Funnyman Mel Brooks is 93 today! Today is Friday, June 28, 2019, the 179th day of the year, with 186 days remaining.
- Sunrise: 5:50am
- Sunset: 8:36pm ...giving us 14 hours and 46 minutes of daylight. 27% of the waning moon visible, rising at 2:52am.
Tides at the Golden Gate
- High: 9:47am/9:00pm
- Low: 3:15am/2:28pm
Special celebrations & commemorations today…
- Birthday of Kuan Kung (God of War) - Taiwan
- St. Peter & St. Paul Day - Chile
- St. Vladimir Day (Constitution Day) - Ukraine
- International Body Piercing Day
- Drive Your Corvette to Work Day
- National Food Truck Day
- National Logistics Day
- Tau Day
- National Tapioca Day
- Día Nacional del Cebiche - National Ceviche Day - Peru
- National Cream Tea Day - UK
On this day in…
1635 - The French colony of Guadeloupe was established in the Caribbean.
1675 - Frederick William of Brandenburg crushed the Swedes.
1709 - The Russians defeated the Swedes and Cossacks at the Battle of Poltava.
1776 - American Colonists repulsed a British sea attack on Charleston,SC.
1778 - Mary "Molly Pitcher" Hays McCauley, wife of an American artilleryman, carried water to the soldiers during the Battle of Monmouth and, supposedly, took her husband's place at his gun after he was overcome with heat.
1869 - R. W. Wood was appointed as the first Surgeon General of theU.S. Navy.
1894 - TheU.S. Congress made Labor Day aU.S. national holiday.
1902 - TheU.S. Congress passed the Spooner bill, it authorized a canal to be built across the isthmus of Panama.
1911 - Samuel J. Battle became the first African-American policeman in New York City.
1914 - Archduke Franz Ferdinand of Austria, heir to the Austro-Hungarian throne, was assassinated in Sarajevo along with his wife, Duchess Sophie.
1919 - The Treaty of Versailles was signed ending World War I exactly five years after it began. The treaty also established the League of Nations.
1921 - A coal strike in Great Britain was settled after three months.
1930 - More than 1,000 communists were routed during an assault on the British consulate in London.
1939 - Pan American Airways began the first transatlantic passenger service.
1938 - TheU.S. Congress created the Federal Housing Administration (FHA) to insure construction loans.
1942 - German troops launched an offensive to seize Soviet oil fields in the Caucasus and the city of Stalingrad.
1945 -U.S. General Douglas MacArthur announced the end of Japanese resistance in the Philippines.
1949 - The lastU.S. combat troops were called home from Korea, leaving only 500 advisers.
1950 - North Korean forces captured Seoul, South Korea.
1954 - French troops began to pull out of Vietnam’s Tonkin Province.
1960 - In Cuba, Fidel Castro confiscated American-owned oil refineries without compensation.
1964 - Malcolm X founded the Organization for Afro American Unity to seek independence for blacks in the Western Hemisphere.
1965 - The first commercial satellite began communications service. It was Early Bird (Intelsat I).
1967 - Israel formally declared Jerusalem reunified under its sovereignty following its capture of the Arab sector in the June 1967 war.
1971 - TheU.S. Supreme Court overturned the draft evasion conviction of Muhammad Ali.
1972 - U.S. President Nixon announced that no new draftees would be sent to Vietnam.
1976 - The first women entered theU.S. Air Force Academy.
1978 - TheU.S. Supreme Court ordered the medical school at the University of California at Davis to admit Allan Bakke. Bakke, a white man, argued he had been a victim of reverse racial discrimination.
1996 - The Citadel voted to admit women, ending a 153-year-old men-only policy at theSouth Carolina military school.
1996 - Charles M. Schulz got a star on the Hollywood Walk of Fame.
1997 - Mike Tyson was disqualified for biting Evander Holyfield's ear after three rounds of their WBA heavyweight title fight in Las Vegas,NV.
1998 - Poland, due to shortage of funds, is allowed to lease, U.S. aircraft to bring military force up to NATO standards.
1998 - The Cincinnati Enquirer apologized to Chiquita banana company and retracted their stories that questioned company's business practices. They also agreed to pay more than $10 million to settle legal claims.
2000 - The U.S. Supreme Court declared that a Nebraska law that outlawed "partial birth abortions" was unconstitutional. About 30 U.S. states had similar laws at the time of the ruling.
2000 - Darva Conger announced that she had done a layout for Playboy magazine. Conger had married Rick Rockwell on Fox-TV's "Who Wants to Marry a Multimillionaire."
2000 - The European Commission announced that they had blocked the planned merger between the U.S. companies WorldCom Inc. and Sprint due to competition concerns.
2000 - Six-year-old Elián González returned to Cuba from the U.S. with his father. The child had been the center of an international custody dispute.
2001 - Slobodan Milosevic was taken into custody and was handed over to the U.N. war crimes tribunal in The Hague, Netherlands. The indictment charged Milosevic and four other senior officials, with crimes against humanity and violations of the laws and customs of war in Kosovo.
2001 - The U.S. Court of Appeals for theDistrict of Columbia Circuit set aside an order that would break up Microsoft for antitrust violations. However, the judges did agree that the company was in violation of antitrust laws.
2004 - The U.S. turned over official sovereignty to Iraq's interim leadership. The event took place two days earlier than previously announced to thwart insurgents' attempts at undermining the transfer.
2004 - The U.S. resumed diplomatic ties with Libya after a 24-year break.
2004 - The U.S. Supreme Court ruled that enemy combatants could challenge their detention in U.S. Courts.
2005 - The final design for the "Freedom Tower" (One World Trade Center) was formally unveiled.
2007 - The American bald eagle was removed from the endangered species list.
2010 - The U.S. Supreme Court ruled 5-4 that Americans have the right to own a gun for self-defense anywhere they live.
Today’s birthday celebrants include (or included)...
- Henry VIII 1491
- Peter Rubens 1577 - Baroque painter
- John Wesley 1703 - Theologian
- Jean-Jacques Rousseau 1712 - Philosopher, writer, composer
- Alexis Carrel 1873 - Surgeon, biologist, pioneer in vascular suturing techniques
- Clara Maass 1876 - Nurse
- Richard Rodgers 1902 - Composer
- Ashley Montague (Israel Ehrenberg) 1905 - Anthropologist
- Maria Goeppert Mayer 1906 - Theoretical physicist
- Eric Ambler 1909
- Peter Candoli 1923
- Peter Thomas 1924 - Television announcer, narrator
- George Morgan 1925
- Mel Brooks 1926 - Writer, director, actor
- Pat Morita 1932
- Cathy Carr 1936
- George Knudson 1937
- John Byner 1937 - Comedian, impressionist
- Frank Zane 1942 - Bodybuidler
- David Knights 1945 - Musician (Procol Harum)
- Gilda Radner 1946
- Bruce Davison 1946
- Kathy Bates 1948 - Actress
- Alice Krige 1955
- John Elway 1960 - Football player
- Tony Mercedes 1962
- Jessica Hecht 1965 - Actress
- John Cusack 1966 - Actor
- Mary Stuart Masterson 1966 - Actress
- Gil Bellows 1967 - Actor ("Ally McBeal")
