Today is Monday, June 28, the 179th day of 2021. There are 186 days left in the year.
Today’s Highlights in History:
On June 28, 1940, President Franklin D. Roosevelt signed the Alien Registration Act, also known as the Smith Act, which required adult foreigners residing in the U.S. to be registered and fingerprinted.
On this date:
In 1838, Britain’s Queen Victoria was crowned in Westminster Abbey.
In 1863, during the Civil War, President Abraham Lincoln appointed Maj. Gen. George G. Meade the new commander of the Army of the Potomac, following the resignation of Maj. Gen. Joseph Hooker.
In 1914, Archduke Franz Ferdinand of Austria and his wife, Sophie, were shot to death in Sarajevo by Serb nationalist Gavrilo Princip — an act which sparked World War I.
In 1919, the Treaty of Versailles was signed in France, ending the First World War.
In 1950, North Korean forces captured Seoul, the capital of South Korea.
In 1951, a TV version of the radio comedy program “Amos ‘N’ Andy” premiered on CBS. (It was the first network TV series to feature an all-Black cast, but came under criticism for racial stereotyping.)
In 1964, civil rights activist Malcolm X declared, “We want equality by any means necessary” during the Founding Rally of the Organization of Afro-American Unity in New York.
In 2010, Sen. Robert C. Byrd, D-W.Va., the longest-serving senator in the nation’s history, died in Falls Church, Virginia, at 92. The Supreme Court ruled, 5-4, that Americans had the right to own a gun for self-defense anywhere they lived.
In 2013, The four plaintiffs in the U.S. Supreme Court case that overturned California’s same-sex marriage ban tied the knot, just hours after a federal appeals court freed gay couples to obtain marriage licenses in the state for the first time in 4 1/2 years.
Today’s Birthdays: Comedian-movie director Mel Brooks is 95. Former Sen. Carl Levin, D-Mich., is 87. Comedian-impressionist John Byner is 84. Former Defense Secretary Leon Panetta is 83. Actor Bruce Davison is 75. Actor Kathy Bates is 73. Actor Alice Krige is 67. College and Pro Football Hall of Famer John Elway is 61. Actor John Cusack is 55. Entrepreneur Elon Musk is 50. Country singer Kellie Pickler is 35.
