June second

Today's Highlight in History:
On June second, 1953, Queen Elizabeth the Second of Britain was crowned in Westminster Abbey, 16 months after the death of her father, King George the Sixth.

On this date:
In 1886, President Cleveland married Frances Folsom in a White House ceremony.

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 granted US citizenship to all American Indians.

In 1941, baseball's "Iron Horse," Lou Gehrig, died in New York of a degenerative disease, amyotrophic lateral sclerosis.

In 1946, the Italian monarchy was abolished in favor of a republic.

In 1966, the US space probe "Surveyor One" landed on the moon and began transmitting detailed photographs of the lunar surface.

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

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

In 1987, President Reagan announced he was nominating economist Alan Greenspan to succeed Paul Volcker as chairman of the Federal Reserve Board.

In 1997, Timothy McVeigh was convicted of murder and conspiracy in the Oklahoma City bombing.

Ten years ago: On the third day of their Washington summit, President Bush and Soviet President Mikhail S. Gorbachev held informal talks at the Camp David presidential retreat in Maryland. Actor Sir Rex Harrison died in New York at age 82.

Five years ago: A US Air Force F-16C was shot down by a Bosnian Serb surface-to-air missile while on a NATO air patrol in northern Bosnia; the pilot, Captain Scott F. O'Grady, was rescued six days later.

One year ago: South Africans went to the polls in their second post-apartheid election, giving the African National Congress a decisive victory; retiring president Nelson Mandela was succeeded by Thabo Mbeki.

"Experience isn't interesting till it begins to repeat itself -- in fact, till it does that, it hardly is experience."

-- Elizabeth Bowen, Irish-born author (1899-1973).