Subscribe | UPI Odd Newsletter Subscribe Today is Tuesday, June 25, the 176th day of 2013 with 189 to follow. The moon is waning. Morning stars are Jupiter, Mars, Neptune and Uranus. Evening stars are Mercury, Saturn and Saturn. Advertisement Those born on this date are under the sign of Cancer. They include French composer Gustave Charpentier in 1860; Broadway producer George Abbott in 1887; English novelist and critic George Orwell, author of "1984," in 1903; movie director Sidney Lumet in 1924; actor June Lockhart in 1925 (age 88); civil rights advocate James Meredith in 1933 (age 80); musician Harold Melvin in 1939; basketball Hall of Fame member Willis Reed in 1942 (age 71); actor Jimmie Walker in 1947 (age 66); and musicians Carly Simon in 1945 (age 68), Ian McDonald in 1946 (age 67) and George Michael in 1963 (age 50); Associate Justice of the U.S. Supreme Court Sonia Sotomayor in 1954 (age 59); actor/writer Ricky Gervais in 1961 (age 52). Advertisement On this date in history: In 1788, Virginia ratified the U.S. Constitution, the 10th state to do so. In 1876, U.S. Army Gen. George Custer and his force of 208 men were killed by Chief Sitting Bull's Sioux warriors at Little Big Horn in Montana. In 1942, U.S. Army Gen. Dwight Eisenhower took command of the U.S. World War II forces in Europe. In 1950, North Korean forces invaded South Korea. In 1951, CBS aired the first color television broadcast. At the time, no color TV sets were owned by the public. In 1962, the U.S. Supreme Court handed down a decision interpreted as barring prayer in public schools. In 1967, with Mick Jagger, Keith Richard and others singing backup, the Beatles recorded "All You Need Is Love" before an international television audience estimated at 400 million people. In 1973, White House attorney John Dean told a U.S. Senate committee that U.S. President Richard Nixon joined in a plot to cover up the Watergate break-in. In 1991, Slovenia and Croatia declared independence from Yugoslavia, sparking civil war. In 1993, Kim Campbell was sworn in as Canada's first woman prime minister. In 1994, Japan's Prime Minister Tsutomu Hata resigned two months after taking office rather than face a no-confidence vote by Parliament. Advertisement In 1997, about half of Mir's power supply was knocked out when an unmanned cargo ship collided with the Russian space station and put a hole in it. In 1998, U.S. President Bill Clinton arrived in China for a much-debated visit. In 2003, the U.S. Federal Reserve Board lowered the key federal funds rate, the overnight loan rate between banks, to 1.0 percent, lowest since 1958. In 2004, the film "Fahrenheit 9/11," Michael Moore's critical view of the invasion of Iraq, broke box-office records for a documentary in its first few days. In 2005, Mahmoud Ahmadinejad was elected president of Iran. In 2006, Israeli soldier Gilad Shalit was kidnapped by militants from the Gaza Strip. He was released Oct. 18, 2011. In 2008, the U.S. Supreme Court, by a 5-4 vote, ruled that the death penalty is unconstitutional for child rape. In 2009, entertainment superstar Michael Jackson, known as "the king of pop," a vast influence on the music scene of his day, died of cardiac arrest at age 50 while preparing a comeback. In 2012, the U.S. Supreme Court ruled 5-4 that mandatory sentencing of teenage killers to life without parole is unconstitutional. Advertisement A thought for the day: James H. Boren defined bureaucrats as "the only people in the world who can say absolutely nothing and mean it."
