In 2003, actress Katharine Hepburn died in Old Saybrook, Connecticut, at age 96. This 1938 photo shows Hepburn with her pet dog. (Photo by Keystone/Getty Images)
Today is Saturday, June 29, the 180th day of 2019. There are 185 days left in the year.
Today’s Highlight in History:
On June 29, 1988, the U.S. Supreme Court, in Morrison v. Olson, upheld the independent counsel law in a 7-1 decision (the sole dissenter was Justice Antonin Scalia).
On this date:
In 1520, Montezuma II, the ninth and last emperor of the Aztecs, died in Tenochtitlan (tay-nohch-TEET’-lahn) under unclear circumstances (some say he was killed by his own subjects; others, by the Spanish).
In 1613, London’s original Globe Theatre, where many of Shakespeare’s plays were performed, was destroyed by a fire sparked by a cannon shot during a performance of “Henry VIII.”
In 1767, Britain approved the Townshend Revenue Act, which imposed import duties on glass, paint, oil, lead, paper and tea shipped to the American colonies. (Colonists bitterly protested, prompting Parliament to repeal the duties — except for tea.)
In 1776, the Virginia state constitution was adopted, and Patrick Henry was made governor.
In 1880, France annexed Tahiti, which became a French colony on December 30, 1880.
In 1927, the first trans-Pacific airplane flight was completed as U.S. Army Air Corps Lt. Lester J. Maitland and Lt. Albert F. Hegenberger arrived at Wheeler Field in Hawaii aboard the Bird of Paradise, an Atlantic-Fokker C-2, after flying 2,400 miles from Oakland, California, in 25 hours, 50 minutes.
In 1936, entertainer and songwriter George M. Cohan was presented with the Congressional Gold Medal by President Franklin D. Roosevelt for his contributions to building American morale during World War I.
In 1967, actress Jayne Mansfield, 34, was killed along with her boyfriend, Sam Brody, and their driver, Ronnie Harrison, when their car slammed into the rear of a tractor-trailer on a highway in Slidell, Louisiana; three children riding in the back, including Mansfield’s 3-year-old daughter, Mariska Hargitay, survived. Jerusalem was re-unified as Israel removed barricades separating the Old City from the Israeli sector.
In 1970, the United States ended a two-month military offensive into Cambodia.
In 1995, the space shuttle Atlantis and the Russian Mir space station linked in orbit, beginning a historic five-day voyage as a single ship. A department store in Seoul (sohl), South Korea, collapsed, killing at least 500 people. Actress Lana Turner died in Century City, California, at age 74.
In 2003, actress Katharine Hepburn died in Old Saybrook, Connecticut, at age 96.
In 2006, The Supreme Court ruled, 5-3, that President George W. Bush’s plan to try Guantanamo Bay detainees in military tribunals violated U.S. and international law.
Ten years ago: U.S. combat troops withdrew from Iraqi cities, the first major step toward removing all American forces from the country by Dec. 31, 2011. Disgraced financier Bernard Madoff received a 150-year sentence for his multibillion-dollar fraud. The U.S. Supreme Court ruled that white firefighters in New Haven, Connecticut, were denied promotion because of their race. Indoor tennis came to Wimbledon as the new retractable roof over Centre Court was closed after rain halted play during a fourth-round match with Amelie Mauresmo (AM’-uh-lee maw-REHS’-moh) leading top-ranked Dinara Safina (dihn-NAH’-ruh sah-FEE’-nah), 6-4, 1-4. (Safina ended up winning, 4-6, 6-3, 6-4.)
Five years ago: The al-Qaida breakaway group Islamic State of Iraq and the Levant, which had seized much of northeast Syria and huge tracts in neighboring Iraq, formally declared the establishment of a new Islamic state and demanded allegiance from Muslims worldwide. Grammy-winning jazz flutist and New Age music pioneer Paul Horn, 84, died in Vancouver, British Columbia.
One year ago: Canada released a list of items, including ketchup, lawn mowers and playing cards, that would be targeted with billions of dollars in retaliatory tariffs against the United States in response to the Trump administration’s duties on Canadian steel and aluminum. The Annapolis Capital Gazette newspaper in Maryland kept its promise to put out the day’s paper, despite the shooting deaths of five people in its newsroom a day earlier. In response to the fatal shootings at a Maryland newspaper, President Donald Trump said that “journalists, like all Americans, should be free from the fear of being violently attacked while doing their jobs.”
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