This Week in History

Bonnie K. Goodman

This Week in History... June 22-28, 2009

  • 06-22-1775 Congress issues Continental currency
  • 06-22-1944 FDR signs GI bill
  • 06-23-1956 Gamal Abdel Nasser elected as the first president of the Republic of Egypt.
  • 06-24-1675 King Philip's War begins
  • 06-24-1812 Napoleon's Grande Armee invades Russia
  • 06-24-1970 Senate repeals Tonkin Gulf Resolution
  • 06-25-1876 Indians defeat Custer at Little Big Horn
  • 06-25-1942 Major General Dwight D. Eisenhower takes command of U.S. forces in Europe.
  • 06-25-1950 Korean War begins
  • 06-24-1993 Kim Campbell takes office as Canada's first female Prime Minister
  • 06-24-1509 - Henry VIII was crowned king of England.
  • 06-24-1647 - Early American feminist Margaret Brent demanded a seat and vote in the Maryland Assembly, but was ejected from that body.
  • 06-24-1675 - King Philip's War, the most devastating war between the colonists and Indians, began with Indians attacking the Swansea (Mass.) settlement.
  • 06-24-1908 - The 22nd and 24th president of the United States, Grover Cleveland, died in Princeton, N.J.
  • 06-24-1947 - Kenneth Arnold, an American pilot, reported seeing strange objects near Mt. Rainier, Washington. He described them as "saucers skipping across the water," hence the term "flying saucers" was born.
  • 06-24-1948 - The Soviet Union began a blockade of Berlin. Allied forces responded with what would be known as the Berlin Airlift flying in more than 2 million tons of supplies over the next year.
  • 06-24-1997 - The U.S. Air Force released The Roswell Report, closing the case on the 1947 Roswell, N.M. incident concerning UFOs and alien bodies.
  • 06-25-1788 - Virginia became the 10th state in the Union.
  • 06-25-1876 - Lt. Col. George A. Custer and all his men were killed by Sioux and Cheyanne Indians at the Battle of Little Bighorn in Montana.
  • 06-25-1950 - Communist North Korean troops invaded South Korea, beginning the Korean War.
  • 06-25-1951 - The first commercial color TV program was transmitted by CBS from New York to Baltimore, Philadelphia, Boston, and Washington, DC.
  • 06-25-1991 - Croatia and Slovenia proclaimed their independence from Yugoslavia, beginning the Yugoslavian civil war.
  • 06-26-1819 - The bicycle was patented by W. K. Clarkson.
  • 06-26-1843 - Hong Kong was proclaimed a British crown colony.
  • 06-26-1906 - The first Grand Prix motor race was held in Le Mans, France.
  • 06-26-1959 - The St. Lawrence Seaway, connecting the Great Lakes and the Atlantic, was opened
  • 06-26-1963 - President John Kennedy gave his, "Ich bin ein Berliner" (I am a Berliner) speech in West Berlin.
  • 06-26-1976 - The CN tower in Toronto opened, the world's tallest free-standing structure.
  • 06-27-1844 - Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints founder Joseph Smith was murdered by a mob in Carthage, Ill.
  • 06-27-1898 - Joshua Slocum became the first person to successfully circumnavigate the earth alone when he landed his sloop Spray in Newport, R.I., a 46,000-mile trip.
  • 06-27-1950 - President Harry S. Truman ordered the Air Force and Navy into the Korean War.
  • 06-27-1954 - The world's first atomic power station opened at Obninsk, near Moscow.
  • 06-27-1969 - Police and gays clashed at the Stonewall Inn in New York City, fostering the gay rights movement.
  • 06-27-1985 - The legendary Route 66, running from Chicago to Santa Monica, Calif., was decertified, the victim of the Interstate Highway System.
  • 06-28-1836 - The fourth president of the United States, James Madison, died at Montpelier, his Virginia estate.
  • 06-28-1894 - Labor Day became a federal holiday by an act of Congress.
  • 06-28-1914 - Archduke Francis Ferdinand of Austria-Hungary and his wife were assassinated, setting off World War I.
  • 06-28-1919 - The Treaty of Versailles was signed in France, ending World War I.
  • 06-28-1978 - The Supreme Court ruled in Regents of the University of California v. Bakke that the use of quotas in affirmative action programs was not permissible.
  • 06-28-2000 - Elian Gonzalez was returned to his father in Cuba.
  • 06-28-2001 - Serbia handed over Slobodan Milosevic over to the UN war crimes tribunal.
  • 06-28-2004 - In Iraq, the United States transferred power back to the Iraqis two days earlier than planned.



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