Today's Highlight in History:
On June tenth, 1940, Italy declared war on France and Britain; Canada declared war on Italy.
On this date:
In 1801, the north African state of Tripoli declared war on the United States in a dispute over safe passage of merchant vessels1 through the Mediterranean2.
In 1865, the Richard Wagner opera "Tristan und Isolde" premiered in Munich, Germany.
In 1922, singer-actress Judy Garland was born in Grand Rapids, Minnesota.
In 1935, Alcoholics3 Anonymous4 was founded in Akron, Ohio.
In 1942, the Gestapo massacred 173 male residents of Lidice, Czechoslovakia, in retaliation5 for the killing6 of a Nazi7 official.
In 1946, Italy replaced its abolished monarchy8 with a republic.
In 1964, the Senate voted to limit further debate on a proposed civil rights bill, shutting off a filibuster9 by Southern states.
In 1967, the Middle East War ended as Israel and Syria agreed to observe a United Nations-mediated cease-fire.
In 1977, James Earl Ray, the convicted assassin of civil rights leader Martin Luther King Junior, escaped from Brushy Mountain State Prison in Tennessee with six others; he was recaptured June 13th.
In 1985, socialite Claus von Bulow was acquitted10 by a jury in Providence11, Rhode Island, at his retrial on charges he'd tried to murder his heiress wife, Martha "Sunny" von Bulow.
Ten years ago: Alberto Fujimori was elected president of Peru by a narrow margin12 over novelist Mario Vargos Llosa. Two members of the rap group 2 Live Crew were arrested in Hollywood, Florida (they and a third band member were acquitted of obscenity charges October 20th.)
Five years ago: US Air Force Captain Scott O'Grady, rescued after being shot down over Bosnia, described his six-day ordeal13 at a news conference at Aviano Air Base in Italy, saying he was no Rambo and no hero. A bomb blamed on drug traffickers exploded in Medellin, Colombia, killing 26 people. "Thunder Gulch14" won the Belmont Stakes.
One year ago: Yugoslav troops departed Kosovo, prompting NATO to suspend its punishing 78-day air war. The Supreme15 Court ruled, 6-to-3, that the city of Chicago went too far in its fight against street gangs by ordering police to break up groups of loiterers.