TODAY IN HISTORY

 

U.S. begins Berlin Airlift

On June 26, 1948, U.S. and British pilots begin delivering food and supplies by airplane to Berlin after the city is isolated by a Soviet Union blockade.

When World War II ended in 1945, defeated Germany was divided into Soviet, American, British and French zones of occupation. The city of Berlin, though located within the Soviet zone of occupation, was also split into four sectors, with the Allies taking the western part of the city and the Soviets the eastern. In June 1948, Josef Stalin’s government attempted to consolidate control of the city by cutting off all land and sea routes to West Berlin in order to pressure the Allies to evacuate. As a result, beginning on June 24 the western section of Berlin and its 2 million people were deprived of food, heating fuel and other crucial supplies.

Though some in U.S. President Harry S. Truman’s administration called for a direct military response to this aggressive Soviet move, Truman worried such a response would trigger another world war. Instead, he authorized a massive airlift operation under the control of General Lucius D. Clay, the American-appointed military governor of Germany. The first planes took off from England and western Germany on June 26, loaded with food, clothing, water, medicine and fuel.

At the beginning of the operation, the planes delivered about 5,000 tons of supplies to West Berlin every day; by the end, those loads had increased to about 8,000 tons of supplies per day. The Allies carried about 2.3 million tons of cargo in all over the course of the airlift.

The massive scale of the airlift made it a huge logistical challenge and at times a great risk. With planes landing at Tempelhof Airport every four minutes, round the clock, pilots were being asked to fly two or more round-trip flights every day, in World War II planes that were sometimes in need of repair.

The Soviets lifted the blockade in May 1949, having earned the scorn of the international community for subjecting innocent men, women and children to hardship and starvation. The airlift—called die Luftbrucke or “the air bridge” in German—continued until September 1949 at a total cost of over $224 million. When it ended, the eastern section of Berlin was absorbed into Soviet East Germany, while West Berlin remained a separate territory with its own government and close ties to West Germany. 

The Berlin Wall, built in 1961, formed a dividing line between East and West Berlin. Its destruction in 1989 presaged the 1991 collapse of the Soviet Union and marked the end of an era and the reemergence of Berlin as the capital of a new, unified German nation.

GAY RIGHTS

2003

Lawrence v. Texas is decided

On June 26, 2003, the U.S. Supreme Court strikes down Texas’ sodomy laws, along with similar laws in 13 other states. The decision in Lawrence v. Texas is a landmark one, reaffirming the existence of a “right to privacy” that is not enumerated in the Constitution and effectively legalizing same-sex sexual activity in the United States.

GAY RIGHTS

2015

Same-sex marriage is made legal nationwide with Obergefell v. Hodges decision

June 26, 2015 marks a major milestone for civil rights in the United States, as the Supreme Court announces its decision in Obergefell v. Hodges. By one vote, the court rules that same-sex marriage cannot be banned in the United States and that all same-sex marriages must be recognized nationwide, finally granting same-sex couples equal rights to heterosexual couples under the law.

CIVIL WAR

1862

Rebels strike Union at the Battle of Mechanicsville

At the Battle of Mechanicsville, Virginia, Confederate General Robert E. Lee’s Army of Northern Virginia strikes Union General George B. McClellan’s Army of the Potomac, beginning the Seven Days’ Battles. Although the Confederates sustained heavy losses and did not succeed in decisively defeating the Yankees, the battle had unnerved McClellan. During the next week, Lee drove him from the outskirts of Richmond, Virginia, back to his base on the James River.

1950S

1959

St. Lawrence Seaway opened

In a ceremony presided over by U.S. President Dwight D. Eisenhower and Queen Elizabeth II, the St. Lawrence Seaway is officially opened, creating a navigational channel from the Atlantic Ocean to all the Great Lakes. The seaway, made up of a system of canals, locks, and dredged  waterways, extends a distance of nearly 2,500 miles, from the Atlantic Ocean through the Gulf of St. Lawrence to Duluth, Minnesota, on Lake Superior.

1990S

1993

President Clinton punishes Iraq for plot to kill George H.W. Bush

In retaliation for an Iraqi plot to assassinate former U.S. President George H.W. Bush during his April visit to Kuwait, President Bill Clinton orders U.S. warships to fire Tomahawk cruise missiles at Iraqi intelligence headquarters in downtown Baghdad. On April 13, 1993, the day  before George Bush was scheduled to visit Kuwait and be honored for his victory in the Persian Gulf War, Kuwaiti authorities foiled a car-bomb plot to assassinate him. Fourteen suspects, most of them Iraqi nationals, were arrested, and the next day their massive car bomb was discovered in Kuwait City. Citing “compelling evidence” of the direct involvement of Iraqi intelligence in the assassination attempt, President Clinton ordered a retaliatory attack against their alleged headquarters in the Iraqi capital on June 26. Twenty-three Tomahawk missiles, each costing more than a million dollars, were fired off the USS Peterson in the Red Sea and the cruiser USS Chancellorsville in the Persian Gulf, destroying the building and, according to Iraqi accounts, killing several civilians.

WORLD WAR II

1945

U.N. Charter signed

In the Herbst Theater auditorium in San Francisco, delegates from 50 nations sign the United Nations Charter, establishing the world body as a means of saving “succeeding generations from the scourge of war.” The Charter was ratified on October 24, and the first U.N. General Assembly met in London on January 10, 1946.

