Today in History: June 18, first U.S. woman in space

Today in History Today is Saturday, June 18, the 169th day of 2022. There are 196 days left in the year. Today’s Highlight in History: On June 18, 1983, astronaut Sally K. Ride became America’s first woman in space as she and four colleagues blasted off aboard the space shuttle Challenger on a six-day mission. On this date: In 1778, American forces entered Philadelphia as the British withdrew during the Revolutionary War. In 1812, the War of 1812 began as the United States Congress approved, and President James Madison signed, a declaration of war against Britain. In 1815, Napoleon Bonaparte met defeat at Waterloo as British and Prussian troops defeated the French in Belgium. In 1940, during World War II, British Prime Minister Winston Churchill urged his countrymen to conduct themselves in a manner that would prompt future generations to say, ‘œThis was their finest hour.’� Charles de Gaulle delivered a speech on the BBC in which he rallied his countrymen after the fall of France to Nazi Germany. In 1971, Southwest Airlines began operations, with flights between Dallas and San Antonio, and Dallas and Houston. In 1979, President Jimmy Carter and Soviet President Leonid I. Brezhnev signed the SALT II strategic arms limitation treaty in Vienna. In 1986, 25 people were killed when a twin-engine plane and helicopter carrying sightseers collided over the Grand Canyon. In 1992, the U.S. Supreme Court, in Georgia v. McCollum, ruled that criminal defendants could not use race as a basis for excluding potential jurors from their trials. In 2003, baseball Hall-of-Famer Larry Doby, who broke the American League’s color barrier in 1947, died in Montclair, New Jersey, at age 79. In 2010, death row inmate Ronnie Lee Gardner died in a barrage of bullets as Utah carried out its first firing squad execution in 14 years. (Gardner had been sentenced to death for fatally shooting attorney Michael Burdell during a failed escape attempt from a Salt Lake City courthouse.) In 2011, Clarence Clemons, the saxophone player for the E Street Band who was one of the key influences in Bruce Springsteen’s life and music, died in Florida at age 69. In 2020, the Supreme Court, in a 5-4 decision, rejected President Donald Trump’s effort to end legal protections for 650,000 young immigrants. Ten years ago: Former baseball star Roger Clemens was acquitted in Washington, D.C. on all charges that he’d obstructed and lied to Congress when he denied using performance-enhancing drugs. R.A. Dickey became the first major league pitcher in 24 years to throw consecutive one-hitters in the New York Mets’ 5-0 victory over the Baltimore Orioles. (The previous pitcher to throw consecutive one-hitters was Dave Stieb for Toronto in September 1988.) Actor Victor Spinetti, 82, died in Wales; he had appeared in three 1960s Beatles films. Five years ago: Charleena Lyles, a 30-year-old Black mother of four, was shot and killed by two white Seattle police officers after she called 911 to report a burglary; authorities said Lyles had pulled a knife on the officers. Brooks Koepka closed with a 5-under 67 to win the U.S. Open for his first major championship. One year ago: Iranians voted in a presidential election that would bring a landslide victory to the country’s hard-line judiciary chief, Ebrahim Raisi, the protégé of Supreme Leader Ayatollah Ali Khamenei; Raisi had already been sanctioned by the U.S., partly over his involvement in the mass execution of thousands of political prisoners in 1988.