On This Day in History

[JoGee]

(June 1)

1980 ~
CNN Launches
📺

On this day in 1980, CNN (Cable News Network), the world’s first 24-hour television news network, makes its debut. The network signed on at 6 p.m. EST from its headquarters in Atlanta, Georgia, with a lead story about the attempted assassination of civil rights leader Vernon Jordan. CNN went on to change the notion that news could only be reported at fixed times throughout the day. At the time of CNN’s launch, TV news was dominated by three major networks–ABC, CBS and NBC–and their nightly 30-minute broadcasts. Initially available in less than two million U.S. homes, today CNN is seen in more than 89 million American households and over 160 million homes internationally.

On this day in 1980, CNN (Cable News Network), the world’s first 24-hour television news network, makes its debut. The network signed on at 6 p.m. EST from its headquarters in Atlanta, Georgia, with a lead story about the attempted assassination of civil rights leader Vernon Jordan. CNN went on to change the notion that news could only be reported at fixed times throughout the day. At the time of CNN’s launch, TV news was dominated by three major networks–ABC, CBS and NBC–and their nightly 30-minute broadcasts. Initially available in less than two million U.S. homes, today CNN is seen in more than 89 million American households and over 160 million homes internationally.

CNN was the brainchild of Robert “Ted” Turner, a colorful, outspoken businessman dubbed the “Mouth of the South.” Turner was born on November 19, 1938, in Cincinnati, Ohio, and as a child moved with his family to Georgia, where his father ran a successful billboard advertising company. After his father committed suicide in 1963, Turner took over the business and expanded it. In 1970, he bought a failing Atlanta TV station that broadcast old movies and network reruns and within a few years Turner had transformed it into a “superstation,” a concept he pioneered, in which the station was beamed by satellite into homes across the country. Turner later bought the Atlanta Braves baseball team and the Atlanta Hawks basketball team and aired their games on his network, TBS (Turner Broadcasting System). In 1977, Turner gained international fame when he sailed his yacht to victory in the prestigious America’s Cup race.

In its first years of operation, CNN lost money and was ridiculed as the Chicken Noodle Network. However, Turner continued to invest in building up the network’s news bureaus around the world and in 1983, he bought Satellite News Channel, owned in part by ABC, and thereby eliminated CNN’s main competitor. CNN eventually came to be known for covering live events around the world as they happened, often beating the major networks to the punch. The network gained significant traction with its live coverage of the Persian Gulf War in 1991 and the network’s audience grew along with the increasing popularity of cable television during the 1990s.

In 1996, CNN merged with Time Warner, which merged with America Online four years later. Today, Ted Turner is an environmentalist and peace activist whose philanthropic efforts include a 1997 gift of $1 billion to the United Nations.

[JoGee]

(June 2)

1865 ~.
American Civil War ends

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In an event that is generally regarded as marking the end of the Civil War, Confederate General Edmund Kirby Smith, commander of Confederate forces west of the Mississippi, signs the surrender terms offered by Union negotiators. With Smith’s surrender, the last Confederate army ceased to exist, bringing a formal end to the bloodiest four years in U.S. history.

The American Civil War began on April 12, 1861, when Confederate shore batteries under General Pierre G.T. Beauregard opened fire on Union-held Fort Sumter in South Carolina’s Charleston Bay. During 34 hours, 50 Confederate guns and mortars launched more than 4,000 rounds at the poorly supplied fort, and on April 13 U.S. Major Robert Anderson, commander of the Union garrison, surrendered. Two days later, U.S. President Abraham Lincoln issued a proclamation calling for 75,000 volunteer soldiers to help quell the Southern “insurrection.” Four long years later, the Confederacy was defeated at the total cost of 620,000 Union and Confederate dead.

[JoGee]

(June 3)

1800 ~
President John Adams moves into a tavern in Washington, D.C.

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On this day in 1800, John Adams, the second president of the United States, becomes the first president to reside in Washington, D.C., when he takes up residence at Union Tavern in Georgetown.

