June 1
It’s Flip a Coin Day and Dare Day and Dinosaur Day and Stand for Children Day and Donut Day and Fishing Week
ON THIS DAY…
1215 Beijing, then under the control of the Jurchen ruler Emperor Xuanzong of Jin, is captured by the Mongols under Genghis Khan, ending the Battle of Beijing
1495 Friar John Cor records the first known batch of scotch whiskey
1533 Henry VIII of England’s new wife, Anne Boleyn, is crowned as queen
1660 Mary Dyer is hanged in Boston, MA for defying a law banning Quakers from the colony; she is considered to be the last religious martyr in what would become the United States
1774 The Boston Port Bill, the first bill of the Intolerable Acts (called by the Colonists) went into effect; it closed Boston harbor until restitution for the destroyed tea was made
1779 Benedict Arnold is court-martialed for malfeasance in his treatment of government property
1789 The first US congressional act on administering oaths became law
1792 Kentucky becomes the 15th state of the United States
1796 Tennessee becomes the 16th state of the United States
1796 In accordance with the Jay Treaty, all British troops were withdrawn from US soil
1812 President James Madison asks the Congress to declare war on the United Kingdom
1813 The United States Navy gains its motto as the mortally wounded commander of the frigate Chesapeake, Capt. James Lawrence, said, “Don’t give up the ship”
1831 British Arctic explorer John Ross and his nephew James Clark Ross become the first Europeans to reach the magnetic north pole, on the Boothia Peninsula in northern Canada
1843 Sojourner Truth leaves New York to begin her career as an antislavery activist
1845 A homing pigeon completed a 11,000 km trip (Namibia-London) in 55 days
1861 The first skirmish of the US Civil War took place at the Fairfax Court House, Virginia
1862 Slavery was abolished in all US possessions
1869 Thomas Edison of Boston, MA received his first patent; it was for an “electrographic vote recorder”
1878 The original Tay Bridge was officially opened by Queen Victoria; it carried a single rail line across the Forth of Tay on the east coast of Scotland
1880 The US census stood at 50,155,783
1880 The first pay telephone service in the United States for public use went into service
1888 California got its first seismographs as three of the devices were installed at the Lick Observatory at Mount Hamilton, CA
1890 The US census stood at 62,622,250
1910 Robert Falcon Scott’s South Pole expedition leaves England
1925 Baseball player Lou Gehrig pinch hits for Pee Wee Wanninger, beginning his streak of 2,130 consecutive games played
1927 The Delta King steamboat made its maiden voyage from SF to Sacramento, CA
1933 The first Mickey Mouse watch is sold by Ingersoll-Waterbury, a Connecticut clock maker on the verge of bankruptcy; the sale of the watches will save the company
1935 First driving tests introduced in Britain
1935 The Ingersoll-Waterbury Company reports that it has produced 2.5 million Mickey Mouse watches during its 2-year association with Disney
1938 Action Comics #1 is released, the first comic book featuring the Superman character created by Joe Shuster and Jerry Siegel
1938 In baseball, protective helmets are worn by batters for the very first time
1941 Germany banned all Catholic publications
1943 A civilian flight from Lisbon to London is shot down by the Germans during World War II, killing all aboard, including actor Leslie Howard
1946 Television licenses were first issued in Britain costing £2 and included radio (radio-only licenses then cost £1) and were sold at Post Offices; television services had been suspended suspended during WWII
1954 The Peanuts comic strip character Linus van Pelt is shown with a security blanket for the first time
1960 The ABC Television Network reached 100 affiliates
1961 FM stereo broadcasting was authorized to begin in the U.S. when on this date the Federal Communications Commission received its first notifications of such regular operation, from WEFM Chicago and WGFM Schenectady
1963 Governor George Wallace vowed to defy an injunction that ordered the integration of the University of Alabama
1964 Dolly Parton moved to Nashville, TN, one day after she graduated from high school
1967 The landmark album “Sgt. Pepper’s Lonely Hearts Club Band” is released in the UK
1968 The Prisoner starring Patrick McGoohan premiered on the CBS-TV network as a summer replacement for The Jackie Gleason Show
1969 Tobacco advertising was banned on Radio and TV stations in Canada
1969 John Lennon and Yoko Ono recorded “Give Peace a Chance” with Tommy and Dick Smothers, Derek Taylor, Murray the K and Timothy Leary
