saturday, day 89

313 – The decisions of the Edict of Milan, signed by Constantine the Great and co-emperor Valerius Licinius, granting religious freedom throughout the Roman Empire, are published in Nicomedia.

1774 – Rhode Island becomes the first of Britain’s North American colonies to ban the importation of slaves.

1893 – Grover Cleveland notices a rough spot in his mouth and on July 1 undergoes secret, successful surgery to remove a large, cancerous portion of his jaw; the operation was not revealed to the public until 1917, nine years after the president’s death.

1917 – World War I: The deadliest German air raid on London of the war is carried out by Gotha G.IV bombers and results in 162 deaths, including 46 children, and 432 injuries.

1944 – World War II: The Battle of Villers-Bocage: German tank ace Michael Wittmann ambushes elements of the British 7th Armoured Division, destroying up to fourteen tanks, fifteen personnel carriers and two anti-tank guns in a Tiger I tank.

1944 – World War II: German combat elements, reinforced by the 17th SS Panzergrenadier Division, launch a counterattack on American forces near Carentan.

1966 – The United States Supreme Court rules in Miranda v. Arizona that the police must inform suspects of their rights before questioning them.

1967 – U.S. President Lyndon B. Johnson nominates Solicitor-General Thurgood Marshall to become the first black justice on the U.S. Supreme Court.

1971 – Vietnam War: The New York Times begins publication of the Pentagon Papers.

1983 – Pioneer 10 becomes the first man-made object to leave the central Solar System when it passes beyond the orbit of Neptune.

2002 – The United States withdraws from the Anti-Ballistic Missile Treaty.

2015 – A man opens fire at policemen outside the police headquarters in Dallas, Texas, while a bag containing a pipe bomb is also found. He was later shot dead by police.

Saturday,  June 13th, 2020

CDC ‘strongly encourages’ protesters and rally attendees wear masks The Centers for Disease Control and Prevention’s latest guidelines introduced Friday recommend organizers of large events “strongly encourage” participants to wear cloth masks to prevent the spread of coronavirus. The guidance comes as protests against police brutality and systemic racism continue nationwide, and as President Trump prepares to hold campaign rallies again starting next week. Before heading to a big event, the CDC recommends everyone evaluate how many people they’ll be around, how close they’ll be to those people, and for how long — all of those factors can increase one’s risk of contracting COVID-19, the CDC says. Source: Centers for Disease Control and Prevention

Brazil’s state-run oil company Petrobras says it will not do business with tankers that visited Venezuela in the past year, adhering to sanctions placed by the United States. (Reuters)

The U.S. Department of Health and Human Services removes protections for transgendered people and women seeking abortion from discrimination in receiving Obamacare. The move is condemned by civil rights groups and Democrat officials. (Reuters)

Twitter says it has removed a network of more than 170,000 accounts it says were spreading pro-Communist Party of China propaganda on the social media platform, saying the Chinese-based network had links to earlier state-backed operations on Facebook and YouTube. More than a thousand Russia-based misinformation accounts are also removed. (BBC)

‘Near-universal’ majority of Americans support changes to policing A “near-universal” majority of Americans support at least some changes to policing, according to a survey by HuffPost/YouGov released Friday. However, fewer than a third of Americans support defunding the police, as opposed to other reforms like banning police chokeholds, which is backed by 73 percent of the population. Importantly, there is a lack of clarity around what it means to “defund the police.” Most respondents agreed the phrase means “significantly decreasing the size of police forces and the scope of their work,” but some interpret the phrase as “completely abolishing” police forces. Americans are nearly evenly split on “budgeting less money for your local police department and more for social services,” which is what some say is the goal of “defund the police” activists. Source: HuffPost

The End

friday, day 88

1429 – Hundred Years’ War: On the second day of the Battle of Jargeau, Joan of Arc leads the French army in their capture of the city and the English commander, William de la Pole, 1st Duke of Suffolk.

1653 – First Anglo-Dutch War: The Battle of the Gabbard begins and lasts until June 13.

1758 – French and Indian War: Siege of Louisbourg: James Wolfe‘s attack at Louisbourg, Nova Scotia commences.

1775 – American Revolution: British general Thomas Gage declares martial law in Massachusetts. The British offer a pardon to all colonists who lay down their arms. There would be only two exceptions to the amnesty: Samuel Adams and John Hancock, if captured, were to be hanged.

1817 – The earliest form of bicycle, the dandy horse, is driven by Karl von Drais.

1914 – Massacre of Phocaea: Turkish irregulars slaughter 50 to 100 Greeks and expel thousands of others in an ethnic cleansing operation in the Ottoman Empire.

1921 – Mikhail Tukhachevsky orders the use of chemical weapons against the Tambov Rebellion, bringing an end to the peasant uprising.^[3]

1943 – The Holocaust: Germany liquidates the Jewish Ghetto in Brzeżany, Poland (now Berezhany, Ukraine). Around 1,180 Jews are led to the city’s old Jewish graveyard and shot.

1944 – World War II: Operation Overlord: American paratroopers of the 101st Airborne Division secure the town of Carentan, Normandy, France.

1967 – The United States Supreme Court in Loving v. Virginia declares all U.S. state laws which prohibit interracial marriage to be unconstitutional.

1987 – Cold War: At the Brandenburg Gate, U.S. President Ronald Reagan publicly challenges Mikhail Gorbachev to tear down the Berlin Wall.

1991 – Russians first democratically elected Boris Yeltsin as the President of Russia.

1994 – Nicole Brown Simpson and Ron Goldman are murdered outside Simpson’s home in Los Angeles. Her estranged husband, O.J. Simpson is later charged with the murders, but is acquitted by a jury.

2009 – Analog television stations (excluding low-powered stations) switch to digital television following the DTV Delay Act.

2016 – Forty-nine civilians are killed and 58 others injured in an attack on a gay nightclub in Orlando, Florida; the gunman, Omar Mateen, is killed in a gunfight with police.

2017 – American student Otto Warmbier returns home in a coma after spending 17 months in a North Korean prison and dies a week later.

2018 – United States President Donald Trump and Kim Jong-un of North Korea held the first meeting between leaders of their two countries in Singapore.^[6]

 

Friday, June 12th, 2020

The United States and Iraq begin negotiations, conducted remotely, to discuss the withdrawal of U.S. troops and countering Iranian influence. (The New York Times)

U.S. President Donald Trump authorizes sanctions against the International Criminal Court in retaliation for their investigation into potential war crimes by U.S. officials. (CNN) 

The Senate of the Republic of Colombia approves a resolution banning the testing of cosmetics on animals, as well as the commercialization of cosmetics which are actively tested on animals. (La FM)

The suspect in the murder of a transient and the shooting at a police station that left a San Luis Obispo deputy injured, both occurring yesterday in Paso Robles, California, shoots and injures another police officer. He is later shot and killed in a shootout that also leaves two additional officers injured. (ABC News)

The End