Today is Thursday, June 25, the 176th day of 2009. There are 189 days left in the year.
Today’s Highlight in History
On June 25, 1950, war broke out in Korea as forces from the communist North invaded the South.
On this date:
In 1243, Cardinal Sinibaldo Fieschi was elected pope, taking the name Innocent IV.
In 1447, Casimir IV, the grand duke of Lithuania, was crowned king of Poland.
In 1530, the Augsburg Confession, 28 articles that constitute the basic confession of the Lutheranchurches, was presented at the Diet of Augsburg to the emperor Charles V.
In 1788, Virginia ratified the U.S. Constitution.
In 1868, Congress passed an Omnibus Act allowing for the readmission of Florida, Alabama, Louisiana, Georgia, North Carolina and South Carolina to the Union.
In 1876, Lt. Col. George A. Custer and his 7th Cavalry were wiped out by Sioux and Cheyenne Indians in the Battle of the Little Bighorn in Montana.
Custer’s Division Retiring from Mount Jackson in the Shenandoah Valley,
October 7, 1864, Alfred Waud, artist.
In 1887, George Abbott, American playwright, director, actor and producer, was born.
In 1906, architect Stanford White was shot to death atop New York’s Madison Square Garden, which he had designed, by millionaire Harry K. Thaw, the jealous husband of Evelyn Nesbit. (Thaw was acquitted of murder by reason of insanity.)
In 1910, The Firebird by Igor Stravinsky and Michel Fokine premiered at the Paris Opéra.
In 1938, the Fair Labor Standards Act of 1938 was enacted.
In 1942, some 1,000 British Royal Air Force bombers raided Bremen, Germany, during World War II.
In 1943, the Smith-Connally Anti-Strike Act was enacted by the U.S. Congress, giving the president power to seize and operate privately owned war plants when a strike or threat of a strike interfered with war production.
In 1944, the final strip of George Herriman’s innovative “Krazy Kat” comic strip appears, two months after Herriman’s death.
In 1951, the first commercial color telecast took place as CBS transmitted a one-hour special from New York to four other cities.
In 1959, spree killer Charles Starkweather, 20, was put to death in Nebraska’s electric chair. Eamon de Valera was inaugurated as president of Ireland.
In 1962, the Supreme Court, in Engel v. Vitale, ruled that recital of a state-sponsored prayer in New York State public schools was unconstitutional.
In 1967, the Beatles performed a new song, “All You Need Is Love,” during a live international telecast.
In 1970, the United States launches its latest plan to end the current war of attrition between Israel and Egypt.
In 1973, former White House Counsel John W. Dean began testifying before the Senate Watergate Committee.
In 1975, after 470 years of rule by Portugal, the former colony of Portuguese East Africa gains its independence as the nation of Mozambique.
In 1987, Pope John Paul II received Austrian President Kurt Waldheim at the Vatican, a meeting fraught with controversy because of allegations that Waldheim had hidden a Nazi past.
In 1991, the Yugoslav republics of Croatia and Slovenia declared their independence.
In 1995, Warren E. Burger, the 15th chief justice of the United States, died at age 87.
In 1996, a truck bomb killed 19 Americans and injured hundreds at a U.S. military housing complex in Saudi Arabia.
In 1997, oceanographer Jacques-Yves Cousteau died at age 87. An unmanned cargo ship crashed into Russia’s Mir space station, knocking out half of the station’s power and rupturing a pressurized laboratory.
In 1998, the Supreme Court rejected a line-item veto law as unconstitutional.
In 1999, ten years ago: During a news conference, President Bill Clinton said the people of Serbia had to “get out of denial” about the atrocities blamed on Slobodan Milosevic and decide if he was fit to remain president of Yugoslavia. The San Antonio Spurs won their first title as they defeated the New York Knicks 78-77 in Game 5 of the NBA finals.
In 2002, the U.S. telecommunications giant WorldCom Inc. admits that it concealed $3.8 billion in expenses, the largest accounting fraud in U.S. history.
In 2004, five years ago: Republican Jack Ryan withdrew from the U.S. Senate race in Illinois after allegations of sex-club visits with his then-wife, actress Jeri Ryan. President George W. Bush and his wife, Laura, opened a European trip as they arrived in Ireland. Taliban fighters killed up to 16 men after learning they had registered for Afghanistan’s U.S.-backed national elections.
