June 21

1768 – In a speech to the Massachusetts General Court, James Otis Jr. is noted for offending the King and Parliament, when he refers to the British House of Commons as a gathering of “button-makers, horse jockey gamesters, pensioners, pimps, and whore-masters.” being denounced by the colony’s royal governor as the most “insolent, treasonable declamation that perhaps was ever delivered.”

1788 – New Hampshire becomes the 9th and last necessary state to ratify The Constitution of the United States.

1898 – The U.S. captures Guam from Spain during the Spanish-American War.

1900 – By edict of the Empress Dowager Cixi, China formally declares war on the United States, Britain, Germany, France and Japan, during the Boxer Rebellion.

1905 – The New York Central Railroad’s flagship passenger train, the 20th Century Limited, is derailed in an apparent act of sabotage in Mentor, Ohio, killing 21 people.

1915 – In the case of Guinn v. United States, the Supreme Court rules that the Oklahoma grandfather clause legislation, which had the effect of denying the right to vote to blacks was unconstitutional.

1942 – During World War II, the Japanese submarine I-25, commanded by Lt Cmdr Meiji Tagami, surfaces off the coast of Oregon, and fires at Fort Stevens at the mouth of the Columbia river, missing all shots fired and being quickly attacked in return and forced to submerge by a U.S. Army bomber

1945 – During World War II, the Battle of Okinawa ends when organized resistance of Imperial Japanese Army forces collapses in the Mabuni area on the southern tip of the island.

1973 – In the case of Miller v. California, the Supreme Court rules that all of the 3 parts of the ‘Miller Test’:
Whether “the average person, applying contemporary community standards”, would find that the work, taken as a whole, appeals to the prurient interest.
Whether the work depicts or describes, in a patently offensive way, sexual conduct or excretory functions specifically defined by applicable state law.
Whether the work, taken as a whole, lacks serious literary, artistic, political, or scientific value.
must be met for speech or expression is obscene and not protected under the 1st amendment to the U.S. constitution.

1970 – The Penn Central Railroad declares Section 77 bankruptcy in what is the largest U.S. corporate bankruptcy to date.

1982 – John Hinckley is found not guilty by reason of insanity for the attempted assassination of Ronald Reagan. 40 years later, he is released from any form of restriction and set totally free.

1989 – In the case of Texas v. Johnson, the Supreme Court rules that American flag burning is a form of political protest protected by the 1st Amendment

2001 – A federal grand jury in Alexandria, Virginia, indicts 13 Saudis and a 1 Lebanese in the 1996 bombing of the Khobar Towers in Saudi Arabia

2004 – SpaceShipOne becomes the first privately funded space plane to achieve spaceflight.

2006 – Pluto’s moons, newly discovered by the Hubble space telescope, are officially named Nix and Hydra.