The city of Washington was created to replace Philadelphia as the nation’s capital because of its geographical position in the center of the existing new republic. The states of Maryland and Virginia ceded land around the Potomac River to form the District of Columbia, and work began on Washington in 1791. French architect Charles L’Enfant designed the city’s radical layout, full of dozens of circles, crisscross avenues, and plentiful parks. In 1792, work began on the neoclassical White House building at 1600 Pennsylvania Avenue under the guidance of Irish-American architect James Hoban, whose White House design was influenced by Leinster House in Dublin and by a building sketch in James Gibbs’ Book of Architecture. In the next year, Benjamin Latrobe began construction on the other principal government building, the U.S. Capitol.

On June 3, 1800, President Adams moved to a temporary residence in the new capital as construction was completed on the executive mansion. On November 1, the president was welcomed into the White House. The next day, Adams wrote to his wife about their new home: “I pray heaven to bestow the best of blessings on this house, and on all that shall hereafter inhabit it. May none but wise men ever rule under this roof!” Soon after, Abigail Adams arrived at the White House, and on November 17 the U.S. Congress convened for the first time at the U.S. Capitol.

During the War of 1812, both buildings were set on fire in 1814 by British soldiers in retaliation for the burning of government buildings in Canada by U.S. troops. Although a torrential downpour saved the still uncompleted Capitol building, the White House was burned to the ground. The mansion was subsequently rebuilt and enlarged under the direction of James Hoban, who added east and west terraces to the main building along with a semicircular south portico and a colonnaded north portico. Work was completed on the White House in the 1820s and it has remained largely unchanged since.

[JoGee]

(JUNE 4)

1896 ~
Henry Ford test-drives his “Quadricycle”
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At approximately 4:00 a.m. on June 4, 1896, in the shed behind his home on Bagley Avenue in Detroit, Henry Ford unveils the “Quadricycle,” the first automobile he ever designed or drove.

Ford was working as the chief engineer for the main plant of the Edison Illuminating Company when he began working on the Quadricycle. On call at all hours to ensure that Detroit had electrical service 24 hours a day, Ford was able to use his flexible working schedule to experiment with his pet project–building a horseless carriage with a gasoline-powered engine. His obsession with the gasoline engine had begun when he saw an article on the subject in a November 1895 issue of American Machinistmagazine. The following March, another Detroit engineer named Charles King took his own hand-built vehicle–made of wood, it had a four-cylinder engine and could travel up to five miles per hour–out for a ride, fueling Ford’s desire to build a lighter and faster gasoline-powered model.

As he would do throughout his career, Ford used his considerable powers of motivation and organization to get the job done, enlisting friends–including King–and assistants to help him bring his vision to life. After months of work and many setbacks, Ford was finally ready to test-drive his creation–basically a light metal frame fitted with four bicycle wheels and powered by a two-cylinder, four-horsepower gasoline engine–on the morning of June 4, 1896. When Ford and James Bishop, his chief assistant, attempted to wheel the Quadricycle out of the shed, however, they discovered that it was too wide to fit through the door. To solve the problem, Ford took an axe to the brick wall of the shed, smashing it to make space for the vehicle to be rolled out.

With Bishop bicycling ahead to alert passing carriages and pedestrians, Ford drove the 500-pound Quadricycle down Detroit’s Grand River Avenue, circling around three major thoroughfares. The Quadricycle had two driving speeds, no reverse, no brakes, rudimentary steering ability and a doorbell button as a horn, and it could reach about 20 miles per hour, easily overpowering King’s invention. Aside from one breakdown on Washington Boulevard due to a faulty spring, the drive was a success, and Ford was on his way to becoming one of the most formidable success stories in American business history.

🚲 🚙

[JoGee]

(JUNE 5)

1993 ~
Julie Krone wins the Belmont Stakes

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On this day in 1993, Julie Krone rides 13-to-1 shot Colonial Affair to victory in the Belmont Stakes to become the first female jockey ever to win a Triple Crown race.

Julieanne Louise Krone was born July 24, 1963, in Benton Harbor, Michigan, where her mother Judi was a riding instructor and raised horses on the family’s farm. Julie won her first horse race at just five years old in a 21-and-under race in which she exhibited a natural way with horses. Her talent continued to develop, and after Julie’s sophomore year of high school, her mother forged her birth certificate so that she appeared old enough to work for a summer exercising and grooming horses at Churchill Downs, home of the Kentucky Derby. As soon as Krone turned 18 in 1981, she dropped out of high school and moved to Tampa, Florida, to pursue a career as a jockey. She won her first professional race in short order, after having climbed a fence to get a tryout when she and her mother were denied admittance to the track. Krone was not always welcome in the male-dominated sport, but she pushed back when her male counterparts bullied her, and eventually won respect from most in the sport for her refusal to stand down. In 1987 and 1988, Krone was the leading money winner at both Monmount and Marymount, the New Jersey tracks where she rode.

