Today in History
Today is Friday, June 23, the 174th day of 2023. There are 191 days left in the year.
Today’s Highlights in History:
On June 23, 1888, abolitionist Frederick Douglass received one vote from the Kentucky delegation at the Republican convention in Chicago, effectively making him the first Black candidate to have his name placed in nomination for U.S. president. (The nomination went to Benjamin Harrison.)
On this date:
In 1860, a congressional resolution authorized creation of the United States Government Printing Office, which opened the following year.
In 1931, aviators Wiley Post and Harold Gatty took off from New York on a round-the-world flight that lasted eight days and 15 hours.
In 1947, the Senate joined the House in overriding President Harry S. Truman’s veto of the Taft-Hartley Act, designed to limit the power of organized labor.
In 1956, Gamal Abdel Nasser was elected president of Egypt.
In 1967, President Lyndon B. Johnson, Soviet Premier Alexei Kosygin (ah-LEK’-say koh-SEE’-gihn) opened a three-day summit at Glassboro State College in New Jersey.
In 1969, Warren E. Burger was sworn in as chief justice of the United States by the man he was succeeding, Earl Warren.
In 1972, President Richard Nixon signed Title IX barring discrimination on the basis of sex for “any education program or activity receiving federal financial assistance.”
In 1985, all 329 people aboard an Air India Boeing 747 were killed when the plane crashed into the Atlantic Ocean near Ireland because of a bomb authorities believe was planted by Sikh separatists.
In 1994, the movie “Forrest Gump,” starring Tom Hanks as a simple yet kindhearted soul and his serendipitous brushes with greatness, was released by Paramount Pictures.
In 1995, Dr. Jonas Salk, the medical pioneer who developed the first vaccine to halt the crippling rampage of polio, died in La Jolla (HOY’-ah), California, at age 80.
In 2016, Britain voted to leave the European Union after a bitterly divisive referendum campaign, toppling Prime Minister David Cameron, who had led the campaign to keep Britain in the EU.
In 2020, the Louisville police department fired an officer involved in the fatal shooting of Breonna Taylor more than three months earlier, saying Brett Hankison had shown “extreme indifference to the value of human life” when he fired ten rounds into Taylor’s apartment.
Ten years ago: Edward Snowden, the National Security Agency contractor behind the disclosures of the U.S. government’s sweeping surveillance programs, left Hong Kong for Moscow with the stated intention of seeking asylum in Ecuador; however, Snowden ended up remaining in Moscow. Aerialist Nik Wallenda completed a tightrope walk that took him a quarter mile over the Little Colorado River Gorge in northeastern Arizona. Sci-fi and fantasy writer Richard Matheson, 87, died in Los Angeles.
Five years ago: Trump administration officials said the government knew the location of all children in its custody after separating them from their families at the border, and that it was working to reunite them. The Vatican tribunal convicted a former Holy See diplomat, Monsignor Carlo Capella, and sentenced him to five years in prison for possessing and distributing child pornography.
One year ago: Donald Trump hounded the Justice Department to pursue his false election fraud claims, contacting the agency’s leader “virtually every day” and striving in vain to enlist top law enforcement officials in a desperate bid to stay in power, according to testimony to the House panel investigating the Jan. 6, 2021, Capitol riot. In a major expansion of gun rights, the Supreme Court says Americans have a right to carry firearms in public for self-defense. The European Union’s leaders agreed to make Ukraine a candidate for EU membership, setting in motion a potentially yearslong process that could draw the embattled country further away from Russia’s influence and bind it more closely to the West.
Today’s Birthdays: Singer Diana Trask is 83. Actor Ted Shackelford is 77. Actor Bryan Brown is 76. Supreme Court Justice Clarence Thomas is 75. Actor Jim Metzler is 72. “American Idol” ex-judge Randy Jackson is 67. Actor Frances McDormand is 66. Rock musician Steve Shelley (Sonic Youth) is 61. Writer-director Joss Whedon is 59. R&B singer Chico DeBarge is 53. Actor Selma Blair is 51. Actor Joel Edgerton is 49. Rock singer KT Tunstall is 48. Actor Emmanuelle Vaugier is 47. Singer-songwriter Jason Mraz is 46. Football Hall of Famer LaDainian Tomlinson is 44. Actor Melissa Rauch is 43. Rock singer Duffy is 39. Country singer Katie Armiger is 32.
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