Today is Wednesday, June 19, the 170th day of 2019. There are 195 days left in the year.
Today's Highlight in History:
On June 19, 1865, Union troops arrived in Galveston, Texas, with news that the Civil War was over, and that all remaining slaves in Texas were free — an event celebrated to this day as "Juneteenth."
On this date:
In 1775, George Washington was commissioned by the Continental Congress as commander in chief of the Continental Army.
In 1868, "Tales from the Vienna Woods," a waltz by Johann Strauss "the Younger," was first publicly performed by Strauss' orchestra.
In 1917, during World War I, King George V ordered the British royal family to dispense with German titles and surnames; the family took the name "Windsor."
In 1934, the Federal Communications Commission was created; it replaced the Federal Radio Commission.
In 1938, four dozen people were killed when a railroad bridge in Montana collapsed, sending a train known as the Olympian hurtling into Custer Creek.
In 1944, during World War II, the two-day Battle of the Philippine Sea began, resulting in a decisive victory for the Americans over the Japanese.
In 1952, the U.S. Army Special Forces, the elite unit of fighters known as the Green Berets, was established at Fort Bragg, North Carolina. The celebrity-panel game show "I've Got A Secret" debuted on CBS-TV.
In 1953, Julius Rosenberg, 35, and his wife, Ethel, 37, convicted of conspiring to pass U.S. atomic secrets to the Soviet Union, were executed at Sing Sing Prison in Ossining, New York.
In 1964, the Civil Rights Act of 1964 was approved by the U.S. Senate, 73-27, after surviving a lengthy filibuster.
In 1987, the U.S. Supreme Court struck down a Louisiana law requiring any public school teaching the theory of evolution to teach creation science as well.
In 2006, Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice warned North Korea it would face consequences if it test-fired a missile thought to be powerful enough to reach the West Coast of the United States.
In 2017, Otto Warmbier a 22-year-old American college student died in a Cincinnati hospital following his release by North Korea in a coma after more than a year in captivity.