In 2005, hardline Tehran Mayor Mahmoud Ahmadinejad was declared the winner of Iran’s presidential runoff election.
In 2008, one year ago: A divided Supreme Court struck down a Louisiana law that allowed capital punishment for people convicted of raping children under 12; the ruling also invalidated laws in five other states that allowed executions for child rape that did not result in the death of the victim. A jury in Woburn, Mass., convicted Neil Entwistle of first-degree murder in the deaths of his wife, Rachel, 27, and their 9-month-old baby, Lillian Rose. (Entwistle was sentenced the next day to two life prison terms without possibility of parole.) Wesley N. Higdon, 25, shot and killed five workers and himself at a western Kentucky plastics plant; a sixth victim survived.
Today’s Birthdays
Movie director Sidney Lumet is 85. Actress June Lockhart is 84. R&B singer Eddie Floyd is 72. Actress Barbara Montgomery is 70. Basketball Hall of Famer Willis Reed is 67. Writer-producer-director Gary David Goldberg is 65. Singer Carly Simon is 64. Rock musician Allen Lanier (Blue Oyster Cult) is 63. Rock musician Ian McDonald (Foreigner; King Crimson) is 63. Actor-comedian Jimmie Walker is 62. Actor-director Michael Lembeck is 61. TV personality Phyllis George is 60. Rock singer Tim Finn is 57. Rock musician David Paich (Toto) is 55. Actor Michael Sabatino is 54. Actor-writer-director Ricky Gervais is 48. Actor John Benjamin Hickey is 46. Rock singer George Michael is 46. Actress Erica Gimpel is 45. Recently retired Houston Rockets center Dikembe Mutombo is 43. Rapper-producer Richie Rich is 42. Rapper Candyman is 41. Contemporary Christian musician Sean Kelly (Sixpence None the Richer) is 38. Actress Angela Kinsey (“The Office”) is 38. Rock musician Mike Kroeger (Nickelback) is 37. Rock musician Mario Calire is 35. Actress Linda Cardellini is 34. Actress Busy Philipps is 30.
Historic Birthdays
Edward Holyoke
6/25/1689 – 1/1/1769
American educator; president of Harvard University (1737-69)
Antonio Gaudi
6/25/1852 – 6/10/1926
Spanish (Catalan) architect
Walther Hermann Nernst (1864-1941), German physical chemist and Nobel laureate, best known for his contributions to the field of thermodynamics.
Robert Henri
6/25/1865 – 7/12/1929
American painter
Crystal Eastman
6/25/1881 – 7/8/1928
American lawyer, suffragist and writer
Benito Lynch
6/25/1885 – 12/23/1951
Argentine novelist and short story writer
Henry Harley Arnold
6/25/1886 – 1/15/1950
American military strategist
George Abbott
6/25/1887 – 1/31/1995
American theatrical director, producer, playwright and actor
Hermann Oberth
6/25/1894 – 12/29/1989
Austrian-born German scientist
Lord Louis Mountbatten
6/25/1900 – 8/27/1979
English statesman, naval leader and last viceroy of India
George Orwell, pseudonym of Eric Arthur Blair (6/25/1903 -1950), British novelist, essayist, and critic, whose brilliant reporting and political conscience fashioned an impassioned picture of his life and times.
W. V. Quine (1908-2000), American philosopher, known for his work in mathematical logic and his contributions to a pragmatic theory of knowledge.
William H. Stein
6/25/1911 – 2/2/1980
American Nobel Prize-winning biochemist (1972)
Aimé Césaire (1913-2008), Martinican poet, playwright, and political leader, known as a founder of négritude, a movement among black French-language writers that glorified traditional African culture and identity.
Thought for Today
“The press, like fire, is an excellent servant, but a terrible master.” — James Fenimore Cooper, American author (1789-1851).
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Full article: http://www.boston.com/news/history/articles/2009/06/25/today_in_history___june_25/
http://www.nytimes.com/learning/general/onthisday/20090625.html
http://news.bbc.co.uk/onthisday/default.stm
http://encarta.msn.com/encnet/features/onthisday.aspx
