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TODAY IN HISTORY

 



Mafia boss John Gotti, aka “Teflon Don,” sentenced to life

Mafia boss John Gotti, who was nicknamed the “Teflon Don” after escaping unscathed from several trials during the 1980s, is sentenced to life in prison after being found guilty on 14 accounts of conspiracy to commit murder and racketeering. Moments after his sentence was read in a federal courthouse in Brooklyn, hundreds of Gotti’s supporters stormed the building and overturned and smashed cars before being forced back by police reinforcements.

Gotti, born and educated on the mean streets of New York City, became head of the powerful Gambino family after boss Paul Castellano was murdered outside a steakhouse in Manhattan in December 1985. The gang assassination, the first in three decades in New York, was organized by Gotti and his colleague Sammy “the Bull” Gravano. The Gambino family was known for its illegal narcotics operations, gambling activities, and car theft. During the next five years, Gotti rapidly expanded his criminal empire, and his family grew into the nation’s most powerful Mafia family. Despite wide publicity of his criminal activities, Gotti managed to avoid conviction several times, usually through witness intimidation. In 1990, however, he was indicted for conspiracy to commit murder in the death of Paul Castellano, and Gravano agreed to testify against him in a federal district court in exchange for a reduced prison sentence.

On April 2, 1992, John Gotti was found guilty on all counts and on June 23 was sentenced to multiple life terms without the possibility of parole. While still imprisoned, Gotti died of throat cancer on June 10, 2002.



21ST CENTURY

2018

Thai soccer team becomes trapped in cave

It started as a fun after-practice excursion. On June 23, 2018, Ekkapol Chantawong, a 25-year-old Thai youth soccer coach, takes his team, the Wild Boars, to explore a cave he’d visited before, intending to stay just about an hour. 



21ST CENTURY

2013

Wallenda makes Grand Canyon crossing on high wire

On June 23, 2013, 34-year-old aerialist Nik Wallenda becomes the first person to walk a high wire across the Little Colorado River Gorge near Grand Canyon National Park in Arizona. Wallenda wasn’t wearing a safety harness as he made the quarter-mile traverse on a 2-inch-thick  steel cable some 1,500 feet above the gorge. In June of the previous year, Wallenda, a member of the famous Flying Wallendas family of circus performers, became the first person to walk a tightrope over Niagara Falls.



AFRICA

1956

Gamal Abdel Nasser elected president of Egypt

On June 23, 1956, 99.95 percent of Egyptian voters mark their ballots to elect Gamal Abdel Nasser as the first president of the Republic of Egypt. Nasser, who toppled the Egyptian monarchy in 1952 in a military coup, was the only presidential candidate on the ballot. 



WORLD WAR II

1940

Hitler takes a tour of Paris

On June 23, 1940, Adolf Hitler surveys notable sites in the French capital, now German-occupied territory. In his first and only visit to Paris, Hitler made Napoleon’s tomb among the sites to see. “That was the greatest and finest moment of my life,” he said upon leaving.



SPORTS

1972

Title IX enacted

On June 23, 1972, Title IX of the education amendments of 1972 is enacted into law. Title IX prohibits federally funded educational institutions from discriminating against students or employees based on sex. It begins: “No person in the United States shall, on the basis of sex, be excluded from participation in, be denied the benefits of, or be subjected to discrimination under any education program or activity receiving Federal financial assistance.” As a result of Title IX, any school that receives any federal money from the elementary to university level—in short, nearly all schools—must provide fair and equal treatment of the sexes in all areas, including athletics.



U.S. PRESIDENTS

1972

H.R. Haldeman encourages Nixon to ward off FBI

On June 23, 1972, President Richard Nixon’s advisor, H.R. Haldeman, tells the president to put pressure on the head of the FBI to “stay the hell out of this [Watergate burglary investigation] business.” In essence, Haldeman was telling Nixon to obstruct justice, which is one of the articles Congress threatened to impeach Nixon for in 1974.



ART, LITERATURE, AND FILM HISTORY

1989

Tim Burton’s “Batman” released

On June 23, 1989, Tim Burton’s noir spin on the well-known story of the DC Comics hero Batman is released in theaters. Michael Keaton starred in the film as the multimillionaire Bruce Wayne, who has transformed himself into the crime-fighting Batman after witnessing his parents’  brutal murder as a child. 



CRIME

1934

Even without the corpse, a murderer is uncovered

William Bayly is convicted of murder in New Zealand despite the fact that the body of one of his alleged victims was never found. Most of the evidence against Bayly consisted of trace amounts of human hair, bone and tissue, representing a marked advance in the field of forensics. 

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