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Today is Sunday, June 27, the 178th day of 2021. There are 187 days left in the year.

Today’s Highlight in History:

On June 27, 1950, the U.N. Security Council passed a resolution calling on member nations to help South Korea repel an invasion from the North.

On this date:

In 1787, English historian Edward Gibbon completed work on his six-volume work, “The History of the Decline and Fall of the Roman Empire.”

In 1880, author-lecturer Helen Keller, who lived most of her life without sight or hearing, was born in Tuscumbia, Alabama.

In 1942, the FBI announced the arrests of eight Nazi saboteurs put ashore in Florida and Long Island, New York. (All were tried and sentenced to death; six were executed while two were spared for turning themselves in and cooperating with U.S. authorities.)

In 1944, during World War II, American forces liberated the French port of Cherbourg from the Germans.

In 1955, Illinois enacted the nation’s first automobile seat belt law. (The law did not require cars to have seat belts, but that they be made seat belt-ready.)

In 1957, Hurricane Audrey slammed into coastal Louisiana and Texas as a Category 4 storm; the official death toll from the storm was placed at 390, although a variety of state, federal and local sources have estimated the number of fatalities at between 400 and 600.

In 1985, the legendary Route 66, which originally stretched from Chicago to Santa Monica, California, passed into history as officials decertified the road.

In 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.)

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.)

Today’s Birthdays: Singer-musician Bruce Johnston (The Beach Boys) is 79. Fashion designer Vera Wang is 72. Actor Julia Duffy is 70. Country singer Lorrie Morgan is 62. Actor Tobey Maguire is 46. Reality TV star Khloe Kardashian is 37. Actor Matthew Lewis (Film: “Harry Potter”; TV: “Ripper Street”) is 32.

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