21ST CENTURY

2003

Former U.S. Senator Strom Thurmond dies

Strom Thurmond, who served in the United States Senate for a record 46 years, dies on June 26, 2003. Thurmond’s long and controversial political career had ended with his retirement one year earlier. Thurmond was born on December 5, 1902, in Edgefield, South Carolina, where he also died. He graduated from what is now Clemson University in 1923 with a degree in horticulture and became a teacher and coach, and, later, a superintendent of schools. While working in education, he studied law at night, and passed the bar in 1930. He worked as an attorney and, eventually, a judge, before serving in WWII, where he participated in D-Day at Normandy with the Army’s 82nd Airborne division.

ANCIENT AMERICAS

1541

Francisco Pizarro, conqueror of the Incas, assassinated

Francisco Pizarro, the governor of Peru and conqueror of the Inca civilization, is assassinated in Lima by Spanish rivals. The illegitimate son of a Spanish gentleman, Pizarro served under Spanish conquistador Alonso de Ojeda during his expedition to Colombia in 1510 and was with Vasco Nunez de Balboa when he encountered the Pacific Ocean in 1513. Hearing legends of the great wealth of the Incas in South America, Pizarro formed an alliance with fellow conquistador Diego de Almagro in 1524 and sailed back to the Americas. Their first expedition only penetrated as far as present-day Ecuador, but their second reached farther and discovered evidence of the existence of the Inca kingdom.

WORLD WAR I

1917

First U.S. troops arrive in France

During World War I, the first 14,000 U.S. infantry troops land in France at the port of Saint-Nazaire. The landing site had been kept secret because of the menace of German submarines, but by the time the Americans had lined up to take their first salute on French soil, an enthusiastic crowd had gathered to welcome them. However, the “Doughboys,” as the British referred to the green American troops, were untrained, ill-equipped, and far from ready for the difficulties of fighting along the Western Front.

U.S. PRESIDENTS

1844

President John Tyler weds his second wife

Fifty-four year old widower President John Tyler marries 21-year-old Julia Gardiner on June 26, 1844. It was his second marriage. At the time, Julia was the youngest first lady in history. Tyler had wooed Julia from the time she was 19, but it took a tragedy and a narrow escape from death for her to accept him.

U.S. PRESIDENTS

1963

John F. Kennedy claims solidarity with the people of Berlin

President John F. Kennedy expresses solidarity with democratic German citizens in a speech on June 26, 1963. In front of the Berlin Wall that separated the city into democratic and communist sectors, he declared to the crowd, “Ich bin ein Berliner” or “I am also a citizen of Berlin.” In his speech, Kennedy assured West Germans that free nations still stood by the people of the democratically controlled sectors of Berlin who had lived within the hostile borders of East Germany since the end of World War II. Immediately after the war, the city of Berlin was divided into West Berlin, comprised of American, British and French-administered democratic enclaves, and East Berlin, an East German communist-controlled area. In an early confrontation of the Cold War, West Berliners had endured a Soviet-imposed blockade of their part of the city between June 1948 and May 1949 that cut off their food and energy supplies. In response, the Allied Military Air Transport Service had flown food, coal and school supplies into the city in an unprecedented logistical feat known as “Operation Vittles” or the “Berlin Airlift.” At the time of Kennedy’s speech to West Berliners in 1963, the city’s democratic enclave remained a tiny but strategically important foothold for democracy within communist-controlled Eastern Europe.

ART, LITERATURE, AND FILM HISTORY

1975

Sonny and Cher’s divorce becomes final

With a string of pop hits in the mid-1960s that began with the career-defining “I Got You Babe” (1965), Sonny and Cher Bono established themselves as the most prominent and appealing married couple in the world of popular music. Hipper than Steve Lawrence and Eydie Gormé, and far more fun than John and Yoko, Sonny and Cher projected an image of marital harmony that a lot of people could relate to—an image not so much of perfect bliss, but of a clearly imperfect yet happy mismatch. Mr. and Mrs. Bono traded on that image professionally for a solid decade, even several years past the point that it was true. After 13 years together as a couple and six years of marriage—the last three for the cameras—Sonny and Cher were legally divorced on June 26, 1975.

NATURAL DISASTERS & ENVIRONMENT

1807

Lightning strikes gunpowder factory in Luxembourg, killing hundreds

On June 26, 1807, lightning hits a gunpowder factory in the small European country of Luxembourg, killing more than 300 people. Lightning kills approximately 73 people every year in the United States alone, but victims are almost always killed one at a time. 

CRIME

1957

A serial killer preys upon a woman out for a drive

Margaret Harold is shot and killed while out for a drive with her boyfriend near Annapolis, Maryland. Her killer swerved in front of the couple’s car, approached with a .38 revolver, and shot Harold in the side of the face, while her boyfriend managed to escape. 

THIS DAY IN HISTORY

1948

Berlin Airlift begins

In response to the Soviet blockade of land routes into West Berlin, the United States begins a massive airlift of food, water, and medicine to the citizens of the besieged city. For nearly a year, supplies from American planes sustained the over 2 million people in West Berlin.

INVENTIONS & SCIENCE

1956

Congress approves Federal Highway Act

On June 26, 1956, the U.S. Congress approves the Federal Highway Act, which allocates more than $30 billion for the construction of some 41,000 miles of interstate highways; it will be the largest public construction project in U.S. history to that date.