World/nation trivia 6-22-24: The week of June 23-29

June 23:

1888, abolitionist Frederick Douglass received one vote from the Kentucky delegation at the Republican convention in Chicago, effectively making him the first Black candidate to have his name placed in nomination for U.S. president.

1972, President Richard Nixon signed into law Title IX, barring discrimination on the basis of sex for “any education program or activity receiving Federal financial assistance.”

2016, Britain voted to leave the European Union after a bitterly divisive referendum campaign, toppling Prime Minister David Cameron, who had led the campaign to keep Britain in the EU.

2022, in a major expansion of gun rights, the Supreme Court said Americans have a right to carry firearms in public for self-defense.

June 24:

1497, the first recorded sighting of North America by a European took place as explorer John Cabot spotted land, probably in present-day Canada.

1948, Communist forces cut off all land and water routes between West Germany and West Berlin, prompting the western allies to organize the Berlin Airlift.

1983, the space shuttle Challenger — carrying America’s first woman in space, Sally K. Ride — coasted to a safe landing at Edwards Air Force Base in California.

2022, the Supreme Court ended constitutional protections for abortion that had been in place nearly 50 years with the overturning of Roe v. Wade.

June 25:

1950, war broke out in Korea as forces from the communist North invaded the South.

1973, former White House Counsel John W. Dean began testifying before the Senate Watergate Committee, implicating top administration officials, including President Richard Nixon as well as himself, in the Watergate scandal and cover-up.

2009, death claimed Michael Jackson, the “King of Pop,” in Los Angeles at age 50 and actor Farrah Fawcett in Santa Monica, California, at age 62.

2021, former Minneapolis police Officer Derek Chauvin was sentenced to 22 1/2 years in prison for the murder of George Floyd, whose dying gasps under Chauvin’s knee led to the biggest outcry against racial injustice in the U.S. in generations.

June 26:

1917, the first troops of the American Expeditionary Force deployed to France during World War I landed in St. Nazaire.

1963, President John F. Kennedy visited West Berlin, where he delivered his famous speech expressing solidarity with the city’s residents, declaring: “Ich bin ein Berliner” (“I am a Berliner”).

1993, President Bill Clinton announced the U.S. had launched missiles against Iraqi targets because of “compelling evidence” Iraq had plotted to assassinate former President George H.W. Bush.

2020, after protesters in Washington, D.C., attempted to pull down a statue of Andrew Jackson, President Donald Trump signed an executive order to protect monuments, memorials and statues.

June 27:

1844, Mormon leader Joseph Smith and his brother, Hyrum, were killed by a mob in Carthage, Illinois.

1957, Hurricane Audrey slammed into coastal Louisiana and Texas as a Category 4 storm; the initial official death toll from the storm was placed at 390, although a variety of state, federal and local sources have estimated the number of fatalities at between 400 and 600.

2011, former Illinois Gov. Rod Blagojevich was convicted by a federal jury in Chicago on a wide range of corruption charges, including the allegation that he’d tried to sell or trade President Barack Obama’s U.S. Senate seat. (Blagojevich was later sentenced to 14 years in prison; his sentence was commuted by President Donald Trump in February 2020.)

June 28:

1914, Archduke Franz Ferdinand of Auastria and his wife, Sophie, were shot to death in Sarajevo by Serb nationalist Gavrilo Princip, an act that sparked World War I.

1919, the Treaty of Versailles was signed in France, ending the First World War.

1940, President Franklin D. Roosevelt signed the Alien Registration Act, also known as the Smith Act, which required adult foreigners residing in the U.S. to be registered and fingerprinted.

2017, a man armed with a shotgun attacked a newspaper in Annapolis, Maryland, killing four journalists and a staffer before police stormed the building and arrested him; authorities said Jarrod Ramos had a long-running grudge against the newspaper for its reporting of a harassment case against him. (Ramos was convicted and was given more than five life terms without the possibility of parole.)

June 29:

1767, Britain approved the Townshend Revenue Act, which imposed import duties on glass, paint, oil, lead, paper and tea shipped to the American colonies. (Colonists bitterly protested, prompting Parliament to repeal the duties — except for tea.)

1970, the United States ended a two-month military offensive into Cambodia.

1978, actor Bob Crane of “Hogan’s Heroes” fame was found bludgeoned to death in an apartment in Scottsdale, Arizona, where he was appearing in a play; he was 49.

2007, the first version of the iPhone went on sale to the public; over 2.3 billion iPhones have been sold to date.

— Associated Press