Today is Friday, June 21, the 172nd day of 2019. There are 193 days left in the year. Summer begins at 11:54 a.m. Eastern time.
Today's Highlight in History:
On June 21, 1964, civil rights workers Michael H. Schwerner, Andrew Goodman and James E. Chaney were slain in Philadelphia, Mississippi; their bodies were found buried in an earthen dam six weeks later. (Forty-one years later on this date in 2005, Edgar Ray Killen, an 80-year-old former Ku Klux Klansman, was found guilty of manslaughter; he was sentenced to 60 years in prison, where he died in January 2018.)
On this date:
In 1377, King Edward III died after ruling England for 50 years; he was succeeded by his grandson, Richard II.
In 1788, the United States Constitution went into effect as New Hampshire became the ninth state to ratify it.
In 1834, Cyrus Hall McCormick received a patent for his reaping machine.
In 1942, German forces led by Generaloberst (Colonel General) Erwin Rommel captured the Libyan city of Tobruk during World War II. (Rommel was promoted to the rank of Field Marshal; Tobruk was retaken by the Allies in November 1942.) An Imperial Japanese submarine fired shells at Fort Stevens on the Oregon coast, causing little damage.
In 1973, the U.S. Supreme Court, in Miller v. California, ruled that states may ban materials found to be obscene according to local standards.
In 1977, Menachem Begin of the Likud bloc became Israel's sixth prime minister.
In 1982, a jury in Washington, D.C. found John Hinckley Jr. not guilty by reason of insanity in the shootings of President Ronald Reagan and three other men.
In 1988, "Who Framed Roger Rabbit," a comedy fantasy starring Bob Hoskins that combined live action and legendary animated cartoon characters, premiered in New York.
In 1989, a sharply divided Supreme Court ruled that burning the American flag as a form of political protest was protected by the First Amendment.
In 2001, a federal grand jury in Alexandria, Va., indicted 13 Saudis and a Lebanese in absentia for the 1996 bombing of the Khobar Towers in Saudi Arabia that killed 19 American servicemen. Death claimed actor Carroll O'Connor at age 76 and blues musician John Lee Hooker at age 80.
In 2002, one of the worst wildfires in Arizona history grew to 128,000 acres, forcing thousands of homeowners near the community of Show Low to flee.
In 2013, President Barack Obama nominated James Comey, a Bush-era Justice official, to head the FBI, succeeding Robert Mueller. The Food Network said it was dropping Paula Deen, barely an hour after the celebrity cook posted the first of two videotaped apologies begging forgiveness from fans and critics troubled by her admission to having used racial slurs in the past.
