Today is Thursday, June 19, the 170th day of 2014. There are 195 days left in the year.
Today’s Highlight in History:
On June 19, 1964, the Civil Rights Act of 1964 was approved by the U.S. Senate, 73-27, after surviving a
lengthy filibuster. Hours later, a twin-engine plane carrying Sens. Edward Kennedy, D-Mass., and Birch
Bayh, D-Ind., crashed near Springfield, Massachusetts. Kennedy was seriously injured, Bayh and his wife,
Marvella, less so, but two people, including the pilot, were killed.
On this date:
In 1864, during the Civil War, the Confederate sloop-of-war CSS Alabama was sunk by the USS Kearsarge off
Cherbourg, France.
In 1865, Union troops commanded by Maj. Gen. Gordon Granger arrived in Galveston, Texas, with news that
the Civil War was over, and that all remaining slaves in Texas were free, an event celebrated to this
day as "Juneteenth."
In 1944, during World War II, the two-day Battle of the Philippine Sea began, resulting in a decisive
victory for the Americans over the Japanese.
In 1953, Julius Rosenberg, 35, and his wife, Ethel, 37, convicted of conspiring to pass U.S. atomic
secrets to the Soviet Union, were executed at Sing Sing Prison in Ossining, New York.
In 1972, Hurricane Agnes, blamed for at least 122 deaths, made landfall over the Florida Panhandle.
In 1986, University of Maryland basketball star Len Bias, the first draft pick of the Boston Celtics,
suffered a fatal cocaine-induced seizure.
In 1999, author Stephen King was seriously injured when he was struck by a van driven by Bryan Smith in
North Lovell, Maine.
Ten years ago: The U.S. military stepped up its campaign against militant leader Abu Musab al-Zarqawi
launching an airstrike that pulverized a suspected hideout in Fallujah. President George W. Bush told
Americans in his weekly radio address that the economy was growing stronger and more jobs were being
created despite Democrats’ claim he’d presided over a downturn for the country.
One year ago: Afghan President Hamid Karzai suspended talks with the United States on a new security deal
to protest the way his government was left out of initial peace negotiations with the Taliban.