This day in history — June 24
Today’s highlight in history
On June 24, 1947, what’s regarded as the first modern UFO sighting took place as private pilot Kenneth Arnold, an Idaho businessman, reported seeing nine silvery objects flying in a “weaving formation” near Mount Rainier in Washington.
On this date
In 1497, the first recorded sighting of North America by a European took place as explorer John Cabot spotted land, probably in present-day Canada.
In 1793, the first republican constitution in France was adopted.
In 1807, a grand jury in Richmond, Va., indicted former Vice President Aaron Burr on charges of treason and high misdemeanor (he was later acquitted).
In 1948, Communist forces cut off all land and water routes between West Germany and West Berlin, prompting the western allies to organize the Berlin Airlift.
In 1957, the U.S. Supreme Court, in Roth v. United States, ruled 6-3 that obscene materials were not protected by the First Amendment.
In 1967, Pope Paul VI issued an encyclical, Sacerdotalis caelibatus, reaffirming the Catholic Church’s position on priestly celibacy.
In 1997, the U.S. Air Force released a report on the so-called “Roswell Incident,” suggesting the “alien bodies” that witnesses reported seeing in 1947 were actually life-sized dummies.
Ten years ago: Ali Hassan al-Majid, Saddam Hussein’s cousin known as “Chemical Ali,” was sentenced by the Iraqi High Tribunal to hang for his role in the killings of up to 180,000 Kurdish men, women and children two decades earlier. (Al-Majid was executed in January 2010.)
Five years ago: The Muslim Brotherhood’s Mohammed Morsi was declared the winner of Egypt’s first free presidential election.
One year ago: President Barack Obama created the first national monument to gay rights, designating the site of the 1969 Stonewall riots in Manhattan.
Associated Press
QUOTE UNQUOTE
"Remember what the dormouse said / Feed your head."
Grace Slick,
Singer-songwriter, in the Jefferson Airplane song "White Rabbit," released on this date in 1967