Today is Friday, June 1, the 152nd day of 2018. There are 213 days left in the year.
Today’s highlights: On June 1, 1968, the cult British television series “The Prisoner,” starring Patrick McGoohan as an ex-secret agent who finds himself trapped in a sinister, Orwellian village, had its American premiere on CBS. Author-lecturer Helen Keller, who earned a college degree despite being blind and deaf almost her entire life, died in Westport, Connecticut, at age 87.
On this date:
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.
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 1927, Lizzie Borden, accused but acquitted of the 1892 ax murders of her father, Andrew, and her stepmother, Abby, died in Fall River, Massachusetts, at age 66.
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 1958, Charles de Gaulle became premier of France, marking the beginning of the end of the Fourth Republic.
In 1977, the Soviet Union formally charged Jewish human rights activist Anatoly Shcharansky with treason. (Shcharansky was imprisoned, then released in 1986; he’s now known as Natan Sharansky.)
In 1980, Cable News Network made its debut.
In 1997, Betty Shabazz, the widow of Malcolm X, was severely burned in a fire set by her 12-year-old grandson in her Yonkers, New York, apartment (she died three weeks later). The Chicago Tribune published a pretend commencement speech by columnist Mary Schmich (shmeech) which urged graduates to, among other things, “wear sunscreen” (the essay ended up being wrongly attributed online to author Kurt Vonnegut).
In 2009, Air France Flight 447, an Airbus A330 carrying 228 people from Rio de Janeiro to Paris, crashed into the Atlantic Ocean with the loss of everyone on board.
Ten years ago: Democrat Hillary Rodham Clinton won a lopsided, but largely symbolic, victory in Puerto Rico’s presidential primary. Fire ripped through a back lot at Universal Studios. At least eight people suffocated at an overcrowded stadium in Monrovia during a soccer match between host Liberia and Gambia. NASA’s Phoenix Mars Lander took its first practice scoop of Martian soil. Fashion designer Yves Saint Laurent died in Paris at age 71.
Five years ago: In a scene reminiscent of the Arab Spring, thousands of people flooded Istanbul’s main square after a crackdown on an anti-government protest turned city streets into a battlefield clouded by tear gas.
One year ago: President Donald Trump declared he was pulling the U.S. from the landmark Paris climate agreement. A gunman described by police as a heavily indebted gambler stormed a crowded casino in the Philippine capital and torched gambling tables, creating a choking level of smoke that killed at least 37 people. Ananya Vinay, a 12-year-old from Fresno, California, won the 90th Scripps National Spelling Bee by correctly spelling “marocain,” a type of dress fabric of ribbed crepe.
Today’s birthdays: Actor Richard Erdman is 93. Singer Pat Boone is 84. Actor-writer-director Peter Masterson is 84. Actor Morgan Freeman is 81. Actor Rene Auberjonois is 78. Opera singer Frederica von Stade is 73. Actor Brian Cox is 72. Rock musician Ronnie Wood is 71. Actor Jonathan Pryce is 71. Actress Gemma Craven is 68. Actor John M. Jackson (TV: “NCIS: Los Angeles”) is 68. Blues-rock musician Tom Principato is 66. Country singer Ronnie Dunn is 65. Actress Lisa Hartman Black is 62. Actor Tom Irwin is 62. Singer-musician Alan Wilder is 59. Rock musician Simon Gallup (The Cure) is 58. Country musician Richard Comeaux (River Road) is 57. Actor-comedian Mark Curry is 57. Actor-singer Jason Donovan is 50. Actress Teri Polo is 49. Basketball player-turned-coach Tony Bennett is 49. Actor Rick Gomez is 46. Model-actress Heidi Klum is 45. Singer Alanis Morissette is 44. Actress Sarah Wayne Callies is 41. Comedian Link Neal (Rhett & Link) is 40. TV personality Damien Fahey is 38. Pop singer-songwriter Brandi Carlile is 37. Actor Johnny Pemberton is 37. Actress-writer Amy Schumer is 37. Tennis player Justine Henin is 36. Actor Taylor Handley is 34. Actress Willow Shields is 18.
Thought for today: “To be nobody-but-yourself — in a world which is doing its best, night and day, to make you everybody else — means to fight the hardest battle which any human being can fight; and never stop fighting.” — E.E. Cummings, American poet, (1894-1962).
— Associated Press
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