June 15th
Today in America's Present Past
1775 | War of Independence: The Continental Congress appoints Washington military commander.
1767 | POTUS: First Lady Rachel Jackson was born.
1804 | The 12th Amendment is ratified.
1836 | Statehood: Arkansas granted statehood.
1842 | Explorer John C. Frémont sets off from the Kansas River on his first expedition of the Oregon Trail with frontierman Kit Carson.
1844 | Charles Goodyear patented the vulcanization of rubber.
1846 | Democratic President James Polk signed the Oregon Treaty.
1849 | POTUS: President James Polk died.
1851 | Jacob Fussell sets up 1st ice-cream factory in Baltimore, Maryland.
1859 | Pig War starts.
1864 | Civil War: The Battle of Petersburg.
1864 | Civil War: Robert E. Lee's home area (Arlington, Virginia) was converted to a national military cemetery.
1864 | CONGRESS: Enacted legislation equalizing pay for Black soldiers.
1898 | CONGRESS: Enacted legislation to annex Hawaii.
1907 | Researchers identify Mary Mallon as “Typhoid Mary,” the outbreak’s patient zero.
1916 | The Boy Scouts of America was formed.
1917 | POTUS: Democrat Woodrow Wilson signs the Espionage Act into law.
1920 | Civil Rights: African American workers, Elias Clayton, Elmer Jackson, and Isaac McGhie are taken from jail and lynched by a white mob of thousands in Duluth, Minnesota.
1924 | J. Edgar Hoover becomes the Director of the FBI.
1929 | POTUS: Republican President Herbert Hoover signed the Farm Relief Bill.
1934 | The Great Smoky Mountains National Park was dedicated.
1937 | Singer Waylon Jennings was born.
1939 | Activist Ward Connerly was born.
1943 | Beaumont, Texas, race riot.
1944 | WWII: US forces begin the liberation of Saipan.
1955 | POTUS: Republican President Eisenhower initiates the first yearly "Operation Alert" (OPAL) exercise in preparation for a nuclear attack.
1963 | Actress Helen Hunt was born.
1969 | TV: “Hew Haw” debuts.
1969 | Entertainer “Ice Cube” was born.
1973 | Actor Neil Patrick Harris was born.
1974 | “All the President's Men" by Carl Bernstein and CIA asset Bob Woodward was published.
1985 | War on Terror: Navy service member Robert Stethem murdered by hijackers.
1996 | Entertainer Ella Fitzgerald died.
2014 | Radio personality Casey Kasem died.
2015 | Entrepreneur Kirk Kerkorian died.
2020 | SOCTUS: The court decided on Bostock v. Clayton County.