This Day in History

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June 8

Today is World Oceans Day.

793 – Vikings raid the abbey at Lindisfarne in Northumbria, commonly accepted as the beginning of Norse activity in the British Isles.

1042 – Edward the Confessor becomes King of England, one of the last Anglo-Saxon kings of England.

1783 – Laki, a volcano in Iceland, begins an eight-month eruption which kills over 9,000 people and starts a seven-year famine. The Laki eruption and its aftermath caused a drop in global temperatures, as sulfur dioxide was spewed into the Northern Hemisphere. This caused crop failures in Europe and may have caused droughts in India. The eruption has been estimated to have killed over six million people globally.

1856 – A group of 194 Pitcairn Islanders, descendants of the mutineers of HMS Bounty, arrives at Norfolk Island, commencing the Third Settlement of the Island.

1861 – American Civil War: Tennessee secedes from the Union.

1912 – Carl Laemmle incorporates Universal Pictures.

1948 – Milton Berle hosts the debut of Texaco Star Theater.

1949 – George Orwell's "Nineteen Eighty-Four" is published.

1953 – An F5 tornado hits Beecher, Michigan, killing 116, injuring 844, and destroying 340 homes.

The United States Supreme Court rules that restaurants in Washington, D.C., cannot refuse to serve black patrons.

1966 – An F-104 Starfighter collides with XB-70 Valkyrie prototype no. 2, destroying both aircraft during a photo shoot near Edwards Air Force Base. Joseph A. Walker, a NASA test pilot, and Carl Cross, a United States Air Force test pilot, are both killed.

1967 – Six-Day War: The USS Liberty incident occurs, killing 34 and wounding 171.

1982 – Bluff Cove Air Attacks during the Falklands War: Fifty-six British servicemen are killed by an Argentine air attack on two landing ships, RFA Sir Galahad and RFA Sir Tristram.

1984 – Homosexuality is declared legal in the Australian state of New South Wales.

1992 – The first World Ocean Day is celebrated, coinciding with the Earth Summit held in Rio de Janeiro, Brazil.

1995 – The downed U.S. Air Force pilot Captain Scott O'Grady is rescued by U.S. Marines in Bosnia.

2004 – The first Venus Transit in well over a century takes place, the previous one being in 1882.

2007 – Newcastle, New South Wales, Australia, is hit by the State's worst storms and flooding in 30 years resulting in the death of nine people and the grounding of a trade ship, the MV Pasha Bulker.

2008 - Rolling Stone Magazine published a list of the Top 50 guitar songs of all time. No.5 was 'Brown Sugar' by The Rolling Stones, No.4 , ‘You Really Got Me’ by The Kinks, No.3, ‘Crossroads’, by Cream, No.2 ‘Purple Haze’, by Jimi Hendrix and No.1 ‘Johnny B Goode’, Chuck Berry.

2009 – Two American journalists are found guilty of illegally entering North Korea and sentenced to 12 years of penal labour.

Births

1810 – Robert Schumann; 1867 – Frank Lloyd Wright; 1910 – C. C. Beck (cartoonist, co-creator Captain Marvel); 1918 – Robert Preston; 1921 – LeRoy Neiman; 1924 – Lyn Nofziger; 1925 – Barbara Bush; 1927 – Jerry Stiller ('Frank Costanza' on "Seinfeld"); 1933 – Joan Rivers; 1936 – James Darren; 1939 – Bernie Casey; 1940 – Nancy Sinatra; 1942 – Chuck Negron; 1944 – Boz Scaggs; 1951 – Bonnie Tyler; 1955 – Tim Berners-Lee, Griffin Dunne; 1957 – Scott Adams (creator 'Dilbert'); 1958 – Keenen Ivory Wayans; 1965 – Rob Pilatus (lip syncer); 1966 – Julianna Margulies; 1970 – Kwame Kilpatrick; 1977 – Kanye West (Sixth Magnitude Asshole); 1978 – Maria Menounos; 1979 – Derek Trucks

Deaths

632 – Muhammad; 1809 – Thomas Paine; 1845 – Andrew Jackson; 1874 – Cochise; 1876 – George Sand; 1924 – George Mallory; 1969 – Robert Taylor; 1982 – Satchel Paige; 2000 – Jeff MacNelly )cartoonist, creator of "Shoe"); 2006 – Robert Donner; 2013 – Angus MacKay

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June 9

53 – The Roman emperor Nero marries Claudia Octavia.

68 – The Roman emperor Nero commits suicide. Apparently he just couldn't stand Claudia any longer.

