Today is Friday, June 15, the 166th day of 2018 with 199 to follow.
The moon is waxing. Morning stars are Jupiter, Mars, Neptune, Saturn and Uranus. Evening stars are Jupiter, Mars, Mercury, Saturn and Venus.
Those born on this date are under the sign of Gemini. They include Prince Edward of England, son of Edward III and known as the “Black Prince,” in 1330; Norwegian composer Edvard Grieg in 1843; artist Saul Steinberg in 1914; pianist Erroll Garner in 1923; New York Gov. Mario Cuomo in 1932; country singer Waylon Jennings in 1937; baseball Hall of Fame member Billy Williams in 1938 (age 80); singer/songwriter Harry Nilsson in 1941; Indian businessman Lakshmi Mittal in 1950 (age 68); actor Jim Varney in 1949; Chinese President Xi Jinping in 1953 (age 65); actor Jim Belushi in 1954 (age 64); actor Julie Hagerty in 1955 (age 63); baseball Hall of Fame member Wade Boggs in 1958 (age 60); actor Helen Hunt in 1963 (age 55); actor Courteney Cox in 1964 (age 54); actor/rapper Ice Cube born O’Shea Jackson, in 1969 (age 49); actor Leah Remini in 1970 (age 48); actor Neil Patrick Harris in 1973 (age 45); actor Elizabeth Reaser in 1975 (age 43); actor Sterling Jerins in 2004 (age 14).
On this date in history:
In 1215, under pressure from rebellious barons, England’s King John signed the Magna Carta, a crucial first step toward creating Britain’s constitutional monarchy.
In 1752, Benjamin Franklin, in a dangerous experiment, demonstrated the relationship between lightning and electricity by flying a kite during a storm in Philadelphia. An iron key suspended from the kite string attracted a lightning bolt.
In 1785, two Frenchmen attempting to cross the English Channel in a hot-air balloon were killed when their balloon caught fire and crashed. It was the first fatal aviation accident.
In 1846, the U.S.-Canadian border was established.
In 1877, Henry Ossian Flipper, born a slave in Thomasville, Ga., became the first African-American cadet to graduate from West Point.
In 1904, the excursion steamboat General Slocum caught fire on the East River in New York, killing 1,121 people.
In 1944, U.S. forces invaded the Japanese-occupied Mariana Islands in World War II. By day’s end, a beachhead had been established on the island of Saipan.
In 1987, Richard Norton of Philadelphia and Calin Rosetti of West Germany completed the first polar circumnavigation of Earth in a single-engine propeller aircraft, landing in Paris after a 38,000-mile flight.
In 2007, a Mississippi jury convicted a reputed Ku Klux Klansman, James Ford Seale, in the abductions and killings of two black teenagers 43 years earlier. Seale was sentenced to life in prison and died in 2011.
In 2011, U.S. Rep. Gabrielle Giffords, D-Ariz., shot in the head in a Jan. 8 assassination attempt at a Tucson political meeting, was released from a Houston rehabilitation hospital.
In 2012, an executive order by President Barack Obama would allow hundreds of thousands of undocumented immigrants who came to the United States as children to legally seek work permits and obtain documents such as driver’s licenses. The program was called the Deferred Action for Childhood Arrivals, or DACA.
In 2014, longtime radio host Casey Kasem (“American Top 40,” “Casey’s Top 40”) died at a hospital in Gig Harbor, Wash. He was 82.
In 2017, an executive in Hong Kong purchased the world’s most expensive parking space in a lot at an apartment building — $664,300.
A thought for the day: “We must get the American public to look past the glitter, beyond the showmanship, to the reality, the hard substance of things.” — Mario Cuomo
COMMENTS
Please let us know if you're having issues with commenting.