Beware, for I am: Blah Blah

On This Day: Thursday June 29, 2006

This is the 180th day of the year, with 185 days remaining in 2006.

Fact of the Day: Treaty of Versailles

The Treaty of Versailles was a peace document signed at the end of World War I by the Allied and Associated Powers and by Germany in the Hall of Mirrors in the Palace of Versailles, France. It took effect on January 10, 1920. The population and territory of Germany was reduced by about 10 percent by the treaty. The "war guilt clause" of the treaty deemed Germany the aggressor in the war and consequently made Germany responsible for making reparations to the Allied nations in payment for the losses and damage they had sustained in the war. The Treaty of Versailles was revised and altered over the years, mostly in Germany's favor. Numerous concessions were made to Germany before the rise of Adolf Hitler, and by 1938 only the territorial settlement articles remained in effect. The harsh treaty and its lax enforcement are blamed by many historians for Hitler's rise and his militarism setting the stage for World War II.

Holidays

Seychelles: Independence Day.

Events

1566 - The Stationers Company was granted a monopoly in Great Britain.
1652 - Massachusetts declared itself an independent commonwealth.
1767 - The British parliament passed the Townshend Revenue Act, levying taxes on America. Colonists bitterly protested the Acts, which were repealed in 1770.
1776 - The Virginia state constitution was adopted, and Patrick Henry made governor.
1880 - France annexed Tahiti.
1906 - Mesa Verde National Park was established.
1938 - Olympic National Park, Washington, was established.
1956 - The U.S.Interstate Highway System was born when President Dwight D. Eisenhower signed a bill providing $33.5 billion for highway construction.
1966 - In the Vietnam War, U.S. aircraft bombed the major North Vietnamese cities of Hanoi and Haiphong for the first time, destroying oil depots located near them.
1967 - Israel united east and west Jerusalem.
1970 - U.S. troops pulled out of Cambodia.
1974 - With Argentine President Juan Perón on his deathbed, Isabela Martinez de Perón, his wife and vice president, was sworn in as the leader of the South American country.
1995 - The space shuttle Atlantis and the Russian space station Mir docked, forming the largest manmade satellite ever to orbit the Earth.

Births

1861 - William James Mayo, American physician, co-founder of the Mayo Clinic in Minnesota.
1900 - Antoine de Saint-Exupéry, French author and aviator.
1910 - Frank Loesser, American composer, librettist and lyricist.
1919 - Slim Pickens (Louis Lindley), American actor.