1650 – The Harvard Corporation, the more powerful of the two administrative boards of Harvard, is established. It is the first legal corporation in the Americas.

1732 – James Oglethorpe is granted a royal charter for the colony of the future U.S. state of Georgia.

1856 – Five hundred Mormons leave Iowa City, Iowa for the Mormon Trail.

1862 – American Civil War: Stonewall Jackson concludes his successful Shenandoah Valley Campaign with a victory in the Battle of Port Republic; his tactics during the campaign are now studied by militaries around the world.

1915 – William Jennings Bryan resigns as Woodrow Wilson's Secretary of State over a disagreement regarding the United States' handling of the sinking of the RMS Lusitania.

1928 – Charles Kingsford Smith completes the first trans-Pacific flight in a Fokker Trimotor monoplane, the Southern Cross.

1934 – Donald Duck makes his debut in The Wise Little Hen.

1946 – Thailand's King Ananda Mahidol is found shot dead in his bedroom, Bhumibol Adulyadej ascends the throne. He is currently the world's longest reigning monarch.

1953 – The Flint–Worcester tornado outbreak sequence kills 94 people in Massachusetts.

1954 – McCarthyism: Joseph Welch, special counsel for the United States Army, lashes out at Senator Joseph McCarthy during hearings on whether Communism has infiltrated the Army giving McCarthy the famous rebuke, "You've done enough. Have you no sense of decency, sir, at long last? Have you left no sense of decency?"

1959 – The USS George Washington is launched. It is the first nuclear-powered ballistic missile submarine.

1967 – Six-Day War: Israel captures the Golan Heights from Syria.

1968 – U.S. President Lyndon B. Johnson declares a national day of mourning following the assassination of Senator Robert F. Kennedy.

1973 – Secretariat won the Belmont Stakes by 31 lengths, achieving the first American Triple Crown victory in a quarter-century, and lowering the track and world record times for 1½ mile distance races to 2:24.

1994 - After an argument TLC singer Lisa 'Left Eye' Lopes set fire to her boyfriend's Atlanta mansion, worth $2 million (£1.176 million), burning it to the ground. She was charged with arson and fined $10,000 (£5,882) with five years probation.

Births

1672 – Peter the Great; 1891 – Cole Porter; 1915 – Les Paul; 1916 – Robert McNamara; 1931 – Jackie Mason; 1934 – Jackie Wilson; 1939 – Dick Vitale; 1941 – Jon Lord; 1956 – Patricia Cornwell; 1961 – Michael J. Fox, Aaron Sorkin; 1963 – Johnny Depp; 1973 – Tedy Bruschi; 1981 – Natalie Portman

Deaths

68 – Nero; 1870 – Charles Dickens; 1958 – Robert Donat; 1981 – Allen Ludden; 2014 – Rik Mayall

[xoxoxoBruce]

Danger, Danger, Will Robinson, reading this thread will cause a time warp resulting in you to losing hours wandering the internet!!

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June 10

Today is Portugal Day, celebrating the death of Luís de Camões, who wrote Os Lusíadas, Portugal's national epic poem celebrating Portuguese history and achievements. Camões was an adventurer who lost one eye fighting in Ceuta, wrote the poem while traveling, and survived a shipwreck in Cochinchina (a region of present-day Vietnam). According to popular folklore, Camões saved his epic poem by swimming with one arm while keeping the other arm above water. Since his date of birth is unknown, his date of death is celebrated as Portugal's National Day.

671 – Emperor Tenji of Japan introduces a water clock (clepsydra) called Rokoku. The instrument, which measures time and indicates hours, is placed in the capital of Ōtsu.

1190 – Third Crusade: Frederick I Barbarossa drowns in the river Saleph while leading an army to Jerusalem.

1596 – Willem Barents and Jacob van Heemskerk discover Bear Island.

1692 – Salem witch trials: Bridget Bishop is hanged at Gallows Hill near Salem, Massachusetts, for "certaine Detestable Arts called Witchcraft & Sorceries".

1854 – The first class of United States Naval Academy students graduate.

1886 – Mount Tarawera in New Zealand erupts, killing 153 people and burying the famous Pink and White Terraces. Eruptions continue for 3 months creating a large, 17 km long fissure across the mountain peak.

1912 – The Villisca axe murders were discovered in Villisca, Iowa.

1935 – Dr. Robert Smith takes his last drink, and Alcoholics Anonymous is founded in Akron, Ohio, United States, by him and Bill Wilson.

