MILESFORTIS

June 22

1593 – The allied Christian armies of Austria and Croatia under Ruprecht von Eggenberg and Tamás Erdődy, defeat the moslem Ottoman army of Gazi Telli Hasan Pasha, at Sisak in central Croatia, at the confluence of the Sava and Kupa rivers.

1633 – The Holy Office in Rome forces Galileo Galilei to recant his view that the Sun, not the Earth, is the center of the Universe in the form he presented it in.

1807 – In the Chesapeake–Leopard Affair, the British warship HMS Leopard attacks and boards the American frigate USS Chesapeake off the coast of Norfolk, Virginia in the search for deserting British sailors.

1839 – Cherokee leaders Major Ridge, John Ridge, and Elias Boudinot are assassinated in Indian Territory for signing the Treaty of New Echota, which had resulted in the removal of most members of the tribe to Indian Territory referred to as the Trail of Tears.

1870 – The United States Department of Justice is created by the U.S. Congress.

1898 – During the Spanish-American War,  6,000 men of the U.S. Fifth Army Corps begin landing at Daiquirí, Cuba, unopposed against a force nearly double in size.

1918 – The collision of a Michigan Central Railroad troop train running into the rear of the Hammond Circus train, near Hammond, Indiana, kills 86 people and injures 127 more.

1940 – France is forced to sign the Second Compiègne armistice with Germany, in the same railroad car in which the Germans signed the Armistice in 1918.

1941 – Nazi Germany invades the Soviet Union in Operation Barbarossa.

1942 – The Pledge of Allegiance is formally adopted by Congress.

1944 –President Roosevelt signs the Servicemen’s Readjustment Act of 1944, commonly known as the G.I. Bill, into law

1948 – Due to the introduction of the West German Deutsche Mark the previous day, making the Reichsmark, which was still legal tender in the Soviet zone worthless, the East German puppet government introduces their version of the Deutsche Mark.

1969 – The Cuyahoga River catches fire in Cleveland, Ohio, spurring the passing of the Clean Water Act and the creation of the Environmental Protection Agency.

1978 – Charon, the first of Pluto’s satellites to be discovered, is first seen by astronomer James W. Christy, at the United States Naval Observatory, in Washington D.C.

1984 – Virgin Atlantic beings service with a flight from London to Newark.

1990 – Checkpoint Charlie is dismantled in Berlin.

2009 – A Washington D.C Metro train traveling southbound near Fort Totten station collides into another train waiting to enter the station killing 9 people including the train operator and injuring 80 more.

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.