Today is Tuesday, June 2, the 153rd day of 2009. There are 212 days left in the year.

TODAY’S HIGHLIGHT

On June 2, 1953, Queen Elizabeth II of Britain was crowned in Westminster Abbey, 16 months after the death of her father, King George VI.

ON THIS DATE

In 1897, Mark Twain, 61, was quoted by the New York Journal as saying from London that “the report of my death was an exaggeration.”

In 1924, Congress passed a measure that was then signed by President Calvin Coolidge granting American citizenship to all U.S.-born American Indians.

In 1941, Lou Gehrig, baseball’s “Iron Horse,” died in New York of a degenerative disease, amyotrophic lateral sclerosis; he was 37.

In 1969, the American destroyer USS Frank E. Evans was struck and cut in two by the Australian aircraft carrier Melbourne during naval exercises in the South China Sea; 74 crew members from the Frank E. Evans were killed.

In 1975, Vice President Nelson Rockefeller said his commission had found no widespread pattern of illegal activities at the CIA.

In 1979, Pope John Paul II arrived in his native Poland on the first visit by a pope to a Communist country.

In 2008, polygamist sect children began to be reunited with their parents two months after Texas removed the children from the sect’s ranch.

Associated Press