Today is Thursday, June 1, the 152nd day of 2017. There are 213 days left in the year.
Today's Highlights in History:
It was 50 years ago today - June 1, 1967 - that the Beatles album "Sgt. Pepper's Lonely Hearts Club Band" was released, as was David Bowie's debut album, eponymously titled "David Bowie."
On this date:
In 1792, Kentucky became the 15th state.
In 1796, Tennessee became the 16th state.
In 1813, the mortally wounded commander of the USS Chesapeake, Capt. James Lawrence, gave the order, "Don't give up the ship" during a losing battle with the British frigate HMS Shannon in the War of 1812.
In 1868, James Buchanan, the 15th president of the United States, died near Lancaster, Pennsylvania, at age 77.
In 1917, the song "Over There" by George M. Cohan was published by William Jerome Publishing Corp. of New York.
In 1927, Lizzie Borden, accused but acquitted of the 1892 ax murders of her father, Andrew, and her stepmother, Abby, died in Fall River, Massachusetts, at age 66.
In 1943, a civilian flight from Portugal to England was shot down by Germany during World War II, killing all 17 people aboard, including actor Leslie Howard.
In 1957, Don Bowden, a student at the University of California at Berkeley, became the first American to break the four-minute mile during a meet in Stockton, California, in a time of 3:58.7.
In 1977, the Soviet Union formally charged Jewish human rights activist Anatoly Shcharansky with treason. (Shcharansky was imprisoned, then released in 1986; he's now known by the name Natan Sharansky.)
In 1980, Cable News Network made its debut.
In 1997, Betty Shabazz, the widow of Malcolm X, was severely burned in a fire set by her 12-year-old grandson in her Yonkers, New York, apartment (she died three weeks later). The Chicago Tribune published a make-believe commencement speech by columnist Mary Schmich (shmeech) which urged graduates to, among other things, "wear sunscreen" (the essay ended up being wrongly attributed online to author Kurt Vonnegut).
In 2009, Air France Flight 447, an Airbus A330 carrying 228 people from Rio de Janeiro to Paris, crashed into the Atlantic Ocean with the loss of everyone on board.
