Today's Highlights in History:
On June eleventh, 1776, the Continental¹ Congress formed a committee to draft a Declaration of Independence from Britain.

On this date:
In 1509, England's King Henry the Eighth married Catherine of Aragon.

In 1770, Captain James Cook, commander of the British ship "Endeavour," discovered the Great Barrier Reef off Australia by running onto it.

In 1942, the United States and the Soviet² Union signed a lend-lease agreement to aid the Soviet war effort in World War Two.

In 1947, the government announced the end of household and institutional sugar rationing³, to take effect the next day.

In 1963, Buddhist⁴ monk⁵ Quang Duc immolated⁶ himself on a Saigon street to protest the government of South Vietnamese President Ngo Dinh Diem.

In 1970, the United States presence in Libya came to an end as the last detachment left Wheelus Air Base.

In 1978, Joseph Freeman Junior became the first black priest ordained⁷ in the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-Day Saints.

In 1979, actor John Wayne died at age 72.

In 1985, Karen Ann Quinlan, the comatose⁸ patient whose case prompted a historic right-to-die court decision, died in Morris Plains, New Jersey⁹, at age 31.

In 1986, a divided Supreme¹⁰ Court struck down a Pennsylvania abortion¹¹ law, while reaffirming its 1973 decision establishing a constitutional right to abortion.

Ten years ago: A federal judge sentenced former national security adviser¹² John M. Poindexter to six months in prison for making false statements to Congress about the Iran-Contra affair (however, Poindexter's convictions were later overturned). The Supreme Court struck down a federal law prohibiting desecration¹³ of the American flag.

Five years ago: In an unprecedented¹⁴ joint¹⁵ appearance, President Clinton and House Speaker Newt Gingrich sparred politely over Medicare and other issues before an audience of senior citizens in Claremont, New Hampshire.

One year ago: The FBI was seeking the creator of Worm.Explore.Zip, a file-destroying computer virus which had hit some of the nation's biggest corporations. Actor DeForest Kelley of "Star Trek¹⁶" fame died in Woodland Hills, California, at age 79.