1974 Heimlich maneuver for rescuing choking victims published in the journal Emergency Medicine.
1975 Ron Wood replaced Mick Taylor as the Rolling Stones’ lead guitarist
1978 Baretta, starring Robert Blake, aired for the last time on ABC-TV
1979 The first black-led government of Rhodesia in 90 years takes power, ousting Ian Smith and changing the country’s name to Zimbabwe
1980 The Cable News Network (CNN) begins broadcasting
1984 Star Trek III: The Search for Spock is released in US movie theaters
1987 The 20th anniversary of the release of “Sgt. Pepper’s Lonely Hearts Club Band” was marked by the release of the CD in the UK
1990 E! Entertainment Television was launched
1990 Total Recall, based on Philip K. Dick’s short story “We Can Remember It For You Wholesale”, and starring Arnold Schwarzenegger is released in US movie theaters
1995 The US Postal Service issued a 32 cent stamp honoring the late Marilyn Monroe
1995 The final “The Far Side” comic was published
1995 Space Mountain: From The Earth to the Moon opens at Disneyland Paris
1996 Betty Rubble first appeared as a Flintstone vitamin, 27 years after her series co-stars
2000 At Los Alamos hard drives with classified nuclear secrets were discovered missing; they were found June 16 behind a photocopier
2000 In Zimbabwe, President Mugabe announced that the state would begin seizing 804 mostly white-owned farms and resettle them with landless blacks
2001 Baz Luhrmann’s Moulin Rouge! starring Ewan McGregor and Nicole Kidman
2005 The Dutch referendum on the European Constitution results in its rejection
2007 Jack Kevorkian was released from prison after serving eight years of his 10-25 year prison term for second-degree murder in the 1998 death of Thomas Youk, 52, of Oakland County, MI
BORN:
1801 Brigham Young, a leader in the Latter Day Saint movement and was the president of The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints (LDS Church) from 1847 until his death; he was also the first governor of the Utah Territory
1866 Charles Benedict Davenport, zoologist who contributed substantially to the study of eugenics (the improvement of populations through breeding) and heredity and who pioneered the use of statistical techniques in biological research
1890 Frank Morgan, actor (The Wizard of Oz, Hallelujah I’m a Bum, The Great Ziegfeld, The Shop Around the Corner)
1905 Robert Newton, actor (The Adventures of Long John Silver, Treasure Island, Oliver Twist, Gaslight)
1907 Sir Frank Whittle, aviation engineer and pilot who was a pioneer in the field of jet propulsion, which he used to develop aircraft that could fly at faster speeds and higher altitudes than piston-engine propeller airplanes of the 1920s
1911 Eric Rolf, actor (Davy Crockett, Indian Scout, Song of the South, Prison Ship)
1915 John Randolph, character actor (Seconds, Earthquake, Frances, Prizzi’s Honor)
1921 Nelson Riddle, bandleader, arranger and orchestrator whose career spanned from the late 1940s until the early 1980s
1926 Andy Griffith, actor (The Andy Griffith Show, Matlock, Centennial, Salvage 1, Waitress)
1926 Marilyn Monroe (Norma Jean Mortenson), film icon (All About Eve, Monkey Business, Gentlemen Prefer Blondes, The Seven Year Itch)
1928 Bob Monkhouse, actor, writer, television presenter (The Bob Monkhouse Show, Carry on Sergeant, Aaagh! It’s the Mr. Hell Show!)
1930 Edward Woodward, BAFTA TV Award-winning actor (Callan, The Equalizer, Breaker Morant, The Wicker Man, CI5: The New Professionals, Hot Fuzz)
1934 Pat Boone (Charles Eugene Boone), singer and actor (Journey to the Center of the Earth, State Fair, The Greatest Story Ever Told)
1936 Gerald Scarfe, cartoonist and illustrator e is best known for his work with Pink Floyd, particularly The Wall
1937 Morgan Freeman, Academy Award-winning actor (Million Dollar Baby, The Shawshank Redemption, Driving Miss Daisy, Street Smart, Se7en, The Dark Knight, Wanted)
1939 Cleavon Little, Emmy and Tony Award-winning Actor (Dear John, Purlie, Blazing Saddles, FM, Scavenger Hunt, Fletch Lives)
1940 René Auberjonois, actor (MASH, Brewster McCloud, Benson, Star Trek: Deep Space Nine, Inspector Gadget, Disney’s the Legend of Tarzan, Boston Legal)
1946 Brian Cox, CBE, Emmy Award-winning actor (Nuremberg, Zodiac, Deadwood, The Bourne Supremacy, Troy, X2, Rushmore)
1947 Jonathan Pryce, actor (Breaking Glass, Something Wicked This Way Comes, Brazil, The Adventures of Baron Munchausen, Pirates of the Caribbean: The Curse of the Black Pearl)
1947 Ron Wood, rock guitarist and bassist (The Rolling Stones, Faces, and The Jeff Beck Group)
1948 Powers Boothe, Emmy Award-winning actor (Guyana Tragedy: The Story of Jim Jones, Deadwood, 24, Tombstone, Sin City, The Emerald Forest)
1956 Lisa Hartman Black, actress (Tabitha, Knot’s Landing)
1963 Mike Joyce, musician (The Smiths)
1972 Daniel Casey, actor (Midsomer Murders, Steel River Blues, Our Friends in the North)
1974 Alanis Morissette, singer-songwriter, record producer, and actress; she has won twelve Juno Awards and seven Grammy Awards and has sold more than 55 million albums worldwide
DIED:
1941 Hans Berger, psychiatrist who recorded the first human electroencephalogram, dies at 68
1943 Leslie Howard, director, producer and actor (The Scarlet Pimpernel, Gone with the Wind, Intermezzo: A Love Story, Pygmalion) is killed at 50 when his plane is shot down by German Luftwaffe
1959 Sax Rohmer (Arthur Henry Sarsfield Ward), novelist who is most remembered for his series of novels featuring the master criminal Dr. Fu Manchu, dies at 76
1960 Paula Hitler, the younger sister of Adolf Hitler and his only full sibling to survive into adulthood, dies at 64
1962 Adolf Eichmann, often referred to as “the architect of the Holocaust”, was a high-ranking Nazi and SS-Obersturmbannführer, was hanged after being convicted of war crimes at 56
1968 Helen Keller, author, activist and lecturer who was the first deafblind person to graduate from college, dies at 87
1991 David Ruffin, soul singer most famous for his work as lead singer of The Temptations, dies of a drug overdose at 50
2001 Hank Ketcham, the creator of the “Dennis the Menace” cartoon, dies at 81
2004 William Manchester, historian and biographer, notable as the bestselling author of 18 books that have been translated into 20 languages (The Death of a President, American Caesar: Douglas MacArthur, The Last Lion: Winston Spencer Churchill: Visions of Glory, 18741932), dies at 82