Today in History:
On June 14, 1940, German troops entered Paris during World War II; the same day, the Nazis began transporting prisoners to the Auschwitz (OWSH’-vitz) concentration camp in German-occupied Poland.
On this date:
In 1775, the Continental Army, forerunner of the United States Army, was created.
In 1777, the Second Continental Congress approved the design of the original American flag.
In 1846, a group of U.S. settlers in Sonoma proclaimed the Republic of California.
In 1911, the British ocean liner RMS Olympic set out on its maiden voyage for New York, arriving one week later. (The ship’s captain was Edward John Smith, who went on to command the ill-fated RMS Titanic the following year.)
In 1919, John Alcock and Arthur Whitten Brown embarked on the first non-stop flight across the Atlantic Ocean. (Flying a Vickers Vimy biplane bomber, they took off from St. Johns, Newfoundland, Canada and arrived 16 1/2 hours later in Clifden, Ireland.)
In 1943, the U.S. Supreme Court, in West Virginia State Board of Education v. Barnette, ruled 6-3 that public school students could not be forced to salute the flag of the United States.
In 1954, President Dwight D. Eisenhower signed a measure adding the phrase “under God” to the Pledge of Allegiance.
In 1967, California Gov. Ronald Reagan signed a bill liberalizing his state’s abortion law.
In 1972, the Environmental Protection Agency ordered a ban on domestic use of the pesticide DDT, to take effect at year’s end.
DDT, Dichloro-diphenyl-trichloroethane, has solved the fly problem for the experimental dairy herd of the U.S. Department of Agriculture at the Beltsville Research Center, MD. Here, Entomologist J.A. Morris sprays one of the cows kept in an open air stall with a 5% suspension of water dispersible DDT powder with a power sprayer. Aug. 28, 1945. (AP Photo)
In 1982, Argentine forces surrendered to British troops on the disputed Falkland Islands.
In 1993, President Bill Clinton nominated Judge Ruth Bader Ginsburg to serve on the U.S. Supreme Court.
U.S. President Bill Clinton and Judge Ruth Bader Ginsburg Walt along the Colonnades of the White House in Washington, Monday, June 14, 1993 as they head to the Rose Garden for a news conference where the President nominated Ginsburg to fill the vacancy on the Supreme Court. (AP Photo/Doug Mills)
In 2005, Michelle Wie, 15, became the first female player to qualify for an adult male U.S. Golf Association championship, tying for first place in a 36-hole U.S. Amateur Public Links sectional qualifying tournament.
In 2012, in dueling speeches in the battleground state of Ohio, Republican presidential candidate Mitt Romney, speaking in Cincinnati, described the Obama administration as the very “enemy” of people who create jobs; President Barack Obama, going second in Cleveland, asked the nation to buy into his vision for four more years or face a return to the recession-era “mistakes of the past.”
In 2013, The Associated Press reported Minnesota resident Michael Karkoc (KAHR’-kahts) had been a top commander of a Nazi SS-led unit accused of burning villages filled with women and children, then lied to American immigration officials to get into the United States after World War II.
In 2017, fire ripped through the 24-story Grenfell Tower in West London, killing 71 people.
In 2018, a Justice Department watchdog report on the FBI’s handling of the Hillary Clinton email probe criticized the FBI and its former director, James Comey, but did not find evidence that political bias tainted the investigation.
Click here to see who was born on June 14.