1064 – Coimbra, Portugal fell to Ferdinand, the King of Castile.

1534 – Jacques Cartier became the first to sail into the river he named Saint Lawrence.

1790 – John Barry copyrighted “Philadelphia Spelling Book.” It was the first American book to be copyrighted.

1790 – Civil war broke out in Martinique.

1860 – The Ms. Ann Stevens book “Malaeska, the Indian Wife of the White Hunter” was offered for sale for a dime. It was the first published “dime novel.”

1861 – Mary Ann “Mother” Bickerdyke began working in Union hospitals.

1923 – Bulgaria’s government was overthrown by the military.

1931 – Robert H. Goddard patented a rocket-fueled aircraft design.

1934 – Donald Duck made his debut in the Silly Symphonies cartoon “The Wise Little Hen.”

1940 – Norway surrendered to the Nazis during World War II.

1943 – The withholding tax on payrolls was authorized by the U.S. Congress.

1945 – Japanese Premier Kantaro Suzuki declared that Japan would fight to the last rather than accept unconditional surrender.

1946 – Mel Ott (with the New York Giants) became the first manager to be ejected from a doubleheader (both games).

1959 – The first ballistic missile carrying submarine, the USS George Washington, was launched.

1965 – Michel Jazy ran the mile in 3 minutes, 53.6 seconds. He broke the record set by Peter Snell in 1964.

1978 – Leaders of the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints struck down a 148-year-old policy of excluding black men from the Mormon priesthood.

1985 – Thomas Sutherland, an American educator, was kidnapped in Lebanon. He was not released until November 1991.

1986 – The Rogers Commission released a report on the Challenger disaster. The report explained that the spacecraft blew up as a result of a failure in a solid rocket booster joint.

1999 – NATO and Yugoslavia signed a peace agreement over Kosovo.

2000 – Canada and the United States signed a border security agreement. The agreement called for the establishment of a border-enforcement team.

2000 – The U.S. House of Representatives voted to repeal gift and estate taxes. The bill called for the taxes to be phased out over 10 years.

2001 – Patrick Roy (Colorado Avalanche) became the first National Hockey League (NHL) player to win three Conn Smythe Trophies. The award is given to the playoff’s Most Valuable Player.

2011 – The world’s first artificial organ transplant was performed. It was an artificial windpipe coated with stem cells.

Heat ~ The National Weather Service (NWS) has issued a heat advisory for several regions across Oregon and Washington, effective from 10 a.m. Sunday through 10 p.m. Monday.

The advisory comes amid forecasts of unusually high temperatures that could pose risks to public health.

According to the NWS, daytime highs are expected to range between 92 and 96 degrees Fahrenheit, with the Portland/Vancouver Metro area and the western Columbia River Gorge seeing the most intense heat.

Facts: The Seattle area is currently experiencing high temperatures known as a heat wave. When outside temperatures are extreme, the danger for heat-related illnesses rises. Older adults, young children, and people with mental illness and chronic diseases are at particularly high risk.

What to do:

• Spend time in air-conditioned places. Visit an air-conditioned mall, movie theater or other cool public place.
• Cover windows that receive morning or afternoon sun.
• Dress in lightweight clothing.
• Check on elderly neighbors and relatives and encourage them to stay cool and drink lots of water regularly.
• Limit the time you spend in direct sunlight.
• Do not leave infants, children, pets or people with limited mobility in a parked car.
• Stay tuned to the radio for updates on emergency information.
• If you know of someone who is unable to understand, see, or hear this message, please tell them about it.

Helpful links:

http://www.seattle.gov/emergency-management/what-if/hazards/excessive-heat

http://www.doh.wa.gov/Emergencies/EmergencyPreparednessandResponse/Factsheets/HotWeatherSafety

http://www.ready.gov/heat

Source: NWS

In 1953, the U.S. Supreme Court made a significant decision regarding segregation in Washington, D.C. Specifically, they ruled that the segregating policies practiced by Thompson’s Cafeteria were illegal.

This landmark case, known as District of Columbia v. John R. Thompson Co. Inc., began on April 30, 1953, and centered around the validity of local Washington Acts from 1872 and 1873.

These Acts prohibited segregation in public places within the District. The court’s support allowed the enforcement of these Acts once again, marking a victory for the national black community. 

The case emerged during a period of racial tension in the nation’s capital, and it was a pivotal moment in the fight against segregation

June 8, 1874 – Apache leader Cochise died on the Chiricahua Reservation in southeastern Arizona. After a peace treaty had been broken by the U.S. Army in 1861, he waged war against settlers and soldiers, forcing them to withdraw from southern Arizona. In 1862, he became the principal chief of the Apaches. He and 200 followers avoided capture by hiding in the Dragoon Mountains.

In June 1871, Army General George Crook assumed command in Arizona and managed to win the allegiance of many Apaches. Cochise then surrendered. He disappeared briefly in the spring of 1872, but returned and settled on the reservation, where he died.

For the complete article:

Source: history.com

BY WALTER OPINDE

On this day, 8^th June, 1953, the U.S. Supreme Court ordered the desegregation of Washington, D.C. restaurants after John Thompson’s case against the District of Columbia “District of Columbia v. John R. Thompson,” This decision was based on the validity of District of Columbia laws of 1872 and 1873. The rulings held by the Court based on these laws were still in effect notwithstanding the several changes in the forms of the District’s government over decades. However, the decision did not address the issue of the constitutionality of the predominant racial segregations.

Thompson’s case came at a moment when the court had failed to coalesce internally over how to resolve the Brown and four companion cases, including one that challenged Washington’s segregated schools.

Not until the dawn of the 1960s, Washington, D.C., was still a sleepy town from the South, within which the cases of racial segregations were prevalent. Fortunately, the process of desegregation ensued in earnest contexts around 1953, thereby continuing until the early 1960s. Earlier on, during their sit-ins, on 17^th April, 1943, and 22^nd April, 1944, African-American students from the Howard University had protested against the rampant segregations in Washington, D.C. restaurants. The sit-in protests had just preceded the famous February 1960 sit-ins, which triggered nationwide movements against segregations about one and a half decades later. As well, a group of the District of Columbia’s playwrights, working through the Dramatists Guild, had forced the racial integration of the U.S. theaters in Washington, D.C., in 1946.

During the case of the District of Columbia v. Thompson, Thompson was handed down four months after President Dwight Eisenhower vowed, during his first “State of the Union” address, to end widespread segregation in the capital. It was not brought to the court by one of the lawyers who was most associated with Brown and the civil rights movements: Thurgood Marshall. Instead, it came at the initiation of an octogenarian activist and charter member of the NAACP, Mary Church Terrell. The Terrell’s legal battle began on 27^th January, 1950, when Thompson’s Restaurant, a cafeteria at 725, 14th Street NW, a few blocks from the White House, had refused to serve her alongside other two African-American colleagues merely because they were “colored.” Terrell had been living in Washington, D.C. for over six decades. She was already aware of the segregation. The District was then 35% black; however, schools, department stores, movie theaters, and other businesses were strictly and widely separated by race. As such, most downtown restaurants denied service to the blacks while some relegated them to the counter where they had to stand.

All the above discriminations ended on 8^th June, 1953, when the court ruled unanimously in favor of Terrell after finding that the decades-old provisions banning the racial discrimination in public areas including restaurants within Washington D.C. remained “presently enforceable.”

Read more of the original story via: https://www.washingtonpost.com/opinions/the-forgotten-fight-to-end-segregation-in-dc/2016/01/15/1b7cae2a-bafc-11e5-829c-26ffb874a18d_story.html?utm_term=.4fd6ca4876d8