Today is Sunday, June 30th, the 182nd day of 2024. There are 184 days left this year.
Today’s History Highlights:
On June 30, 1934, Adolf Hitler began a “bloody purge” of his political and military opponents within Germany, which became known as the “Night of the Long Knives.”
In 1918, labor activist and socialist Eugene V. Debs was arrested in Cleveland under the Espionage Act of 1917 for a speech he had given two weeks earlier denouncing U.S. involvement in World War I. (Debs received prison time and was denied the right to vote for life.)
In 1921, President Warren G. Harding appointed former President William Howard Taft to succeed the late Edward Douglas White as Chief Justice of the United States Supreme Court.
In 1936, Margaret Mitchell’s novel Gone with the Wind was published.
In 1958, the U.S. Senate passed the Alaska statehood bill by a vote of 64-20.
In 1971, the Supreme Court ruled 6-3 that the government could not stop The New York Times and The Washington Post from publishing the Pentagon Papers.
In 1971, a Soviet space mission ended in tragedy when the three astronauts on board the Soyuz 11 were found dead, having suffocated in their capsule after returning to Earth.
In 1985, 39 American hostages from a hijacked TWA jet were released in Beirut after 17 days of captivity.
In 1986, the Supreme Court ruled 5-4 in Bowers v. Hardwick, holding that states could criminalize same-sex conduct between consenting adults (but in 2003, the nation’s highest court effectively overturned the ruling in Lawrence v. Texas).
In 1994, the United States Figure Skating Association stripped Tonya Harding of her U.S. championships and banned her for life for her role in an attack on rival Nancy Kerrigan.
In 2009, American soldier Corporal Bowe R. Bergdahl went missing from a base in eastern Afghanistan and was later confirmed to have been captured by insurgents after leaving his post. (Bergdahl was released on May 31, 2014 in exchange for five Taliban detainees; he pleaded guilty to desertion and misconduct against the enemy, but was spared prison time by a military judge.)
In 2012, Islamist leader Mohammed Morsi was sworn in in two ceremonies to become Egypt’s first freely elected president.
In 2016, Secretary of Defense Ash Carter announced that transgender people would be allowed to serve openly in the U.S. military, ending one of the last restrictions banning them from serving in the military.
In 2019, President Donald Trump became the first sitting US president to set foot in North Korea and meet with Kim Jong Un in the demilitarised zone between North and South Korea.
In 2020, Mississippi Governor Tate Reeves signed a landmark bill retiring the last state flag to feature the Confederate battle insignia, and Boston’s Arts Commission voted unanimously to remove a statue depicting a freed slave kneeling at the feet of Abraham Lincoln.
In 2022, Ketanji Brown Jackson was sworn in as the first Black woman justice on the Supreme Court.
Today’s birthdays: Actress Lea Massari (L’Avventura) is 91. Actress Nancy Dussault (doo-SOH’) is 88. Olympic track and field champion Billy Mills is 86. Oceanographer Robert Ballard is 82. Singer-songwriter Glenn Shorrock (Little River Band) is 80. Jazz musician Stanley Clarke is 73. Actor David Garrison (Married…with Children) is 72. Actor and comedian David Alan Grier is 68. Conductor Esa-Pekka Salonen is 66. Actor Vincent D’Onofrio is 65. Actor Deirdre Lovejoy (The Wire) is 62. Actor Rupert Graves is 61. Boxer Mike Tyson is 58. Actor Monica Potter is 53. Actor Rick Gonzales is 45. Actor Lizzy Caplan is 42. Country music singer-songwriter Cole Swindell is 41. Singer and actress Fantasia is 40. Olympic gold medalist swimmer Michael Phelps is 39. Actor Sean Marquette (The Goldbergs) is 35. Baseball player Trea Turner is 31.
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