Today In History

Today is Saturday, June 30, the 181st day of 2007. There are 184 days left in the year.

Today's Highlight in History:
On June 30, 1906, President Theodore Roosevelt signed into law the Pure Food and Drug Act and the Meat Inspection Act.

On this date:
In 1859, French acrobat Blondin (born Jean Francois Gravelet) walked a tightrope above the gorge of Niagara Falls as thousands of spectators watched.

In 1870, Ada H. Kepley of Effingham, Ill., became America's first female law school graduate.

In 1921, President Harding nominated former President Taft to be chief justice of the United States, to succeed the late Edward Douglass White.

In 1934, Adolf Hitler carried out his "blood purge" of political and military rivals in Germany in what came to be known as "The Night of the Long Knives."

In 1936, the novel "Gone with the Wind" by Margaret Mitchell was published in New York.

In 1952, "The Guiding Light," a popular radio program, made its TV debut on CBS.

In 1963, Pope Paul VI was crowned the 262nd head of the Roman Catholic Church.

In 1971, a Soviet space mission ended in tragedy when three cosmonauts aboard Soyuz 11 were found dead inside their spacecraft after it had returned to Earth.

In 1985, 39 American hostages from a hijacked TWA jetliner were freed in Beirut after being held 17 days.

In 1986, the Supreme Court, in Bowers v. Hardwick, ruled 5-4 that states could outlaw homosexual acts between consenting adults. However, the nation's highest court reversed this decision in 2003 in Lawrence v. Texas.

Ten years ago: In Hong Kong, the Union Jack was lowered for the last time over Government House as Britain prepared to hand the colony back to China after ruling it for 156 years.

Five years ago: Leonard Gregg, a part-time firefighter, was charged with starting one of the two wildfires that merged into a monstrous blaze in eastern Arizona. (Gregg later pleaded guilty and was sentenced to 10 years in prison.) Brazil defeated Germany 2-0 for the team's record fifth World Cup title.

One year ago: A tired-sounding Osama bin Laden praised slain Iraq insurgent Abu Musab al-Zarqawi in an audiotape. The government of the Netherlands resigned over a failed attempt to strip Ayaan Hirsi Ali, a prominent Somali-born critic of Islam, of her Dutch citizenship.

Thought for Today: "It is quite gratifying to feel guilty if you haven't done anything wrong: How noble! Whereas it is rather hard and certainly depressing to admit guilt and to repent." — Hannah Arendt, German-born American philosopher and historian (1906-1975).