Today in History

Today is Thursday, June 23, the 174th day of 2022. There are 191 days left in the year.

Today’s Highlights in History:

On June 23, 1888, abolitionist Frederick Douglass received one vote from the Kentucky delegation at the Republican convention in Chicago, effectively making him the first Black candidate to have his name placed in nomination for U.S. president. (The nomination went to Benjamin Harrison.)

On this date:

In 1860, a congressional resolution authorized creation of the United States Government Printing Office, which opened the following year.

In 1931, aviators Wiley Post and Harold Gatty took off from New York on a round-the-world flight that lasted eight days and 15 hours.

In 1947, the Senate joined the House in overriding President Harry S. Truman’s veto of the Taft-Hartley Act, designed to limit the power of organized labor.

In 1956, Gamal Abdel Nasser was elected president of Egypt.

In 1967, President Lyndon B. Johnson, Soviet Premier Alexei Kosygin (ah-LEK’-say koh-SEE’-gihn) opened a three-day summit at Glassboro State College in New Jersey.

In 1969, Warren E. Burger was sworn in as chief justice of the United States by the man he was succeeding, Earl Warren.

In 1972, President Richard Nixon signed Title IX barring discrimination on the basis of sex for “any education program or activity receiving federal financial assistance.” (On the same day, Nixon and White House chief of staff H.R. Haldeman discussed using the CIA to obstruct the FBI’s Watergate investigation. Revelation of the tape recording of this conversation sparked Nixon’s resignation in 1974.)

In 1985, all 329 people aboard an Air India Boeing 747 were killed when the plane crashed into the Atlantic Ocean near Ireland because of a bomb authorities believe was planted by Sikh separatists.

In 1994, the movie “Forrest Gump,” starring Tom Hanks as a simple yet kindhearted soul and his serendipitous brushes with greatness, was released by Paramount Pictures.

In 1995, Dr. Jonas Salk, the medical pioneer who developed the first vaccine to halt the crippling rampage of polio, died in La Jolla (HOY’-ah), California, at age 80.

In 2016, Britain voted to leave the European Union after a bitterly divisive referendum campaign, toppling Prime Minister David Cameron, who had led the campaign to keep Britain in the EU.

In 2020, the Louisville police department fired an officer involved in the fatal shooting of Breonna Taylor more than three months earlier, saying Brett Hankison had shown “extreme indifference to the value of human life” when he fired ten rounds into Taylor’s apartment. (A second officer was also fired; Hankison was found not guilty on charges that he endangered neighbors.)

Ten years ago: Syria and Turkey desperately sought to ease tensions following an incident in which Syria shot down a Turkish reconnaissance plane, saying the plane had entered its airspace. Ashton Eaton broke the world record in the decathlon, finishing with 9,039 points at the U.S. Olympic trials in Eugene, Oregon. (Eaton later surpassed his own record with 9,045 points at the 2015 Beijing world championships.)

Five years ago: President Donald Trump signed a bill making it easier for the Department of Veterans Affairs to fire employees, part of a push to overhaul an agency struggling to serve millions of military vets. California Gov. Jerry Brown blocked parole for Charles Manson follower and convicted killer Bruce Davis.

One year ago: A 49-year-old Indiana grandmother became the first person to be sentenced in the Jan. 6 insurrection at the U.S. Capitol; Anna Morgan Lloyd was sentenced to probation and community service and had to pay $500 in restitution after pleading guilty to a single misdemeanor charge. A member of the Oath Keepers extremist group, Graydon Young, pleaded guilty in a conspiracy case stemming from the Jan. 6 attack, and agreed to cooperate with prosecutors. After 13 years of near silence in the conservatorship that controlled her life and money, pop star Britney Spears told a judge in Los Angeles that the conservatorship controlled by her father and others had made her feel demoralized and enslaved, and that it should come to an end. (The judge would agree to that request in November 2021.)

Today’s Birthdays: Singer Diana Trask is 82. Actor Ted Shackelford is 76. Actor Bryan Brown is 75. Supreme Court Justice Clarence Thomas is 74. Actor Jim Metzler is 71. “American Idol” ex-judge Randy Jackson is 66. Actor Frances McDormand is 65. Rock musician Steve Shelley (Sonic Youth) is 60. Writer-director Joss Whedon is 58. R&B singer Chico DeBarge is 52. Actor Selma Blair is 50. Actor Joel Edgerton is 48. Rock singer KT Tunstall is 47. Actor Emmanuelle Vaugier is 46. Singer-songwriter Jason Mraz is 45. Football Hall of Famer LaDainian Tomlinson is 43. Actor Melissa Rauch is 42. Rock singer Duffy is 38. Country singer Katie Armiger is 31.

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