June 21
By The Associated Press
Today in History
Today is Friday, June 21, the 173rd day of 2024. There are 193 days left in the year. Summer began yesterday.
Today’s Highlight in History:
On June 21, 1788, the United States Constitution went into effect as New Hampshire became the ninth state to ratify it.
On this date:
In 1377, King Edward III died after ruling England for 50 years; he was succeeded by his grandson, Richard II.
In 1834, Cyrus Hall McCormick received a patent for his reaping machine.
In 1942, an Imperial Japanese submarine fired shells at Fort Stevens on the Oregon coast, causing little damage.
In 1954, the American Cancer Society presented a study to the American Medical Association meeting in San Francisco which found that men who regularly smoked cigarettes died at a considerably higher rate than non-smokers.
In 1964, civil rights workers Michael H. Schwerner, Andrew Goodman and James E. Chaney were slain in Philadelphia, Mississippi; their bodies were found buried in an earthen dam six weeks later. (Forty-one years later on this date in 2005, Edgar Ray Killen, an 80-year-old former Ku Klux Klansman, was found guilty of manslaughter; he was sentenced to 60 years in prison, where he died in January 2018.)
In 1973, the U.S. Supreme Court, in Miller v. California, ruled that states may ban materials found to be obscene according to local standards.
In 1977, Menachem Begin (men-AH’-kem BAY’-gihn) of the Likud bloc became Israel’s sixth prime minister.
In 1982, a jury in Washington, D.C. found John Hinckley Jr. not guilty by reason of insanity in the shootings of President Ronald Reagan and three other men.
In 1989, a sharply divided Supreme Court ruled that burning the American flag as a form of political protest was protected by the First Amendment.
In 1997, the WNBA made its debut as the New York Liberty defeated the host Los Angeles Sparks 67-57.
In 2010, Faisal Shahzad (FY’-sul shah-ZAHD’), a Pakistan-born U.S. citizen, pleaded guilty to charges of plotting a failed car bombing in New York’s Times Square. (Shahzad was later sentenced to life in prison.)
In 2011, the Food and Drug Administration announced that cigarette packs in the U.S. would have to carry macabre images that included rotting teeth and gums, diseased lungs and a sewn-up corpse of a smoker as part of a graphic campaign aimed at discouraging Americans from lighting up.
In 2012, Miami’s LeBron James capped his title bid with 26 points, 13 assists and 11 rebounds as he led the Heat in a 121-106 rout of the Oklahoma City Thunder to win the NBA Finals in five games.
In 2013, the Food Network said it was dropping Paula Deen, barely an hour after the celebrity cook posted the first of two videotaped apologies online begging forgiveness from fans and critics troubled by her admission to having used racial slurs in the past.
In 2018, first lady Melania Trump visited with migrant children during a brief stop at a Texas facility housing some children separated from their parents at the border; she caused a stir when she left Washington wearing a green, hooded military jacket with lettering that said, “I REALLY DON’T CARE, DO U?”
In 2021, a tornado packing 140 mph winds swept through communities in heavily populated suburban Chicago, damaging more than 100 homes and causing multiple injuries.
In 2022, a month after the Uvalde, Texas school massacre, the state’s public safety chief testified that police had enough officers on the scene to have stopped a gunman three minutes after he entered the building and killed 19 students and two teachers.
In 2023, The U.S. Agriculture Department approved the applications of two companies to sell chicken grown from animal cells, not from slaughtered birds.
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