Today is Monday, June 1, the 152nd day of 2015. There are 213 days left in the year.
Today’s Highlights:
On June 1, 1915, the T.S. Eliot poem “The Love Song of J. Alfred Prufrock” was first published in “Poetry: A Magazine of Verse” in Chicago.
In 1533, Anne Boleyn, the second wife of King Henry VIII, was crowned as Queen Consort of England.
In 1792, Kentucky became the 15th state of the union.
In 1796, Tennessee became the 16th state.
In 1813, the mortally wounded commander of the USS Chesapeake, Capt. James Lawrence, gave the order, “Don’t give up the ship” during a losing battle with the British frigate HMS Shannon in the War of 1812.
In 1868, James Buchanan, the 15th president of the United States, died near Lancaster, Pennsylvania, at age 77.
In 1933, in a bizarre scene captured by news photographers, Lya Graf, a female circus dwarf, sat in the lap of financier J.P. Morgan Jr. during a recess of a Senate hearing on the stock market crash of 1929.
In 1943, a civilian flight from Portugal to England was shot down by Germany during World War II, killing all 17 people aboard, including actor Leslie Howard.
In 1955, the romantic comedy “The Seven Year Itch,” starring Marilyn Monroe and Tom Ewell, had its world premiere in New York.
In 1968, author-lecturer Helen Keller, who’d earned a college degree despite being blind and deaf almost all of her life, died in Westport, Connecticut, at age 87.
In 1980, Cable News Network made its debut.
In 1990, President George H.W. Bush and Soviet leader Mikhail S. Gorbachev signed the foundation of a landmark treaty for the first-ever cuts in strategic nuclear missiles and a pact to slash chemical weapons stockpiles.
In 2009, Air France Flight 447, an Airbus A330 carrying 228 people from Rio de Janeiro to Paris, crashed into the Atlantic Ocean w ith the loss of everyone on board.
Ten years ago: Paul Wolfowitz began a five-year term as head of the 184-nation World Bank. (Wolfowitz resigned the post in 2007 amid controversy over the generous compensation he’d arranged for his girlfriend, bank employee Shaha Riza.) Dutch voters rejected the European Union constitution. A landslide sent 17 multi-million-dollar houses crashing down a hill in Laguna Beach, California. Peruvian doctors separated the fused legs of Milagros Cerron, a 13-month-old baby girl known as Peru’s “mermaid.” The U.S. version of “Dancing with the Stars” made its debut on ABC-TV (the winners were actress Kelly Monaco and professional partner Alec Mazo).
Five years ago: Attorney General Eric Holder said federal authorities had opened criminal and civil investigations into the BP oil spill. A divided U.S. Supreme Court ruled, 5-4, that criminal suspects had to explicitly invoke their right to remain silent, and that simply remaining silen t was not sufficient to stop police questioning. Former Vice President Al Gore and his wife, Tipper, announced their separation after 40 years of marriage.
One year ago: Freed American soldier Sgt. Bowe Bergdahl entered the Landstuhl Regional Medical Center in Germany, a day after he was released by the Taliban in exchange for five Guatanamo terrorism detainees. (Bergdahl was later charged with desertion.) Ann B. Davis, 88, who became America’s favorite and most famous housekeeper as the devoted Alice Nelson on television’s “The Brady Bunch,” died in San Antonio, Texas.
Today’s Birthdays:
- Actor Richard Erdman is 90.
- Singer Pat Boone is 81.
- Actor-writer-director Peter Masterson is 81.
- Actor Morgan Freeman is 78.
- Actor Rene Auberjonois is 75.
- Opera singer Frederica von Stade is 70.
- Actor Brian Cox is 69.
- Rock musician Ronnie Wood is 68.
- Actor Jonathan Pryce is 68.
- Actor Powers Boothe is 67.
- Actress Gemma Craven is 65.
- Blues-rock musician Tom Principato is 63.
- Country singer Ronnie Dunn is 62.
- Actress Lisa Hartman Black is 59.
- Actor Tom Irwin is 59.
- Singer-musician Alan Wilder is 56.
- Rock musician Simon Gallup (The Cure) is 55.
- Country musician Richard Comeaux (River Road) is 54.
- Actor-comedian Mark Curry is 54.
- Actor-singer Jason Donovan is 47.
- Actress Teri Polo is 46.
- Basketball player-turned-coach Tony Bennett is 46.
- Actor Rick Gomez is 43.
- Model-actress Heidi Klum is 42.
- Singer Alanis Morissette is 41.
- Actress Sarah Wayne Callies is 38.
- TV personality Damien Fahey is 35.
- Pop singer-songwriter Brandi Carlile is 34.
- Actor Johnny Pemberton is 34.
- Tennis player Justine Henin is 33.
- Actor Taylor Handley is 31.
- Actress Willow Shields is 15.
Thought for Today: “Our age knows nothing but reaction, and leaps from one extreme to another.” – Reinhold Niebuhr, American theologian (1892-1971).