This Day in History — June 13
Today is the 164th day of 2018. There are 201 days left in the year.
TODAY’S HIGHLIGHTS
1966: The Supreme Court ruled in Miranda v Arizona that criminal suspects had to be informed of their constitutional right to consult with an attorney and to remain silent.
OTHER EVENTS
323 BC: Alexander the Great dies of a fever at age 33 in Babylon. He leaves no heir, and his empire dissolves.
1653: British fleet defeats Dutch off North Foreland.
1789: During the French Revolution, the National Assembly is convened.
1839: Milos Obrenovic, king of Serbia, abdicates because of opposition to his autocratic methods and is succeeded by his son Milan.
1842: Queen Victoria becomes the first British monarch to ride on a train, travelling from Slough Railway Station to Paddington in 25 minutes.
1886: Bavaria’s insane King Louis II drowns himself. His psychiatrist also drowns trying to save him.
1900: The dowager empress of China orders the army to block foreign troops trying to save Europeans under attack in the Boxer Rebellion.
1911: The ballet Petrushka, with music by Igor Stravinsky and choreography by Michel Fokine, is first performed in Paris by the Ballets Russes, with Vaslav Nijinsky in the title role.
1927: Aviation hero Charles Lindbergh is honoured with a ticker-tape parade in New York City.
1935: James Braddock claimed the title of world heavyweight boxing champion from Max Baer in a 15-round fight in Queens, New York. Becky Sharp, the first movie photographed in “three-strip” Technicolor, opens in New York.
1940: With German troops not far off, Paris is declared an open city.
1944: Germany launches first V-1 missiles against London.
1953: A military coup led by Colombia’s General Gustavo Rojas Pinilla overthrows unpopular government of President Laureano Gomez. Rojas Pinilla voluntarily steps down in 1957 when Colombia returns to democratic rule.
1956: Last British troops leave Suez Canal base, turning the waterway over to Egypt after operating it for 74 years.
1969: Withdrawal of US combat troops from South Vietnam begins with pullout of unit fighting in Mekong Delta.
1971: New York Times begins publishing the Pentagon Papers, a top secret study on the US involvement in Vietnam that strengthens domestic opposition to the war.
1973: United States, North Vietnam, South Vietnam and Viet Cong sign new pact in Paris designed to reinforce Vietnam ceasefire.
1974: Army in Republic of Yemen seizes power in bloodless coup.
1977: James Earl Ray, the convicted assassin of civil rights leader Martin Luther King Jr, is recaptured following his escape three days earlier from a Tennessee prison.
1978: The movie musical Grease, starring John Travolta and Olivia Newton-John, had its world premiere in New York.
1982: Saudi Arabia’s King Khaled dies and Crown Prince Fahd assumes the throne.
1983: The US space probe Pioneer 10, launched in 1972, becomes the first spacecraft to leave the solar system as it crossed the orbit of Neptune.
1993: Kim Campbell becomes Canada’s first female prime minister.
1994: Colombia, Mexico and Venezuela sign a free trade pact.
1997: Timothy J McVeigh is sentenced to death for bombing a US government building in Oklahoma City in 1995, killing 168 people.
1999: The day after moving into Kosovo, NATO peacekeepers kill two Serbs who attack them, and two German journalists and their Macedonian translator are killed by unknown gunmen.
2000: Italy pardons Mehmet Ali Agca, the Turkish gunman who tried to kill Pope John Paul II in 1981.
2003: The 105-delegate European Convention completes 16 months of work by endorsing a new draft constitution for the European Union.
2004: Chancellor Gerhard Schroeder’s Social Democratic party slumps to its worst nationwide showing in post-World War II Germany.
2005: A US Congress-mandated report on the United Nations calls the world body’s management “ossified” and questions whether UN Secretary General Kofi Annan can overcome inertia, low morale and micromanagement as he pushes sweeping reform.
2006: East African nations try to bolster a largely powerless Government in Somalia, imposing sanctions against warlords and threatening measures against their rival Islamic militiamen.
2007: Hamas launches a battle for control of the entire Gaza Strip, pounding Gaza City’s three main security compounds with mortars, grenades and assault rifles and calling on beleaguered Fatah forces to surrender.
2008: Three armed robbers stole two Pablo Picasso prints from a Saõ Paulo art museum in a rapid strike in which the thieves bypassed more valuable works to grab the stolen pieces.
2009: Opponents of Mahmoud Ahmadinejad clash with police in the heart of Iran’s capital, pelting them with rocks and setting fire in the worst unrest in a decade. They accuse the hard-line president of using fraud to steal an election victory from a reformist candidate.
2010: A separatist party that advocates independence for the Dutch-speaking region of Belgium, leaving the country’s Francophones to fend for themselves, scores an unprecedented win in a general election.
2011: Libyan rebels break out toward Tripoli from the Opposition-held port of Misrata 140 miles (225 kilometres) to the east, cracking a government siege as fighters across the country mount a resurgence in their four-month-old revolt against Moammar Gadhafi.
2012: A military court convicts Tunisia’s dictator in absentia for his role in the bloody suppression of demonstrations in the country’s interior, ordering him to serve life in prison — the harshest sentence to date in a slew of cases against the ousted president who lives in exile in Saudi Arabia.
2013: The White House said it had conclusive evidence that Syrian President Bashar Assad’s regime had used chemical weapons against opposition forces seeking to overthrow the Government. The US Supreme Court unanimously throws out attempts to patent human genes, siding with advocates who said the multi-billion-dollar biotechnology industry should not have exclusive control over genetic information found in the human body.
2017: A comatose Otto Warmbier, released by North Korea after more than 17 months in captivity, arrives in Cincinnati aboard a medevac flight; the 22-year-old college student, who had suffered severe brain damage, dies six days later. Rolling Stone magazine agrees to pay $1.65 million to settle a defamation lawsuit filed by a University of Virginia fraternity over a debunked story about a rape on campus.
TODAY’S BIRTHDAYS
Richard Barnfield, English poet (1574-1627); William B Yeats, Irish poet (1865-1939); Fernando Pessoa, Portuguese writer (1888-1935); Ralph Edwards, host (This Is Your Life) (1913-2005); Siegfried, magician with Siegfried & Roy (1939- ); Malcolm McDowell, British actor (1943- ); Tim Allen, actor/comedian (1953- ); Ally Sheedy, US actress (1962- ); Ashley and Mary-Kate Olsen, US actresses (1986- )
— AP