June 20

It’s Ice Cream Soda Day

451BC According to some sources, this was the date of the Battle of Chalons: Flavius Aetius’ victory over Attila the Hun
1214 The University of Oxford receives its charter
1756 In India, 150 British soldiers were imprisoned in a cell that became known as the “Black Hole of Calcutta”
1787 Oliver Ellsworth moves at the Federal Convention to call the government the United States
1782 The US Congress adopts the Great Seal of the United States
1793 Eli Whitney applied for a cotton gin patent
1837 Following the death of her uncle, William IV, Queen Victoria takes the British throne at age 18, beginning a reign of 63 years
1840 Samuel F.B. Morse received a patent for telegraphy signals
1863 Led by Union loyalists unhappy with Virginia’s secession from the United States in 1861, the mountainous western region of Virginia forms its own government and becomes West Virginia, the 35th state
1863 The National Bank of Philadelphia in Philadelphia, PA, became the first bank to receive a charter from the US Congress
1877 Alexander Graham Bell installs world’s first commercial telephone service in Hamilton, Ontario, Canada
1882 Sharpshooters Annie Oakley and Frank Butler are married
1893 After a sensational murder trial, Lizzie Borden is acquitted of the axe murders of her father and stepmother in Fall River, MA
1908 Count Zeppelin made his first flight in his fourth new airship at Friedrichshafen, Germany
1910 After spending much of her teen years performing in burlesque and vaudeville, Fanny Brice first appears in Florenz Ziegfeld’s Follies of 1910, the show that makes her famous
1923 France announced it would seize the Rhineland to assist Germany in paying its war debts
1926 A wireless phone for autos was demonstrated in Berlin, Germany, by Herr Schaetzle
1939 Benny Goodman’s “Song School” ends its radio series
1941 The US Army Air Force was established, replacing the Army Air Corps
1948 Toast of the Town premiered on CBS-TV; it would eventually bear the name of its host as The Ed Sullivan Show
1950 Willie Mays graduated from high school and immediately signed with the New York Giants
1955 The AFL and CIO agreed to combine names and a merge into a single group
1960 Independence of Mali and Senegal
1963 The so-called “red telephone” was established between Soviet Union and United States following the Cuban Missile Crisis
1966 The US Open golf tournament was broadcast in color for the first time
1974 Roman Polanski’s film Chinatown opened in US movie theaters
1975 Steven Spielberg’s film Jaws opened in US movie theaters
1977 The $7.7 billion Trans-Alaska Pipeline began carrying oil from the Arctic Ocean to Prince William Sound
1980 “We’re on a mission from God.” The Blues Brothers opens in US movie theaters
1986 Because of Chernobyl fall-out, the slaughter and movement of lambs in parts of Cumbria, Scotland, was temporarily banned; fallout in the UK from the Chernobyl accident was greatest where the passage of the cloud coincided with heavy rainfall in north Wales, Cumbria, parts of Scotland and northern Ireland
1991 The German parliament decides to move the capital from Bonn back to Berlin
2001 Andrea Yates drowns her children in a bathtub and admits to the crime
2001 Barry Bonds, of the San Francisco Giants, hit his 38th home run of the season; the home run broke the major league baseball record for homers before the midseason All-Star break
2002 An agreement was signed to establish a seawater desalination and heating plant – using atomic reactors – at the coastal city of Yingkou, China
2002 The US Supreme Court ruled that the execution of mentally retarded murderers was unconstitutionally cruel; the vote was 6 in favor and 3 against
2003 Formation of Wikimedia Foundation announced
2004 Ken Griffey, Jr. becomes the 20th member of the 500 home run club with a home run at Busch Stadium in St. Louis, MO
2005 A 41-year-old male Brandt’s bat (Myotis brandtii) was identified as the world’s oldest known small mammal from a band attached during a project in the Biryusa karst region of Siberia in Russia
2008 Get Smart and The Love Guru open in US movie theaters

BORN:
1905 Lillian Hellman, playwright whose most famous plays include The Children’s Hour, The Little Foxes and Toys in the Attic
1909 Errol Flynn, actor (Captain Blood, The Charge of the Light Brigade, The Adventures of Robin Hood, The Private Lives of Elizabeth and Essex)
1915 Terence Young, writer-director (Dr. No, From Russia with Love, Thunderball, Wait Until Dark)
1924 Audie Murphy, American soldier in World War II, who later became an actor, appearing in 44; in 27 months of combat action in World War II, Murphy became the most decorated United States combat soldier in United States military history – he received the Medal of Honor, the US military’s highest award for valor, along with 32 additional US medals, five from France, and one from Belgium
1931 Olympia Dukakis, Academy Award-winning actress (Moonstruck, Tales of the City, Jeffrey, The Librarian: Quest for the Spear)
1931 Martin Landau, Academy Award-winning actor (Ed Wood, Tucker: The Man and His Dream, Mission: Impossible, Space: 1999)
1933 Danny Aiello, actor (Do the Right Thing, Bring Me the Head of Mavis Davis, The Professional, Hudson Hawk)
1934 Wendy Craig, actress (Butterflies, The Forsyte Saga, The Royal)
1940 John Mahoney, actor (Frasier, The Iron Giant, Primal Fear, The American President, Reality Bites, Barton Fink)
1941 Stephen Frears, director (The Queen, The Grifters, Prick Up Your Ears, The Hit, Dangerous Liaisons)
1942 Brian Wilson, musician best known as the lead songwriter, bassist, and singer of The Beach Boys
1947 Candy Clark, actress (American Graffiti, The Man Who Fell to Earth, Stephen King’s Cat’s Eye, Buffy the Vampire Slayer)
1952 John Goodman, Emmy Award-winning actor (Studio 60 on the Sunset Strip, Roseanne, Arachnophobia, The Big Lebowski)
1960 John Taylor, bassist (Duran Duran, Power Station)
1967 Nicole Kidman, Academy Award-winning actress (The Hours, Moulin Rouge!, The Others, The Golden Compass, Batman Forever)
1971 Josh Lucas, actor (Alive, American Psycho, Sweet Home Alabama, Hulk, Glory Road, Poseidon)

DIED:
1947 Benjamin “Bugsy” Siegel, gangster, who was behind large-scale development of Las Vegas, is murdered at 41
1981 Henri-Gaston Busignies, electronics engineer whose invention of high-frequency direction finders permitted the US Navy during World War II to detect enemy transmissions and quickly pinpoint the direction from which a radio transmission was coming, dies at 75
2005 Jack Kilby, electrical engineer who invented the first integrated circuit, for which he shared the 2000 Nobel Prize in Physics, dies at 81