On This Day: Monday June 26, 2006

This is the 177th day of the year, with 188 days remaining in 2006.

Fact of the Day: Korean War

The Korean War started out being between North Korea and South Korea. After World War II, Korea was hurriedly divided for administrative purposes at the 38th parallel. Almost immediately, the Soviets began a short-lived reign of terror in northern Korea that quickly politicized the division by driving thousands of refugees south. An independent South Korea became UN policy in early 1948 and southern communists opposed this, so warfare began in parts of every Korean province below the 38th parallel. The war became international in June 1950 when North Korea, supplied and advised by the Soviets, invaded South Korea. The United Nations, with the United States as the principal participant, joined the war on the side of the South Koreans, and the People's Republic of China came to North Korea's aid. In 1953, Joseph Stalin died, and within weeks the Politburo of the Soviet Communist Party voted that the war in Korea should be ended. After more than a million combat casualties on bo th sides, the fighting ended in July 1953 with Korea still divided into two hostile states.

Holidays

Feast day of Saints Salvius and Superius, Saints John and Paul, St. Anthelmus, bishop, St. Maxentius, and St. Vigilius of Trent.
Madagascar: Independence Day.
United Nations: Charter Day.

Events

1819 - The bicycle was patented by W.K. Clarkson, Jr. of New York City.
1870 - The first section of Atlantic City, New Jersey's Boardwalk opened to the public.
1900 - A commission that included Dr. Walter Reed began to work to eradicate yellow fever.
1917 - The first troops of the American Expeditionary Force arrived in France during World War I.
1919 - The New York Daily News was first published.
1924 - U.S. troops pulled out of the Dominican Republic, after having occupied it since 1916.
1934 - The Federal Credit Union Act was signed by President Franklin D. Roosevelt.
1945 - The charter of the United Nations was signed by 50 countries, in San Francisco.
1959 - U.S. President Dwight D. Eisenhower and Queen Elizabeth II officially opened the St. Lawrence Seaway.
1960 - Madagascar was proclaimed independent as the Malagasy Republic.
1963 - President John F. Kennedy gave his famous "Ich bin ein Berliner" speech at the Berlin Wall.
1971 - The U.S. Justice Department issued a warrant for Daniel Ellsberg, accusing him of releasing the Pentagon Papers.
1974 - The Universal Product Code (bar code) was introduced on a pack of Wrigley's gum.
1976 - The CN Tower opened in Toronto, Canada -- at 1,815 feet, 5 inches high it is the world's tallest freestanding building.
1997 - U.S. mathematician Andrew Wiles was awarded the Wolfskehl Prize for solving Fermat's Last Theorem, the most notorious problem in mathematics.
2000 - Rival scientific teams completed the first rough map of the human genetic code.

Births

1819 - Abner Doubleday, American Army general, once thought to be the inventor of baseball.
1892 - Pearl S. Buck, American Nobel Prize-winning author.
1914 - Babe (Mildred) Didrikson Zaharias, Hall of Fame athlete in golf, track.

Deaths

1541 - Francisco Pizarro, governor of Peru and conqueror of the Inca civilization, assassinated by Spanish rivals.
2003 - Strom Thurmond, American politician and the longest-serving senator in United States history (1954-2003).

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