Welcome to today’s historical trivia for June 30th!

1775 Congress impugns Parliament and adopts Articles of War. One year later in the Declaration of Independence the condemnation included King George III.

1834 Congress creates Indian Territory (now Oklahoma)

1859 Daredevil crosses Niagara Falls on tightrope. Wearing pink tights and a yellow tunic, Blondin crossed a cable about two inches in diameter and 1,100-feet long with only a balancing pole to protect him from plunging into the dangerous rapids below. Not the only dramatic balancing act by Emile Blondin. http://tinyurl.com/y7saqhlz

1860 Famous debate on Charles Darwin’s theory of evolution held at the Oxford University Museum and dominated by arguments between Thomas Henry Huxley and Bishop Samuel Wilberforce

1865 8 alleged conspirators in assassination of Lincoln are found guilty. Read on at PBS: http://tinyurl.com/mmanw99

1894 London’s Tower Bridge opens

1896 W S Hadaway patents electric stove. Infogalactic all about electric stoves: http://tinyurl.com/y9apaxqf

1898 Winton Motor Carriage Company publishes the first known automobile ad in Scientific American using the headline “dispense with a horse.” See the ad at scoopnest.com: http://tinyurl.com/ych8bg6p

1906 US Congress passes the Meat Inspection Act and the Pure Food and Drug Act; these laws owe much to the expose journalism of the period (Upton Sinclair’s ‘The Jungle’ in particular) Sinclair famously said of the public reaction “I aimed at the public’s heart, and by accident I hit it in the stomach.”

1908 Tunguska Event: a giant fireball most likely caused by the air burst of a large meteoroid or comet impacts in Siberia. See earthsky.org for a short article. http://tinyurl.com/nj4wetw

1911 US Assay Office in St Louis, Missouri closes

1916 General Douglas Haig reports “The men are in splendid spirits”

1918 Prominent US Socialist and Pacifist Eugene Debs is arrested on charges of denouncing the government, a violation of the Espionage Act of 1917. Eugene Victor “Gene” Debs was an American union leader, one of the founding members of the Industrial Workers of the World, and five times the candidate of the Socialist Party of America for President of the United States. ” I have no country to fight for; my country is the earth, and I am a citizen of the world.” http://tinyurl.com/nbdpaxk

1925 Charles Jenkins is granted the U.S. patent for Transmitting Pictures over Wireless (early television)

1927 US Assay Office in Deadwood, South Dakota closes

1928 Radio Service Bulletin lists radio stations call signs that are to be changed to conform with international standards

1930 First round-the-world radio broadcast, Schenectady NY. See:
GENERAL ELECTRIC’S TRIO OF PIONEER RADIO BROADCAST STATIONS at The Radio Historian: http://tinyurl.com/yd5u2fwu

1933 US Assay Offices in Helena Mon, Boise Id & Salt Lake City Utah close

1936 40 hour work week law approved for US federal employees

1936 Margaret Mitchell’s novel “Gone with the Wind” published

1938 Superman first appears in DC Comics’ Action Comics Series issue #1

1940 “Brenda Starr” cartoon strip, by Dale Messick, first appears

1940 US Fish & Wildlife Service forms

1942 US Mint in New Orleans ceases operation

1945 17-day newspaper strike in NY begins

1948 Transistor as a substitute for valves announced (Bell Labs)

1951 “Victor Borge Show” last airs on NBC-TV

1953 First Chevrolet Corvette manufactured

1954 Largest check: Internal US Treasury check at $4,176,969,623.57. The computer was unable to write a check for such a large amount of money it had to be typed out. The typist was so in awe it took her three tries to get it right.

1955 “Johnny Carson Show” debuts on CBS-TV. I challenge you to watch Carson and Betty White as Adam and Eve and not laugh. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Ih6LxwdwvlA

1956 Lenin’s politics testament (1923) published in Moscow

1956 United DC-7 & TWA collide over Grand Canyon killing 128

1960 US stops sugar import from Cuba. See Cold War Studies: http://tinyurl.com/y792umur

1961 NASA Explorer Micrometeoroid research mission fails to reach Earth orbit

1964 Centaur 3 launch vehicle fails to make Earth orbit

1966 Richard Helms promoted from deputy director to 8th director of US Central Intelligence Agency

1967 Robert Henry Lawrence, Jr. named first black astronaut

1971 Crew of Russian space mission Soyuz 11 found dead upon arrival on earth (only people to die in space)

1971 Ohio becomes 38th state to approve of lower voting age to 18, thus ratifying 26th amendment

1974 Soviet dancer Mikhail Baryshnikov defects to west

1975 University of California reports galaxy 3C123 at 8 billion light years distance

1977 US Railway Post Office final train run (NY to Washington, D.C.)

1981 A first-time offender ends up on the FBI’s Ten Most Wanted List. Glen Godwin, a young business owner, is convicted of murder in Riverside County, California, and sentenced to 26-years-to-life in prison. According to his roommate’s testimony, Godwin stomped on, choked, and then stabbed Kim LeValley, an acquaintance and local drug dealer, 28 times before using homemade explosives to blow up his body in the desert near Palm Springs. Godwin, who had no previous record, eventually found his way onto the FBI’s Ten Most Wanted List. After several escapes from prisons in the US and Mexico, Godwin remains at large.

1982 Federal Equal Rights Amendment fails 3 states short of ratification

1984 Failed coup by cocaine growers in Bolivia

1984 Last sixpence minted in Great-Britain (in use since 1551)

1985 39 remaining hostages from Flight 847 are freed in Beirut

1987 Emmy 14th Daytime Award presentation – Susan Lucci loses for 8th time

1987 The Royal Canadian Mint introduces the $1 coin, known as the Loonie.

1988 Brooklyn dedicates a bus depot honoring Jackie Gleason

1988 Chicago agrees to build a new stadium so White Sox won’t move to Fla

1992 First pay bathrooms in US open: 25 cents (NYC)

1992 Former Prime Minister Margaret Thatcher joins the House of Lords as Baroness Thatcher of Kesteven.

1997 Leap Second to synchronize atomic clocks

2005 Spain legalizes same-sex marriage

2012 Mid-Atlantic storms in the United States kill 13 and leave millions without power in Ohio, Virginia, Maryland and the District of Columbia.

2013 19 fire fighters are killed controlling a wildfire in Yarnell, Arizona

2014 The corpses of the 3 Israeli teenagers kidnapped in the West Bank earlier in month are found

Bonus Video: Johnny Carson’s Carnac the Magnificent:

 

 

[I need to note that more than likely when the page goes up at all late, the issue is that I am late getting info to Stella. She is very patient with me and I hope you will be, also!]