The 1993 Belmont Stakes was Krone’s fourth mount in a classic, and the seventh time a woman had jockeyed in a Triple Crown race. The race began tragically, as Prairie Bayou, who placed in the Kentucky Derby and won the Preakness that year, tumbled and broke his shin and ankle; the horse had to be put down after the race. Still, Julie Krone was able to maintain her focus and rode Colonial Affair to a win by two-and-a-quarter lengths over Kissin Kris. After the race, jockey Scotty Shulhofer, who had initially objected to women racing with men, said “She talks to the horses in body language. They respond to her. She’s a very smart girl, with a great feel. I think she’s got the finest sense of horses of anyone around.”

Julie Krone retired in 1999 with 3,545 career wins, the most ever for a woman. In 2000, she became the first female jockey inducted into the National Museum of Racing’s Hall of Fame. She came out of retirement in 2002, and won that year’s Breeder’s Cup, but retired again after an accident in December 2003 with 3,704 victories and over $90 million in purses.


🐴 🐴 🐴

[JoGee]

(June 6)

1683 ~
The Ashmolean opens

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The Ashmolean, the world’s first university museum, opens in Oxford, England.

At the time of the English Restoration, Oxford was the center of scientific activity in England. In 1677, English archaeologist Elias Ashmole donated his collection of curiosities to Oxford University, and the school’s directors planned the construction of a building to display the items permanently. Acclaimed English architect Sir Christopher Wren was commissioned for the job, and on June 6, 1683, the Ashmolean opened.

The first modern museum, the Ashmolean was designed to display its collections, organized so that Oxford University could use it for teaching purposes, and was regularly opened to the public. In 1845, architect Charles R. Cockerell completed the construction of a new home for the museum’s rapidly growing collection on Oxford’s Beaumont Street. Today, the collection at the Ashmolean Museum of Art and Archaeology ranges in time from the earliest implements of man, made about 500,000 years ago, to 20th century works of art. Among the collection of antiquities and artwork are curiosities like Guy Fawkes’ lantern and relics like the Alfred Jewel.

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ALSO ON THIS DAY:

1944 ~ D-Day

Although the term D-Day is used routinely as military lingo for the day an operation or event will take place, for many it is also synonymous with June 6, 1944, the day the Allied powers crossed the English Channel and landed on the beaches of Normandy, France, beginning the liberation of Western Europe from Nazi control during World War II. Within three months, the northern part of France would be freed and the invasion force would be preparing to enter Germany, where they would meet up with Soviet forces moving in from the east.


The heroism and bravery displayed by troops from the Allied countries on D-Day has served as inspiration for several films, most famously The Longest Day (1962) and Saving Private Ryan (1998). It was also depicted in the HBO mini-series Band of Brothers (2001).

[JoGee]

(June 7)

1866
Chief Seattle dies near the city named for him

📜

Thirteen years after American settlers founded the city named for him, Chief Seattle dies in a nearby village of his people.
Born sometime around 1790, Seattle (Seathl) was a chief of the Duwamish and Suquamish tribes who lived around the Pacific Coast bay that is today called Puget Sound. He was the son of a Suquamish father and a Duwamish mother, a lineage that allowed him to gain influence in both tribes.

By the early 1850s, small bands of Euro-Americans had begun establishing villages along the banks of Puget Sound. Chief Seattle apparently welcomed his new neighbors and seems to have treated them with kindness. In 1853, several settlers moved to a site on Elliott Bay to establish a permanent town–since Chief Seattle had proved so friendly and welcoming, the settlers named their tiny new settlement in his honor.

The Euro-American settlers picked the site because of the luxuriant forest on the bluff behind the new village. The Gold Rush in California had created a booming market for timber, and soon most of the villagers were at work cutting the trees and “skidding” them down a long chute to a newly constructed sawmill. The chute became known as “skid road,” and in time, it became the main street in Seattle, though it kept its original name. When the Seattle business district later moved north, the area became a haven for drunks and derelicts. Consequently, “skid road” or “skid row” became lingo for the dilapidated area of any town.

