This Day In History — The Birth of Helen Keller

June 27

1844
Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints founder Joseph Smith was murdered by a mob in Carthage, Ill.

1898
Joshua Slocum became the first person to successfully circumnavigate the earth alone when he landed his sloop Spray in Newport, R.I., a 46,000-mile trip.

1922
The Newbery Medal for children’s literature was first awarded.

1950
President Harry S. Truman ordered the Air Force and Navy into the Korean War.

1954
The world’s first atomic power station opened at Obninsk, near Moscow.

1969
Police and gays clashed at the Stonewall Inn in New York City, fostering the gay rights movement.

1985
The legendary Route 66, running from Chicago to Santa Monica, Calif., was decertified, the victim of the Interstate Highway System.

2003
The national do-not-call registry, formed to combat unwanted telemarketing calls and administered by the Federal Trade Commission, enrolled almost three-quarters of a million phone numbers on its first day.

Birthdays

Helen Keller
1880–1968, American author and lecturer, blind and deaf from the age of two, born in Tuscumbia, Alabama.

Charles Stewart Parnell
statesman (1846)

Frank Rattray Lillie
zoologist and educator (1870)

Bob Keeshan
Captain Kangaroo (1927)

H. Ross Perot
business executive (1930)

Vera Wang
fashion designer (1949)