June tenth

Today's Highlight in History:
On June tenth, 1940, Italy declared war on France and Britain; Canada declared war on Italy.

On this date:
In 1801, the north African state of Tripoli declared war on the United States in a dispute over safe passage of merchant vessels through the Mediterranean.

In 1865, the Richard Wagner opera "Tristan und Isolde" premiered in Munich, Germany.

In 1922, singer-actress Judy Garland was born in Grand Rapids, Minnesota.

In 1935, Alcoholics Anonymous was founded in Akron, Ohio.

In 1942, the Gestapo massacred 173 male residents of Lidice, Czechoslovakia, in retaliation for the killing of a Nazi official.

In 1946, Italy replaced its abolished monarchy with a republic.

In 1964, the Senate voted to limit further debate on a proposed civil rights bill, shutting off a filibuster by Southern states.

In 1967, the Middle East War ended as Israel and Syria agreed to observe a United Nations-mediated cease-fire.

In 1977, James Earl Ray, the convicted assassin of civil rights leader Martin Luther King Junior, escaped from Brushy Mountain State Prison in Tennessee with six others; he was recaptured June 13th.

In 1985, socialite Claus von Bulow was acquitted by a jury in Providence, Rhode Island, at his retrial on charges he'd tried to murder his heiress wife, Martha "Sunny" von Bulow.

Ten years ago: Alberto Fujimori was elected president of Peru by a narrow margin over novelist Mario Vargos Llosa. Two members of the rap group 2 Live Crew were arrested in Hollywood, Florida (they and a third band member were acquitted of obscenity charges October 20th.)

Five years ago: US Air Force Captain Scott O'Grady, rescued after being shot down over Bosnia, described his six-day ordeal at a news conference at Aviano Air Base in Italy, saying he was no Rambo and no hero. A bomb blamed on drug traffickers exploded in Medellin, Colombia, killing 26 people. "Thunder Gulch" won the Belmont Stakes.

One year ago: Yugoslav troops departed Kosovo, prompting NATO to suspend its punishing 78-day air war. The Supreme Court ruled, 6-to-3, that the city of Chicago went too far in its fight against street gangs by ordering police to break up groups of loiterers.

"Two dangers constantly threaten the world: order and disorder."

-- Paul Valery, French poet (1871-1945).