Not all the Puget Sound Indians, however, were as friendly toward the white settlers as Chief Seattle. War broke out in 1855, and Indians from the White River Valley south of Seattle attacked the village. Although he believed the whites would eventually drive his people to extinction, Chief Seattle argued that resistance would merely anger the settlers and hasten the Indians’ demise. By 1856, many of the hostile Indians had concluded that Chief Seattle was right and made peace.

Rather than fight, Seattle tried to learn white ways. Jesuit missionaries introduced him to Catholicism, and he became a devout believer. He observed morning and evening prayers throughout the rest of his life. The people of the new city of Seattle also paid some respect to the chief’s traditional religion. The Suquamish believed the mention of a dead man’s name disturbs his eternal rest. To provide Chief Seattle with a pre-payment for the difficulties he would face in the afterlife, the people of Seattle levied a small tax on themselves to use the chief’s name. He died in 1866 at the approximate age of 77.

[JoGee]

(June 8)

1913 ~.
Forensic evidence captures a murderous father

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Two farmers walking near a quarry outside of Edinburgh, Scotland, find two small, dead bodies floating in the water, tied together. Although the bodies were so waterlogged that authorities could barely confirm that they were human, Sydney Smith, the century’s first "Quincy,” was able to use forensics to help solve the crime.

Smith was at the beginning of his 40-year career and working as an assistant to Professor Harvey Littlejohn at Edinburgh University. The first thing he noticed about the body was the presence of adipocere, a white and hard type of fat. The level of adipocere in the bodies, which takes months to form inside the human body when exposed to water, led Smith to believe that they had been in the quarry somewhere between 18 to 24 months.

The adipocere had preserved the stomachs of the bodies and Smith saw that the children had eaten peas, barley, potatoes, and leeks approximately an hour before they died. Given the seasonal nature of the vegetables, Smith figured that the kids had died at the end of 1911. Most importantly, Smith found an indication that one of the children’s shirts had come from the Dysart poorhouse.

With this information, law enforcement officials quickly found the killer. Patrick Higgins, a widower and drunk, had placed his two boys in the Dysart poorhouse in 1910. When he didn’t pay the small fees, Higgins was jailed. He eventually took the young boys out of the poorhouse, but they had not been seen since November 1911.

Higgins was arrested and pled temporary insanity at his trial in September 1913. The jury rejected his defense, and, on October 2, 1913, he was hanged.

Sydney Smith went on to be a pioneer in forensic medicine

[JoGee]

(June 9)

1891
Cole Porter is born

🌷🎶🎶🎶🎶🎶

On this day in 1891, the great composer and lyricist Cole Porter—one of the most important American songwriters of the 20th century—is born in Peru, Indiana.

Cole Porter’s legal birth certificate actually gives 1893 as the year of his birth rather than 1891, but that was a change engineered by his mother when she judged that 14-year-old Cole’s budding musical talents would be even more impressive in a 12-year-old. Kate Porter and her domineering father, J.O. Cole, played a similarly active role in promoting Cole’s success throughout his young life, even applying their considerable wealth and social standing to securing appearances as a soloist with the local student orchestras through the application of timely and generous financial contributions. Though his grandfather sent him off for an Ivy League education in the hopes that he would become an attorney, it was at Yale that Cole Porter first gained popularity as a writer of football fight songs and as a performer in the original lineup of the famous a cappella group the Whiffenpoofs. After an abortive attempt at law school at Harvard, Cole Porter committed himself to a career in music and left for New York in 1914.

Porter’s earliest efforts on the musical stage were abject failures, but his family wealth allowed him to decamp to Paris in 1916, where he spent the better part of two decades living the dissolute life of a privileged Bohemian. It was here that Porter fell in with Hemmingway, Stein and other members of the Lost Generation of poets and writers. It was also here that Cole Porter met his future wife, fellow expatriate American Linda Lee Thomas. While Porter was gay, and many of his most beautiful love songs (e.g., “You’d Be So Nice To Come Home To”) were inspired by his male lovers, his marriage to Thomas would last for the rest of his life and provide him with the social status then necessary for a gay public figure.