1944 – In baseball, 15-year-old Joe Nuxhall of the Cincinnati Reds becomes the youngest player ever in a major-league game.

1947 – Saab produces its first automobile.

1963 – Equal Pay Act of 1963 aimed at abolishing wage disparity based on sex (see Gender pay gap). It was signed into law on June 10, 1963 by John F. Kennedy as part of his New Frontier Program.

1964 – United States Senate breaks a 75-day filibuster against the Civil Rights Act of 1964, leading to the bill's passage.

1967 – The Gateway Arch, in St. Louis, Missouri, opens to the public.

1977 – James Earl Ray, assassin of Martin Luther King, Jr., escapes from Brushy Mountain State Prison in Petros, Tennessee. He is recaptured three days later.

The Apple II, one of the first personal computers, goes on sale.

Joe Strummer and Nicky Headon from The Clash were each fined £5 ($8.50) by a London court for spray-painting The Clash on a wall.

1986 - Jerry Garcia of The Grateful Dead went into a five day diabetic coma, resulting in the band withdrawing from their current tour.

1990 – British Airways Flight 5390 lands safely at Southampton Airport after a blowout in the cockpit causes the captain to be partially sucked from the cockpit. There are no fatalities.

1991 – Eleven-year-old Jaycee Lee Dugard is kidnapped in South Lake Tahoe, California; she would remain a captive until 2009.

1997 – Before fleeing his northern stronghold, Khmer Rouge leader Pol Pot orders the killing of his defense chief Son Sen and 11 of Sen's family members.

2003 – The Spirit rover is launched, beginning NASA's Mars Exploration Rover mission.

Births

1895 – Hattie McDaniel; 1910 – Howlin' Wolf; 1915 – Saul Bellow; 1922 – Judy Garland; 1925 – Nat Hentoff; 1928 – Maurice Sendak; 1941 – Mickey Jones, Jürgen Prochnow; 1951 – Dan Fouts; 1953 – John Edwards; 1955 – Andrew Stevens; 1959 – Eliot Spitzer; 1961 – Kelley Deal, Kim Deal, Maxi Priest; 1963 – Jeanne Tripplehorn; 1964 – Jimmy Chamberlin; 1965 – Elizabeth Hurley; 1968 – Bill Burr; 1971 – Bobby Jindal; 1982 – Tara Lipinski; 1992 – Kate Upton

Deaths

323 BC – Alexander the Great; 1190 – Frederick I; 1692 – Bridget Bishop; 1909 – Edward Everett Hale; 1946 – Jack Johnson; 1963 – Timothy Birdsall (British cartoonist); 1967 – Spencer Tracy; 1971 – Michael Rennie ('Klaatu in "The Day The Earth Stood Still"); 1973 – William Inge; 1976 – Adolph Zukor (co-founded Paramount Pictures); 1988 – Louis L'Amour; 1996 – Jo Van Fleet; 2002 – John Gotti; 2003 – Donald Regan; 2004 – Ray Charles; 2005 – Curtis Pitts (designed the Pitts Special); 2016 – Gordie Howe

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June 11

Today, in the United Kingdom, is the Queen's Official Birthday.

1184 BC – Trojan War: Troy is sacked and burned, according to calculations by Eratosthenes.

1509 – Henry VIII of England marries Catherine of Aragon.

1770 – British explorer Captain James Cook runs aground on the Great Barrier Reef.

1776 – The Continental Congress appoints Thomas Jefferson, John Adams, Benjamin Franklin, Roger Sherman, and Robert R. Livingston to the Committee of Five to draft a declaration of independence.

1919 – Sir Barton wins the Belmont Stakes, becoming the first horse to win the U.S. Triple Crown.

1920 – During the U.S. Republican National Convention in Chicago, U.S. Republican Party leaders gathered in a room at the Blackstone Hotel to come to a consensus on their candidate for the U.S. presidential election, leading the Associated Press to first coin the political phrase "smoke-filled room".

1935 – Inventor Edwin Armstrong gives the first public demonstration of FM broadcasting in the United States at Alpine, New Jersey.

1949 - Hank Williams, Sr. made his debut at the 'Grand Ole Opry' in Nashville and received an unprecedented total of six encores.

1955 – Eighty-three spectators are killed and at least 100 are injured after an Austin-Healey and a Mercedes-Benz collide at the 24 Hours of Le Mans, the deadliest ever accident in motorsports.

1960 - Drummer Tommy Moore made the fateful decision to quit The Beatles and return to his job of driving a forklift at Garston bottle works.

