June 21
New Hampshire becomes the ninth and last necessary state to ratify the Constitution of the United States, thereby making the document the law of the land. – 1788.
In Neshoba County in central Mississippi, three civil rights field workers disappear after investigating the burning of an African American church by the Ku Klux Klan. The disappearance of the three young men garnered National attention and led to a massive FBI investigation that was code-named MIBURN, for “Mississippi Burning.” – 1964.
An earthquake near the Caspian Sea in Iran kills more than 50,000 and injures another 135,000 persons on this day in 1990. The 7.7-magnitude tremor wrecked havoc on the simply-constructed houses in the Caspian Sea area. – 1990.
Some 100,000 unionists and other supporters march in solidarity with striking Detroit News and Detroit Free Press newspaper workers. – 1997.
June 22
U.S. president Franklin D. Roosevelt signs the G.I. Bill, an unprecedented act of legislation designed to compensate returning members of the Armed Services, known to thank G.I.s, for their efforts in World War II. – 1944.
During World War II, the U.S. 10th Army overcomes the last major pockets of Japanese resistance on Okinawa Island to end one of the bloodiest battles of World War II. The Japanese lost 120,000 troops in the defense of Okinawa, while the Americans suffered 12,500 dead and 35,000 wounded. – 1945.
June 23
U.S. president Richard Nixon signs into law the Higher Education Act, which includes the groundbreaking Title IX legislation. Title IX barred discrimination in higher education programs, including funding for sports, and other extracurricular activities. As a result, women’s participation in team sports, particularly in collegiate athletics, surged with the passage of this act. – 1972.
OSHA issues its standard on cotton dust to protect 600,000 workers from byssinosis, known as “brown lung.” – 1978.
June 24
U.S. Air Force officials release a 231-page report dismissing long-standing claims of an alien spacecraft crash in Roswell, N.M., almost exactly 50 years earlier. – 1997.
June 25
Virginia becomes the 10th U.S. state. – 1788.
Native American forces, led by Chiefs Crazy Horse and Sitting Bull, defeat the U.S. Army troops of Lieutenant Colonel George Armstrong Custer in a bloody battle near southern Montana’s Little Bighorn River. – 1876.
Fair Labor Standards Act passes Congress which bans child labor and sets the 40-hour work week. – 1938.
Major General Dwight D. Eisenhower takes command of U.S. military forces in Europe. After proving himself on the battlefields of North Africa and Italy in 1942, Eisenhower is appointed supreme commander of Operation Overlord, the Allied invasion of northwestern Europe. – 1942.
Armed forces from communist North Korea smash into South Korea, to set off the Korean War. The United States, acting under the auspices of the United Nations, quickly springs to the defense of South Korea and fight a bloody and frustrating war for the next three years. – 1950.
June 26
During World War I, the first 14,000 U.S. infantry troops land in France at the port of Saint Nazaire. The landing site had been kept secret because of the menace of German submarines, but by the time the Americans had lined up to take their first salute on French soil, an enthusiastic crowd had gathered to welcome them. – 1917.
U.S. and British pilots begin delivering food and supplies by airplane to Berlin after the city is isolated by a Soviet Union blockade. – 1948.
The U.S. Congress approves the Federal Highway Act, which allocates more than $30 Billion for the construction of some 41,000 miles of interstate highways; it will be the largest public construction project in U.S. history to that date. – 1956.
June 27
The Germans set up two-way radio communication in a newly-occupied French territory and employ their most sophisticated coding machine, Enigma. – 1940.
U.S. president Harry S Truman announces that he is ordering U.S. air and naval forces to South Korea to aid the democratic nation in repulsing an invasion by communist North Korea. – 1950.
Sources: History.com, Toil and Trouble, by Thomas R. Brooks; American Labor Struggles, by Samuel Yellen; IWW calendar, Solidarity Forever; Historical Encyclopedia of American Labor, edited by Robert E. Weir and James P. Hanlan; Southwest Labor History Archives/George Meany Center; Geov Parrish’s Radical History; workday Minnesota; Andy Richards and Adam Wright, AFL-CIO Washington DC Metro Council.
• “Those who cannot remember the past are condemned to repeat it.” —George Santayana, Philosopher