Today is Monday, June 22, the 174th day of 2020. There are 192 days left in the year.
Today’s Highlight in History:
On June 22, 1940, during World War II, Adolf Hitler gained a stunning victory as France was forced to sign an armistice eight days after German forces overran Paris.
On this date:
In 1815, Napoleon Bonaparte abdicated for a second time as Emperor of the French.
In 1911, Britain’s King George V was crowned at Westminster Abbey.
In 1941, Nazi Germany launched Operation Barbarossa, a massive invasion of the Soviet Union.
In 1944, President Franklin D. Roosevelt signed the Servicemen’s Readjustment Act of 1944, more popularly known as the “GI Bill of Rights.”
In 1945, the World War II battle for Okinawa ended with an Allied victory.
In 1969, singer-actress Judy Garland died in London at age 47.
In 1970, President Richard Nixon signed an extension of the Voting Rights Act of 1965 that lowered the minimum voting age to 18.
In 1977, John N. Mitchell became the first former U.S. Attorney General to go to prison as he began serving a sentence for his role in the Watergate cover-up. (He was released 19 months later.)
In 1981, Mark David Chapman pleaded guilty to killing rock star John Lennon. Abolhassan Bani-Sadr was deposed as president of Iran.
In 1987, actor-dancer Fred Astaire died in Los Angeles at age 88.
In 1992, the U.S. Supreme Court, in R.A.V. v. City of St. Paul, unanimously ruled that “hate crime” laws that banned cross burning and similar expressions of racial bias violated free-speech rights.
In 2012, ex-Penn State assistant coach Jerry Sandusky was convicted by a jury in Bellefonte, Pennsylvania, on 45 counts of sexually assaulting 10 boys over 15 years.