1962 – Frank Morris, John Anglin and Clarence Anglin allegedly become the only prisoners to escape from the prison on Alcatraz Island.

1963 – American Civil Rights Movement: Governor of Alabama George Wallace defiantly stands at the door of Foster Auditorium at the University of Alabama in an attempt to block two black students, Vivian Malone and James Hood, from attending that school. Later in the day, accompanied by federalized National Guard troops, they are able to register.

Buddhist monk Thích Quảng Đức burns himself with gasoline in a busy Saigon intersection to protest the lack of religious freedom in South Vietnam.

John F. Kennedy addresses Americans from the Oval Office proposing the Civil Rights Act of 1964 that would revolutionize American society.

1966 - European radio stations mistakenly reported that The Who's lead singer Roger Daltrey was dead. Actually, it was guitarist Pete Townshend who had been injured in a car accident a few days earlier.

1970 – After being appointed on May 15, Anna Mae Hays and Elizabeth P. Hoisington officially receive their ranks as U.S. Army Generals, becoming the first females to do so.

1971 – The U.S. Government forcibly removes the last holdouts to the Native American Occupation of Alcatraz, ending 19 months of control.

1987 – Diane Abbott, Paul Boateng and Bernie Grant are elected as the first black Parliamentarians in Great Britain.

1993 – The film "Jurassic Park" is released in the United States, becoming the highest-grossing film of all time until the release of "Titanic" in 1997.

1998 – Compaq Computer pays US$9 billion for Digital Equipment Corporation.

2001 – Timothy McVeigh is executed for his role in the Oklahoma City bombing.

2002 – Antonio Meucci is acknowledged as the first inventor of the telephone by the United States Congress.

Sir Paul McCartney marries Heather Mills at St. Salvator Church, Ireland.

2003 - Adam Ant was arrested after going berserk and stripping down in a London cafe. The former 1980's pop star had thrown stones at neighbours' homes, smashing windows before going to the nearby cafe.

2004 – Cassini–Huygens makes its closest flyby of the Saturn moon Phoebe.

2005 - Jimmy Page, Led Zeppelin founding member and guitarist, was awarded an OBE in the Queen of England's Birthday Honours list.

2011 - Pink Floyd's 1973 album The Dark Side Of The Moon, re-entered the Billboard Album chart at No. 47, and reached the milestone of 1,000 weeks on Billboard's charts. The album which was released in 1973 has done consistently well reaching No.1 on more than one occasion.

Births

1864 – Richard Strauss; 1888 – Bartolomeo Vanzetti (of Sacco & Vanzetti); 1910 – Jacques Cousteau; 1913 – Vince Lombardi; 1915 – Magda Gabor (older sister to Zsa Zsa & Eva); 1925 – William Styron; 1930 – Charles Rangel; 1932 – Athol Fugard; 1933 – Gene Wilder; 1937 – Chad Everett; 1939 – Christina Crawford (author of 'Mommie Dearest', daughter of Joan Crawford), Jackie Stewart; 1943 – Henry Hill; 1945 – Adrienne Barbeau; 1947 – Richard Palmer-James; 1949 – Frank Beard (the unbeared member of ZZ Top); 1950 – Graham Russell (Air Supply); 1952 – Donnie Van Zant; 1954 – Johnny Neel (Allman Bros.); 1956 – Joe Montana; 1959 – Hugh Laurie; 1965 – Manuel Uribe (third heaviest man ever recorded); 1969 – Peter Dinklage; 1982 – Marco Arment (co-creator Tumblr); 1986 – Shia LaBeouf

Deaths

1879 – William, Prince of Orange; 1920 – William F. Halsey, Sr. (father of Fleet Admiral William F. "Bull" Halsey, Jr.); 1941 – Daniel Carter Beard (Boy Scouts of America); 1979 – John Wayne; 1999 – DeForest Kelley ('Dr. McCoy' in "Star Trek"); 2001 – Timothy McVeigh; 2003 – David Brinkley; 2014 – Ruby Dee; 2015 – Jim Ed Brown; 2015 – Ornette Coleman; 2015 – Dusty Rhodes

[xoxoxoBruce]

2011 - Pink Floyd's 1973 album The Dark Side Of The Moon, re-entered the Billboard Album chart at No. 47, and reached the milestone of 1,000 weeks on Billboard's charts. The album which was released in 1973 has done consistently well reaching No.1 on more than one occasion.

When that album first came out, my buddy would pick out a victim, and convince them to listen on the headphones. Since they were stoned (like everyone else) they would invariably be drifting away... until the alarm clocks.