On June 24, 2005, actor Tom Cruise rattled and debated with interviewer Matt Lauer, host of NBC’s morning talk show Today, with his criticism of antidepressant medications and psychiatric therapy, calling psychiatry a “pseudoscience.”
On June 25, 1988, teenaged Debbie Gibson’s song “Foolish Beat” reached the top of the Billboard Hot 100, making her the youngest person ever to write, produce and perform her own No. 1 pop single.
On June 26, 1993, President Bill Clinton ordered U.S. warships to fire Tomahawk cruise missiles at Iraqi intelligence headquarters in downtown Baghdad, in retaliation for an Iraqi plot to assassinate former President George H.W. Bush during his April visit to Kuwait.
On June 27, 1939, one of cinema’s most famous scenes was recorded when Rhett Butler and Scarlett O’Hara parted for the last time in Gone With the Wind. Director Victor Fleming also shot the scene using an alternate line — “Frankly, my dear, I just don’t care” — in case film censors objected to the word “damn.” They did, fining producer David O. Selznick $5,000 for including the curse even though they approved the movie.
On June 28, 1919, Germany signed the Treaty of Versailles with the Allies, officially ending World War I. English economist John Maynard Keynes, who attended the peace conference but left in protest of the treaty, predicted that strict terms imposed on Germany would lead to its financial collapse.
On June 29, 1776, Edward Rutledge, one of South Carolina’s representatives to the Continental Congress in Philadelphia, wrote a letter to New York Rep. John Jay expressing his anxiety over whether moderates like the two of them could “effectually oppose” a resolution for independence. Jay had business elsewhere and was unable to attend the Congress.
On June 30, 1934, in Germany, Nazi leader Adolf Hitler ordered a bloody purge of his own political party, assassinating hundreds of Nazis whom he believed had the potential to become future political enemies. The leadership of the Nazi Storm Troopers, whose four million members had helped bring Hitler to power in the early 1930s, was especially targeted.
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