Cole Porter spent the entirety of the 1920s living in Paris. It was only upon on his return to New York in the early 30s that he would truly begin building in earnest the career that would make him one of the most famous and beloved figures in 20th-century American popular music.



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[JoGee]

(June 10)

1692 ~.
First Salem witch hanging
🌀

In Salem Village in the Massachusetts Bay Colony, Bridget Bishop, the first colonist to be tried in the Salem witch trials, is hanged after being found guilty of the practice of witchcraft.

Trouble in the small Puritan community began in February 1692, when nine-year-old Elizabeth Parris and 11-year-old Abigail Williams, the daughter and niece, respectively, of the Reverend Samuel Parris, began experiencing fits and other mysterious maladies. A doctor concluded that the children were suffering from the effects of witchcraft, and the young girls corroborated the doctor’s diagnosis. Under compulsion from the doctor and their parents, the girls named those allegedly responsible for their suffering.

On March 1, Sarah Goode, Sarah Osborne, and Tituba, an Indian slave from Barbados, became the first Salem residents to be charged with the capital crime of witchcraft. Later that day, Tituba confessed to the crime and subsequently aided the authorities in identifying more Salem witches. With encouragement from adults in the community, the girls, who were soon joined by other “afflicted” Salem residents, accused a widening circle of local residents of witchcraft, mostly middle-aged women but also several men and even one four-year-old child. During the next few months, the afflicted area residents incriminated more than 150 women and men from Salem Village and the surrounding areas of satanic practices.

In June 1692, the special Court of Oyer and Terminer ["to hear and to decide"] convened in Salem under Chief Justice William Stoughton to judge the accused. The first to be tried was Bridget Bishop of Salem, who was accused of witchcraft by more individuals than any other defendant. Bishop, known around town for her dubious moral character, frequented taverns, dressed flamboyantly (by Puritan standards), and was married three times. She professed her innocence but was found guilty and executed by hanging on June 10. Thirteen more women and five men from all stations of life followed her to the gallows, and one man, Giles Corey, was executed by crushing. Most of those tried were condemned on the basis of the witnesses’ behavior during the actual proceedings, characterized by fits and hallucinations that were argued to have been caused by the defendants on trial.

In October 1692, Governor William Phipps of Massachusetts ordered the Court of Oyer and Terminer dissolved and replaced with the Superior Court of Judicature, which forbade the type of sensational testimony allowed in the earlier trials. Executions ceased, and the Superior Court eventually released all those awaiting trial and pardoned those sentenced to death. The Salem witch trials, which resulted in the executions of 19 innocent women and men, had effectively ended.

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[JoGee]

(June 11)

1509 -
Henry VIII marries first wife

👰🏻

On this day in history, King Henry VIII of England marries Catherine of Aragon, the first of six wives he will have in his lifetime. When Catherine failed to produce a male heir, Henry divorced her against the will of the Roman Catholic Church, thus precipitating the Protestant Reformation in England.

Henry went on to have five more wives; two of whom–Anne Boleyn and Catherine Howard–he executed for alleged adultery after he grew tired of them. His only surviving child by Catherine of Aragon, Mary, ascended to the throne upon the death of her half-brother, Edward VI, in 1553. In 1558, Mary was succeeded by her half-sister, Elizabeth, the only surviving child of Henry VIII by Anne Boleyn. She was crowned Queen Elizabeth I.

[JoGee]

(June 12)

1942 -
Anne Frank receives a diary

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On this day, Anne Frank, a young Jewish girl living in Amsterdam, receives a diary for her 13th birthday. A month later, she and her family went into hiding from the Nazis in rooms behind her father’s office. For two years, the Franks and four other families hid, fed and cared for by Gentile friends. The families were discovered by the Gestapo, which had been tipped off, in 1944. The Franks were taken to Auschwitz, where Anne’s mother died. Friends in Amsterdam searched the rooms and found Anne’s diary hidden away.

Anne and her sister were transferred to another camp, Bergen-Belsen, where Anne died of typhus a month before the war ended.

Anne’s father survived Auschwitz and published Anne’s diary in 1947 as The Diary of a Young Girl. The book has been translated into more than 60 languages.

