Today is Wednesday, June 14, the 165th day of 2023.
There are 200 days left in the year. This is Flag Day.
In 1775, the Continental Army, forerunner of the United States Army, was created.
In 1777, the Second Continental Congress approved the design of the original American flag.
In 1846, a group of U.S. settlers in Sonoma proclaimed the Republic of California.
In 1911, the British ocean liner RMS Olympic set out on its maiden voyage for New York, arriving one week later. (The ship’s captain was Edward John Smith, who went on to command the ill-fated RMS Titanic the following year.)
In 1919, John Alcock and Arthur Whitten Brown embarked on the first non-stop flight across the Atlantic Ocean.
In 1940, German troops entered Paris during World War II; the same day, the Nazis began transporting prisoners to the Auschwitz concentration camp in German-occupied Poland.
In 1943, the U.S. Supreme Court, in West Virginia State Board of Education v. Barnette, ruled 6-3 that public school students could not be forced to salute the flag of the United States.
In 1947, a B-29 crashed into Hawk’s Mountain in Perkinsville, Vt., in a driving rainstorm, killing all 12 crewmen.
In 1954, President Dwight D. Eisenhower signed a measure adding the phrase “under God” to the Pledge of Allegiance.
In 1962, the first victim of the killer who became known as the Boston Strangler was found. Anna Slesers, a seamstress, lived on Gainsborough Street. (When the killings ended 19 months later, 13 women had been murdered, eight from Boston, two from Lawrence, and one each from Cambridge, Lynn, and Salem. Albert DeSalvo was eventually implicated and found guilty of a series of rapes.)
In 1967, California Gov. Ronald Reagan signed a bill liberalizing his state’s abortion law.
In 1972, the Environmental Protection Agency ordered a ban on domestic use of the pesticide DDT, to take effect at year’s end.
In 1982, Argentine forces surrendered to British troops on the disputed Falkland Islands.
In 1993, President Bill Clinton nominated Judge Ruth Bader Ginsburg to serve on the U.S. Supreme Court.
In 2005, Michelle Wie, 15, became the first female player to qualify for an adult male U.S. Golf Association championship, tying for first place in a 36-hole U.S. Amateur Public Links sectional qualifying tournament.
In 2018, a Justice Department watchdog report on the FBI’s handling of the Hillary Clinton email probe criticized the FBI and its former director, James Comey, but did not find evidence that political bias tainted the investigation. AT&T and Time Warner completed their merger, one of the biggest media deals ever, two days after a federal judge approved the combination. B
