Sunday, June 19

This Day In History

• 1586   English colonists sailed from Roanoke Island, N.C., after failing to establish England's first permanent settlement in America.
• 1846   The first organized baseball game was played on this day. The location was Hoboken, New Jersey. The New York Baseball Club defeated the Knickerbocker Club, 23 to 1. This first game was only four innings long. The New York Nine, as the winners were known, must have really studied the rules to have twenty-three runs batted in. The rules had been formulated just one year earlier by a Mr. Alexander Cartwright, Jr.
• 1862   Slavery was outlawed in U.S. territories.
• 1910   Father's Day was celebrated for the first time, in Spokane, Wash.
• 1912   The United States government adopted a new rule for all working folks. It established an 8-hour work day.
• 1917   During World War I, King George V ordered the British royal family to dispense with German titles and surnames. The family took the name Windsor.
• 1934   The Federal Communications Commission was created.
• 1953   Julius and Ethel Rosenberg were executed at Sing Sing Prison in Ossining, N.Y. They had been convicted of conspiring to pass U.S. atomic secrets to the Soviet Union.
• 1961   The Supreme Court struck down a provision in Maryland's constitution requiring state officeholders to profess a belief in God.
• 1973   Pete Rose of the Cincinnati Reds reached the 2,000-career-hit plateau. The milestone came a decade after his first professional baseball appearance in Cincinnati.
• 1977   Pope Paul VI proclaimed a 19th-century Philadelphia bishop, John Neumann, the first male U.S. saint.
• 1986   University of Maryland basketball star Len Bias, the second pick in the NBA draft, suffered a fatal cocaine-induced seizure.
• 1987   The Supreme Court struck down a Louisiana law requiring any public school teaching the theory of evolution to teach creationism science as well.
• 1999   Britain's Prince Edward married commoner Sophie Rhys-Jones in Windsor, England.
• 2000   The Supreme Court, in a 6-3 ruling, barred officials from letting students lead stadium crowds in prayer before football games.

Happy Birthday To

• 1623   Blaise Pascal (scientist, philosopher: Provincial Letters; died August 19, 1662)
• 1897   Moe Howard (Moses Horowitz) (actor: one of the original Three Stooges); died May 4, 1975)
• 1902   Guy (Gaetano) Lombardo (bandleader: The Royal Canadians: “The most beautiful music this side of heaven.”: Auld Lang Syne, The Third Man Theme; died Nov 5, 1977)
• 1903   Lou (Henry Louis) Gehrig (‘The Iron Horse’: Baseball Hall of Fame first baseman: NY Yankees [World Series: 1926, 1927, 1928, 1932, 1936, 1937, 1938/all-star: 1933, 1934, 1935, 1936, 1937, 1938, 1939]; played 2,130 consecutive games; drove in 100 runs 13 seasons in a row; topped 150 RBI’s on seven occasions; first 20th century player to hit 4 consecutive homers in one game; his uniform [No. 4] was the first to be retired; died June 02, 1941)
• 1910   Abe Fortas (U.S. Supreme Court Justice [1965-69]: resigned in 1969 after published reports that he had accepted lecture fees and a legal retainer while serving on the Court; died Apr 5, 1982)