcasting

1967 - Mohammed Ali (Cassius Clay) sentenced to 5 years

1967 - First global satellite television programme - Our World

1968 - Bobby Bonds (San Francisco Giants) hit a grand-slam home run in his first game with the Giants. He was the first player to debut with a grand-slam.

1969 - Longest tennis match in Wimbledon history, Pancho Gonzalez beats Charles Pasarell in 112 game (5hr12m) marathon

1970 - The U.S. Federal Communications Commission handed down a ruling (35 FR 7732), making it illegal for radio stations to put telephone calls on the air without the permission of the person being called.  

1971 - Stevie Wonder releases "Where I'm Coming From"

1972 - Bernice Gera becomes 1st female umpire in pro baseball

1972 - Juan Peron elected president of Argentina

1973 - Russian party leader Brezhnev visits France

1973 - Udo Beyer of East Germany puts the shot a record 20.47 m

1973 - Erskine Childers Jr. became president of Ireland after the retirement of Eamon De Valera.

1973 - White House Counsel John Dean admitted to the Senate Watergate Comittee that U.S. President Nixon took part in the Watergate cover-up.

1975 - Mozambique became independent. Samora Machel was sworn in as president after 477 years of Portuguese rule (National Day).

1976 - Ranger Toby Harrah is only shortstop not to handle a fielding chance in doubleheader

1977 - LBJ denies report he had a cancer during his presidency

1977 - Roy C Sullivan of Va is struck by lightning for 7th time!

1978 - Argentina beats Holland 3-1 in soccer's 11th World Cup at Buenos Aires

1979 - "Got Tu Go Disco" opens at Minskoff Theater NYC for 8 performances

1979 - Failed attack on NATO commander Haig in Obourg, Belgium

1980 - "Fearless Frank" closes at Princess Theater NYC after 12 performances

1981 - Supreme Court upholds male-only draft registration, constitutional

1981 - Microsoft is restructured to become an incorporated business in its home state of Washington.

1981 - The U.S. Supreme Court decided that male-only draft registration was constitutional.

1982 - Porn star John Holmes acquitted on murder charges

1982 - SF holds its 1st County Fair

1982 - Sec of State Alexander Haig Jr resigns, replaced by Schultz

1982 - Greece abolishes headshaving of recruits in the military.

1983 - "Evita" closes at Broadway Theater NYC after 1568 performances

1983 - India beat West Indies by 43 runs to win Cricket World Cup

1983 - Udo Beyer of East Germany sets record for shot put, 22.22 m

1984 - STS 41-D launch attempt scrubbed because of computer problem

1985 - Fireworks factory near Hallett, OK explodes (21 die)

1985 - ABC’s "Monday Night Football" began with a new line-up. The trio was Frank Gifford, Joe Namath and O.J. Simpson.

1985 - New York Yankees officials enacted the rule that mandated that the team’s bat boys were to wear protective helmets during all games.

1986 - Former Belgium premier Vanden Boeynants sentenced for fraud

1986 - Phillies give Steve Carlton, 41, his unconditional release

1986 - The U.S. Congress approved $100 million in aid to the Contras fighting in Nicaragua.

1987 - Austrian President Kurt Waldheim visited Pope John Paul II at the Vatican. The meeting was controversial due to allegations that Waldheim had hidden his Nazi past.

1988 - "Chess" closes at Imperial Theater NYC after 68 performances

1988 - 104°F highest temperature ever recorded in Cleveland in June

1988 - Cal Ripken Jr plays in his 1,000th consecutive game

1988 - Expos Pitcher Floyd Youmans suspended for 60 days due to drugs

1988 - Iceland's president Vigdis Finnbogadóttir was elected (90+%)

1988 - Netherlands soccer team wins European Cup (2-0 against USSR)

1988 - Roger Rabbit Cartoon Character debuts in "Who Framed Roger Rabbit?"

