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Local

June 17, 1990: The first annual Harley Owners Group (H.O.G.) state rally took place at the Freeborn County Fairgrounds. More than 550 motorcycle riders attended the two-day event.

June 16, 1990: Brenda Armstrong, Miss Albert Lea, was crowned Miss Minnesota 1990 at the pageant in Austin.

June 22, 1950: Roy Hoeve, pictured on the front page of the Tribune, could be seen at the top of the ancient flag pole located on the Albert Lea courthouse grounds. Hoeve was tasked with sawing off the upper section of the pole that had rotted. The pole was once a mast of an old naval ship.

 

National

2019: Notre Dame Cathedral in Paris held its first Mass since the devasting April 15th fire that ravaged its roof; the archbishop of Paris wore a hard-hat helmet and only about 30 people were allowed inside.

2015: Nine people were shot to death in a historic African-American church in Charleston, South Carolina; suspect Dylann Roof was arrested the following morning. (Roof was convicted of federal hate crimes and sentenced to death; he later pleaded guilty to state murder charges and was sentenced to life in prison without parole.)

2003: With a deadline passed for Iraqis to hand in heavy weapons, U.S. forces fanned out across Iraq to seize arms and put down potential foes.

1994: After leading police on a slow-speed chase on Southern California freeways, O.J. Simpson was arrested and charged with murder in the slayings of his ex-wife, Nicole, and her friend, Ronald Goldman. (Simpson was later acquitted in a criminal trial but held liable in a civil trial.)

1989: A sharply divided Supreme Court ruled that burning the American flag as a form of political protest was protected by the First Amendment.

1987: The U.S. Supreme Court struck down a Louisiana law requiring any public school teaching the theory of evolution to teach creation science as well.

June 18, 1983: Astronaut Sally K. Ride became America’s first woman in space as she and four colleagues blasted off aboard the space shuttle Challenger on a six-day mission.

June 17, 1972: President Richard Nixon’s eventual downfall began with the arrest of five burglars inside the Democratic headquarters in Washington, D.C.’s Watergate complex.

1967: Boxer Muhammad Ali was convicted in Houston of violating Selective Service laws by refusing to be drafted and was sentenced to five years in prison. (Ali’s conviction was ultimately overturned by the U.S. Supreme Court).

June 19, 1964: The Civil Rights Act of 1964 was approved by the U.S. Senate, 73-27, after surviving a lengthy filibuster.

1963: The U.S. Supreme Court, in Abington (Pa.) School District v. Schempp, struck down, 8-1, rules requiring the recitation of the Lord’s Prayer or reading of Biblical verses in public schools.

1954: The American Cancer Society presented a study to the American Medical Association meeting in San Francisco which found that men who regularly smoked cigarettes died at a considerably higher rate than non-smokers.

1934: President Franklin D. Roosevelt signed an act making the National Guard part of the U.S. Army in the event of war or national emergency.

1893: A jury in New Bedford, Massachusetts, found Lizzie Borden not guilty of the ax murders of her father and stepmother.

1865: Union troops arrived in Galveston, Texas, with news that the Civil War was over, and that all remaining slaves in Texas were free — an event celebrated to this day as “Juneteenth.”

1858: Accepting the Illinois Republican Party’s nomination for the U.S. Senate, Abraham Lincoln said the slavery issue had to be resolved, declaring, “A house divided against itself cannot stand.”

1782: Congress approved the Great Seal of the United States, featuring the emblem of the bald eagle.