Today in History: Treaty of Versailles signed
Today is Friday, June 28, the 180th day of 2024. There are 186 days left in the year.
Today’s Highlight in History:
On June 28, 1919, the Treaty of Versailles was signed in France, ending the First World War.
Also on this date:
In 1838, Britain’s Queen Victoria was crowned in Westminster Abbey.
In 1863, during the Civil War, President Abraham Lincoln appointed Maj. Gen. George G. Meade the new commander of the Army of the Potomac, following the resignation of Maj. Gen. Joseph Hooker.
In 1914, Archduke Franz Ferdinand of Austria and his wife, Sophie, were shot to death in Sarajevo by Serb nationalist Gavrilo Princip, an act that sparked World War I.
In 1939, Pan American Airways began regular trans-Atlantic air service with a flight that departed New York for Marseilles, France.
In 1940, President Franklin D. Roosevelt signed the Alien Registration Act, also known as the Smith Act, which required adult foreigners residing in the U.S. to be registered and fingerprinted.
In 1950, North Korean forces captured Seoul, the capital of South Korea.
In 1978, the Supreme Court ordered the University of California-Davis Medical School to admit Allan Bakke, a white man who argued he’d been a victim of reverse racial discrimination.
In 1994, President Bill Clinton became the first chief executive in U.S. history to set up a personal legal defense fund and ask Americans to contribute to it.
In 2000, seven months after he was cast adrift in the Florida Straits, Elian Gonzalez was returned to his native Cuba.
In 2010, the Supreme Court ruled, 5-4, that Americans had the right to own a gun for self-defense anywhere they lived.
In 2012, the Affordable Care Act, President Barack Obama’s signature piece of legislation, narrowly survived, 5-4, an election-year battle at the U.S. Supreme Court with the improbable help of conservative Chief Justice John Roberts.
In 2017, a man armed with a shotgun attacked a newspaper in Annapolis, Md., killing four journalists and a staffer before police stormed the building and arrested him; authorities said Jarrod Ramos had a long-running grudge against the newspaper for its reporting of a harassment case against him. (Ramos was convicted and was given more than five life terms without the possibility of parole.)
In 2019, avowed white supremacist James Alex Fields, who deliberately drove his car into a crowd of counterprotesters in Charlottesville, Virginia, killing a young woman and injuring dozens, apologized to his victims before being sentenced to life in prison on federal hate crime charges.
In 2022, Ghislaine Maxwell was sentenced to 20 years in prison for helping the wealthy financier Jeffrey Epstein sexually abuse teenage girls.
Today’s Birthdays: Comedian-movie director Mel Brooks is 98. Diplomat and politician Hans Blix is 96. Comedian-impressionist John Byner is 86. Former Defense Secretary Leon Panetta is 86. Actor Bruce Davison is 78. Actor Kathy Bates is 76. Actor Alice Krige is 70. Football Hall of Famer John Elway is 64. Jazz singer Tierney Sutton is 61. Actor Jessica Hecht is 59. Rock musician Saul Davies (James) is 59. Actor Mary Stuart Masterson is 58. Actor John Cusack is 58. Actor Gil Bellows is 57. Actor Tichina Arnold is 55. Entrepreneur Elon Musk is 53. Actor Alessandro Nivola is 52. Rock musician Mark Stoermer (The Killers) is 47. Writer-director Florian Zeller is 45. Country singer Kellie Pickler is 38. Olympic track star Elaine Thompson-Herah is 32.