1989 - "Day By Day," last airs on NBC-TV

1989 - First US postmark dedicated to Lesbian and Gay Pride (Stonewall, NYC)

1989 - Mets' defense does not record a single assist in a 5-1 win over Phils

1990 - "Dave Thomas Comedy Show," last airs on CBS-TV

1990 - 120°F in Phoenix Arizona

1990 - NBC decides to air episodes of "Quantum Leap" for 5 straight days

1990 - Supreme Court rules family members cannot end lives of comatose relatives unless those relatives previously made their wishes known

1990 - The U.S. Supreme Court upheld the right of an individual, whose wishes are clearly made, to refuse life-sustaining medical treatment. "The right to die" decision was made in the Curzan vs. Missouri case.

1991 - The last Soviet troops left Czechoslovakia 23 years after the Warsaw Pact invasion.

1991 - Croatia and Slovenia proclaimed their independence from Yugoslavia, beginning the Yugoslavian civil war.

1991 - Martina Navratilova wins record 100th singles match at Wimbledon

1992 - "Les Miserables," opens at Vinorhady Theatre, Prague

1992 - Alexanders Department store closes all 11 stores

1992 - STS 50 launches (Columbia) 1993 - NY Islander goalie Billy Smith elected to NHL Hall of Fame

1993 - Parliamentary election in Morocco

1993 - Kim Campbell took office as Canada's first woman prime minister. She assumed power upon the resignation of Brian Mulroney.

1994 - 1,500th goal in Soccer World Cup history scored by Caceres of Argentina

1994 - 105°F (40.5°C) at Albuquerque New Mexico

1994 - 111°F (43.9°C) at El Paso Texas

1994 - Cleve Indians 18 game home win streak ends to Yanks 11-6

1994 - Gay Games close in NYC

1994 - Japanese premier Tsutomu Hata resigns

1995 - Betsy King wins ShopRite LPGA Golf Classic

1995 - Rockies' Andres Galarraga is 4th to HR in 3 consecutive innings

1996 - The Khobar Towers bombing in Saudi Arabia kills 19 U.S. servicemen.

1997 - Christies auctions off Princess Di's clothing for $5.5 million

1997 - Galileo, 2nd Callisto Flyby (Orbit 9)

1997 - Oceanographer Jacques Cousteau died.

1997 - Intelsat 802 Ariane 4 Launch, Successful

1997 - NHL approves franchises in Nash, Atlanta, Columbus, and Minn-St Paul

1997 - Progress M-34 Collides with and damages Mir Space Station

1997 - Jamaica issues a warrant for singer Sade, who fails to report to court on charges of failure to obey a cop who signaled her to stop

1997 - The Russian space station Mir was hit by an unmanned cargo vessel. Much of the power supply was knocked out and the station's Spektr module was severely damaged.

1997 - U.S. air pollution standards were significantly tightened by U.S. President Clinton.

1998 - The U.S. Supreme Court rejected the line-item veto thereby striking down presidential power to cancel specific items in tax and spending legislation.

1998 - The U.S. Supreme Court ruled that those infected with HIV are protected by the Americans With Disabilities Act.

1998 - Microsoft's "Windows 98" was released to the public.

1998 - In Clinton v. City of New York, the United States Supreme Court decides that the Line Item Veto Act of 1996 is unconstitutional.

1999 - Germany's parliament approved a national Holocaust memorial to be built in Berlin.

2000 - U.S. and British researchers announced that they had completed a rough draft of a map of the genetic makeup of human beings. The project was 10 years old at the time of the announcement.

2000 - A Florida judge approved a class-action lawsuit to be filed against American Online (AOL) on behalf of hourly subscribers who were forced to view "pop-up" advertisements.

2007 - 2007 United Kingdom floods, parts of Lincolnshire and Yorkshire flood including Louth, Horncastle and worst affected, Hull.

2008 - Atlantis Plastics shooting, An employee shot and killed five people after an argument, which ended in the gunman's suicide in Henderson, Kentucky.

2009 - Michael Jackson, lifelong musician, pop singer, and superstar, dies at age 50.

2012 - 33 Syrian army officers defect to Turkey





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/jun25.htm

http://www.history.com/this-day-in-history

http://www.infoplease.com/dayinhistory