💠

[JoGee]

(June 13)

1966 ~
The Miranda Rights are established
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On this day in 1966, the Supreme Court hands down its decision in Miranda v. Arizona, establishing the principle that all criminal suspects must be advised of their rights before interrogation. Now considered standard police procedure, “You have the right to remain silent. Anything you say can, and will, be used against you in court of law. You have the right to an attorney. If you cannot afford one, one will be appointed to you,” has been heard so many times in television and film dramas that it has become almost cliche.

The roots of the Miranda decision go back to March 2, 1963, when an 18-year-old Phoenix woman told police that she had been abducted, driven to the desert and raped. Detectives questioning her story gave her a polygraph test, but the results were inconclusive. However, tracking the license plate number of a car that resembled that of her attacker’s brought police to Ernesto Miranda, who had a prior record as a peeping tom. Although the victim did not identify Miranda in a line-up, he was brought into police custody and interrogated. What happened next is disputed, but officers left the interrogation with a confession that Miranda later recanted, unaware that he didn’t have to say anything at all.

The confession was extremely brief and differed in certain respects from the victim’s account of the crime. However, Miranda’s appointed defense attorney (who was paid a grand total of $100) didn’t call any witnesses at the ensuing trial, and Miranda was convicted. While Miranda was in Arizona state prison, the American Civil Liberties Union took up his appeal, claiming that the confession was false and coerced.

The Supreme Court overturned his conviction, but Miranda was retried and convicted in October 1966 anyway, despite the relative lack of evidence against him. Remaining in prison until 1972, Ernesto Miranda was later stabbed to death in the men’s room of a bar after a poker game in January 1976.

As a result of the case against Miranda, each and every person must now be informed of his or her rights when arrested.

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[JoGee]

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(June 14)

1777 ~
Congress adopts the Stars and Stripes
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During the American Revolution, the Continental Congress adopts a resolution stating that “the flag of the United States be thirteen alternate stripes red and white” and that “the Union be thirteen stars, white in a blue field, representing a new Constellation.” The national flag, which became known as the “Stars and Stripes,” was based on the “Grand Union” flag, a banner carried by the Continental Army in 1776 that also consisted of 13 red and white stripes. According to legend, Philadelphia seamstress Betsy Ross designed the new canton for the Stars and Stripes, which consisted of a circle of 13 stars and a blue background, at the request of General George Washington. Historians have been unable to conclusively prove or disprove this legend.

With the entrance of new states into the United States after independence, new stripes and stars were added to represent new additions to the Union. In 1818, however, Congress enacted a law stipulating that the 13 original stripes be restored and that only stars be added to represent new states.

On June 14, 1877, the first Flag Day observance was held on the 100th anniversary of the adoption of the Stars and Stripes. As instructed by Congress, the U.S. flag was flown from all public buildings across the country. In the years after the first Flag Day, several states continued to observe the anniversary, and in 1949 Congress officially designated June 14 as Flag Day, a national day of observance.

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[JoGee]

(June 15) 1846 ~ U.S.-Canadian border established 💠 Representatives of Great Britain and the United States sign the Oregon Treaty, which settles a long-standing dispute with Britain over who controlled the Oregon territory. The treaty established the 49th parallel from the Rocky Mountains to the Strait of Georgia as the boundary between the United States and British Canada. The United States gained formal control over the future states of Oregon, Washington, Idaho, and Montana, and the British retained Vancouver Island and navigation rights to part of the Columbia River. In 1818, a U.S.-British agreement had established the border along the 49th parallel from Lake of the Woods in the east to the Rocky Mountains in the west. The two nations also agreed to a joint occupation of Oregon territory for 10 years, an arrangement that was extended for an additional 10 years in 1827. After 1838, the issue of who possessed Oregon became increasingly controversial, especially when mass American migration along the Oregon Trail began in the early 1840s. American expansionists urged seizure of Oregon, and in 1844 Democrat James K. Polk successfully ran for president under the platform “Fifty-four forty or fight,” which referred to his hope of bringing a sizable portion of present-day Vancouver and Alberta into the United States. However, neither President Polk nor the British government wanted a third Anglo-American war, and on June 15, 1846, the Oregon Treaty, a compromise, was signed. By the terms of the agreement, the U.S. and Canadian border was extended west along the 49th parallel to the Strait of Georgia, just short of the Pacific Ocean. 💠