Today is Saturday, June 27, the 179th day of 2020. There are 187 days left in the year.
Today’s Highlight in History:
On June 27, 1991, Supreme Court Justice Thurgood Marshall, the first black jurist to sit on the nation’s highest court, announced his retirement. (His departure led to the contentious nomination of Clarence Thomas to succeed him.)
On this date:
In 1844, Mormon leader Joseph Smith and his brother, Hyrum, were killed by a mob in Carthage, Illinois.
In 1846, New York and Boston were linked by telegraph wires.
In 1880, author-lecturer Helen Keller, who lived most of her life without sight or hearing, was born in Tuscumbia, Alabama.
In 1944, during World War II, American forces liberated the French port of Cherbourg (SHEHR’-boorg) from the Germans.
In 1950, the U.N. Security Council passed a resolution calling on member nations to help South Korea repel an invasion from the North.
In 1988, at least 56 people were killed when a commuter train ran into a stationary train at the Gare de Lyon terminal in Paris. In 1988, Mike Tyson retained the undisputed heavyweight crown as he knocked out Michael Spinks 91 seconds into the first round of a championship fight in Atlantic City, New Jersey.
In 2001, actor Jack Lemmon died in Los Angeles at age 76.
In 2005, the Supreme Court ruled, in a pair of 5-4 decisions, that displaying the Ten Commandments on government property was constitutionally permissible in some cases but not in others. BTK serial killer Dennis Rader pleaded guilty to ten murders that had spread fear across Wichita, Kansas, beginning in the 1970s. (Rader later received multiple life sentences.)
In 2006, a constitutional amendment to ban desecration of the American flag died in a Senate cliffhanger, falling one vote short of the 67 needed to send it to states for ratification.
Today’s Birthdays: Former Interior Secretary Bruce Babbitt is 82. Singer-musician Bruce Johnston (The Beach Boys) is 78. Fashion designer Vera Wang is 71. Actress Julia Duffy is 69. Actress Isabelle Adjani is 65. Country singer Lorrie Morgan is 61. Actor Brian Drillinger is 60. TV personality Jo Frost is 50. Actor Yancey Arias is 49. Actor Christian Kane is 48. Actor Tobey Maguire is 45.
