Also on this day
Lead Story
1975
On this day in 1975, Jaws, a film directed by Steven Spielberg that made countless viewers afraid to go into the water, opens in theaters. The story of a great white shark that terrorizes a New England resort town became an instant blockbuster and the highest-grossing film in movie history...
American Revolution
1782
On this day in 1782, Congress adopts the Great Seal of the United States after six years of discussion.
The front of the seal depicts a bald eagle clutching an olive branch in its right talon and arrows in its left. On its breast appears a shield marked with 13...
Automotive
1941
After a long and bitter struggle on the part of Henry Ford against cooperation with organized labor unions, Ford Motor Company signs its first contract with the United Automobile Workers of America and Congress of Industrial Organizations (UAW-CIO) on this day in 1941.
In 1935, President Franklin D. Roosevelt’s allies...
Cold War
1963
To lessen the threat of an accidental nuclear war, the United States and the Soviet Union agree to establish a “hot line” communication system between the two nations. The agreement was a small step in reducing tensions between the United States and the USSR following the October 1962 Missile Crisis...
Crime
1947
Benjamin “Bugsy” Siegel, the man who brought organized crime to the West Coast, is shot and killed at his mistress Virginia Hill’s home in Beverly Hills, California. Siegel had been talking to his associate Allen Smiley when three bullets were fired through the window and into his head, killing him...
Disaster
2002
A gas explosion in a Chinese coal mine kills 111 workers on this day in 2002. Perhaps the most disturbing aspect of this tragic incident is that it was not unique. Poor safety regulations in China have long made mining there an extremely hazardous occupation.
In the first five...
General Interest
1789
In Versailles, France, the deputies of the Third Estate, which represent commoners and the lower clergy, meet on the Jeu de Paume, an indoor tennis court, in defiance of King Louis XVI’s order to disperse. In these modest surroundings, they took a historic oath not to disband until a...
1900
In response to widespread foreign encroachment upon China’s national affairs, Chinese nationalists launch the so-called Boxer Rebellion in Peking. Calling themselves I Ho Ch’uan, or “the Righteous and Harmonious Fists,” the nationalists occupied Peking, killed several Westerners, including German ambassador Baron von Ketteler, and besieged the foreign legations in the...
1977
With a flip of a switch in Prudhoe Bay, crude oil from the nation’s largest oil field begins flowing south down the trans-Alaska pipeline to the ice-free port of Valdez, Alaska. The steel pipeline, 48 inches in diameter, winds through 800 miles of Alaskan wilderness, crossing three Arctic mountain ranges...
Hollywood
1975
The ominous tones of the now-famous “shark theme” (composed by John Williams and performed by tuba player Tommy Johnson) mark the arrival of Hollywood’s first major summer blockbuster on this day in 1975, when the director Steven Spielberg’s thriller Jaws debuts in U.S. theaters.
Based on the best-selling book by Peter...
Literary
1905
Playwright and screenwriter Lillian Hellman is born in New Orleans on this day.
Hellman grew up shuttling between New Orleans and New York: Her parents spent six months of each year with family in each city. She studied at New York University and at Columbia, but did not take a degree...
Music
1981
It was the summer of 1981, and after an 11-year hiatus, the sound of the Fab Four once again ruled the radio airwaves. Only instead of John, Paul, George and Ringo, this time the world had to settle for Bas, Hans, Jaap and Okkie—the Dutch studio musicians behind the phenomenon...
Old West
1875
A skilled practitioner of the frontier art of the tall tale, the mountain man Joe Meek dies on his farm in Oregon. His life was nearly as adventurous as his stories claimed.
Born in Virginia in 1810, Meek was a friendly and relentlessly good-humored young man, but he had too much...
Presidential
1979
President Jimmy Carter and first lady Rosalynn Carter climb to the White House roof to celebrate the installation of solar-energy panels there on this day in 1979.
Carter presided over a nation still suffering from the fallout of the 1973-74 Organization of Petroleum Exporting Countries (OPEC) oil embargo....
Sports
1980
On June 20, 1980, in a match in Montreal, Canada, Roberto Duran out-points “Sugar” Ray Leonard to win the World Boxing Council (WBC) welterweight title and the unofficial title of best “pound for pound” fighter in the world. The international panel of judges voted unanimously for Duran, albeit in a...
Vietnam War
1964
Gen. William Westmoreland succeeds Gen. Paul Harkins as head of U.S. Military Assistance Command Vietnam (MACV). Westmoreland had previously been Harkins’ deputy. Westmoreland’s initial task was to provide military advice and assistance to the government of South Vietnam. However, he soon found himself in command of American armed forces in...
1972
President Richard Nixon appoints General Creighton W. Abrams, commander of U.S. Military Assistance Command Vietnam, to be U.S. Army Chief of Staff. Abrams had become Gen. William Westmoreland’s deputy in 1967, and succeeded him as commander of all U.S. forces in Vietnam in July 1968 when Westmoreland returned to the...
World War I
1919
On this day in 1919, during the final days of the Versailles Peace Conference held in Paris, France, the German cabinet deadlocks over whether to accept the peace terms presented to its delegation by the other nations at the peace conference–most notably the Council of Four: France, Britain, the United...
World War II
1943
On this day in 1943, British bombers perform the first “shuttle bombing” raid of the war, attacking sites in Germany and Italy.
Taking off from airbases in Britain, bombers made for the southwestern German city of Friedrichshafen, at one time the home to Zeppelin airship construction. It now was the site...