This Day in History

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June 9

53 – The Roman emperor Nero marries Claudia Octavia.

68 – The Roman emperor Nero commits suicide. Apparently he just couldn't stand Claudia any longer.

1650 – The Harvard Corporation, the more powerful of the two administrative boards of Harvard, is established. It is the first legal corporation in the Americas.

1732 – James Oglethorpe is granted a royal charter for the colony of the future U.S. state of Georgia.

1856 – Five hundred Mormons leave Iowa City, Iowa for the Mormon Trail.

1862 – American Civil War: Stonewall Jackson concludes his successful Shenandoah Valley Campaign with a victory in the Battle of Port Republic; his tactics during the campaign are now studied by militaries around the world.

1915 – William Jennings Bryan resigns as Woodrow Wilson's Secretary of State over a disagreement regarding the United States' handling of the sinking of the RMS Lusitania.

1928 – Charles Kingsford Smith completes the first trans-Pacific flight in a Fokker Trimotor monoplane, the Southern Cross.

1934 – Donald Duck makes his debut in The Wise Little Hen.

1946 – Thailand's King Ananda Mahidol is found shot dead in his bedroom, Bhumibol Adulyadej ascends the throne. He is currently the world's longest reigning monarch.

1953 – The Flint–Worcester tornado outbreak sequence kills 94 people in Massachusetts.

1954 – McCarthyism: Joseph Welch, special counsel for the United States Army, lashes out at Senator Joseph McCarthy during hearings on whether Communism has infiltrated the Army giving McCarthy the famous rebuke, "You've done enough. Have you no sense of decency, sir, at long last? Have you left no sense of decency?"

1959 – The USS George Washington is launched. It is the first nuclear-powered ballistic missile submarine.

1967 – Six-Day War: Israel captures the Golan Heights from Syria.

1968 – U.S. President Lyndon B. Johnson declares a national day of mourning following the assassination of Senator Robert F. Kennedy.

1973 – Secretariat won the Belmont Stakes by 31 lengths, achieving the first American Triple Crown victory in a quarter-century, and lowering the track and world record times for 1½ mile distance races to 2:24.

1994 - After an argument TLC singer Lisa 'Left Eye' Lopes set fire to her boyfriend's Atlanta mansion, worth $2 million (£1.176 million), burning it to the ground. She was charged with arson and fined $10,000 (£5,882) with five years probation.

Births

1672 – Peter the Great; 1891 – Cole Porter; 1915 – Les Paul; 1916 – Robert McNamara; 1931 – Jackie Mason; 1934 – Jackie Wilson; 1939 – Dick Vitale; 1941 – Jon Lord; 1956 – Patricia Cornwell; 1961 – Michael J. Fox, Aaron Sorkin; 1963 – Johnny Depp; 1973 – Tedy Bruschi; 1981 – Natalie Portman

Deaths

68 – Nero; 1870 – Charles Dickens; 1958 – Robert Donat; 1981 – Allen Ludden; 2014 – Rik Mayall