Today is Thursday, June 21, the 172nd day of 2007. There are 193 days left in the year. Summer begins at 2:06 p.m. EDT.

Today's Highlight in History:

On June 21, 1788, the United States Constitution went into effect as New Hampshire became the ninth state to ratify it.

On this date:

217 BC Carthaginian forces led by Hannibal destroy a Roman army under consul Gaius Flaminicy in a battle at Lake Trasimenus in central Italy.

1314 The Scots, under Robert the Bruce, defeat Edward II's army at Bannockburn.

1377 Richard II, who is still a child, succeeds his grandfather, Edward III.

1667 The Peace of Breda ends the Second Anglo-Dutch War as the Dutch cede New Amsterdam to the English.

1675 Christopher Wren begins work on rebuilding St. Paul's Cathedral in London after the Great Fire.

1791 The French royal family is arrested in Varennes.

1834, Cyrus Hall McCormick received a patent for his reaping machine.

1862 Union and Confederate forces skirmish at the Chickahominy Creek.

1863 In the second day of fighting, Confederate troops fails to dislodge a Union force at the Battle of LaFourche Crossing.

1887 Britain celebrates the golden jubilee of Queen Victoria.

1900 General Arthur MacArthur offers amnesty to Filipinos rebelling against American rule.

1907, 100 years ago, American newspaper publisher E.W. Scripps founded the United Press Associations, a forerunner of United Press International.

1908 Mulai Hafid again proclaims himself the true sultan of Morocco.

1911 Porforio Diaz, the ex-president of Mexico, exiles himself to Paris.

1913 Georgia Broadwick became the first woman to jump from an airplane.

1915 Germany uses poison gas for the first time in warfare in the Argonne Forest.

1919 Germans scuttle their own fleet at Scapa Flow, Scotland.

1932, heavyweight Max Schmeling lost a title fight rematch in New York by decision to Jack Sharkey, prompting Schmeling's manager, Joe Jacobs, to exclaim: "We was robbed!"

1938 In Washington, U.S. President Roosevelt signed the $3.75 billion Emergency Relief Appropriation Act.

1939 Baseball legend Lou Gehrig is forced to quit baseball because of amyotrophic lateral sclerosis--a disease which wastes muscles.

1940 Richard M. Nixon and Thelma Catherine ‘Pat’ Ryan were married.

1942 Ben Hogan recorded the (then) lowest score in a major golf tournament. Hogan shot a 271 for 72 holes in Chicago, IL.

1942 German General Erwin Rommel captures the port city of Tobruk in North Africa.

1945 Japanese forces on Okinawa surrender to American troops.

1945 Pan Am announced an 88-hour round-the-world flight at a cost of $700.

1948, the Republican national convention opened in Philadelphia. (The delegates ended up choosing Thomas E. Dewey to be their presidential nominee.)

1948 Dr. Peter Goldmark demonstrates his "long-playing" record.

1954 The Cancer Society announced that smokers over 50 years old had a 75% higher death rate than non-smokers.

1954 NBC radio presented the final broadcast of "The Railroad Hour."

1958 A federal judge allows Little Rock, Arkansas to delay school integration.

1963 France announces it will withdraw from the NATO fleet in the North Atlantic.

1963, Cardinal Giovanni Battista Montini was chosen to succeed the late Pope John XXIII; the new pope took the name Paul VI.

1963 In St. Louis, Bob Hayes set a record when he ran the 100-yard dash in 0:09.1.

1964, civil rights workers Michael H. Schwerner, Andrew Goodman and James E. Chaney disappeared in Philadelphia, Miss.; their bodies were found buried in an earthen dam six weeks later.

1973, the Supreme Court, in Miller v. California, ruled that states may ban materials found to be obscene according to local standards.

1982, a jury in Washington, D.C., found John Hinckley Jr. not guilty by reason of insanity in the shootings of President Reagan and three other men.

1985, scientists announced that skeletal remains exhumed in Brazil were those of Nazi war criminal Josef Mengele.

1985 Cocoon opens

1989 The U.S. Supreme Court ruled that burning the American flag as a form of political protest was protected by the First Amendment.

1993 In Madrid, five senior military officers and two civilians were killed by a car bomb. 24 people were injured. The Basque terror group claimed responsibility.

1995 The U.S. Senate votes against the nomination of Dr. Henry W. Foster for Surgeon General.

2001 Former Haitian Army colonel Carl Dorelien was taken into custody in Port St. Lucie. Dorelien had been in exile since 1994 when he was sentenced to life in prison for his role in a 1994 massacre.

2003 The fifth Harry Potter book, "Harry Potter and the Order of the Phoenix," was published by J.K. Rowling. Amazon.com shipped out more than one million copies on this day making the day the largest distribution day of a single item in e-commerce history. The book set sales records around the world with an estimated 5 million copies were sold on the first day.

2005, 41 years to the day after three civil rights workers were beaten and shot to death, Edgar Ray Killen, an 80-year-old former Ku Klux Klansman, was found guilty of manslaughter.



Ten years ago:
Summit leaders meeting in Denver wrestled with a list of global challenges. The WNBA made its debut as the New York Liberty defeated the Los Angeles Sparks 67-57.


Five years ago:
One of the worst wildfires in Arizona history grew to 128,000 acres, forcing thousands of homeowners near the community of Show Low to flee.

The United States team was eliminated in the quarterfinals of the World Cup in South Korea, losing 1-0 to Germany.


One year ago:
The Marine Corps announced that seven Marines and a sailor had been charged with murdering an Iraqi civilian in April. (The sailor and three Marines later pleaded guilty to lesser charges.)

President Bush, addressing the annual U.S.-European Union summit in Vienna, accused Iran of dragging its feet on a Western incentive package aimed at getting Tehran to suspend uranium enrichment activity.


Today's Birthdays:
1732 Martha Washington, First Lady
1764 Willaim Sydney Smith, British seaman during the Napoleonic Wars.
1859 Henry Ossawa Tanner, African-American painter.
1880 Arnold Lucius Gesell, psychologist and pediatrician.
1882 Rockwell Kent, artist, book illustrator.
1892 Reinhold Niebuhr, Protestant theologian.
1905 Jean-Paul Sartre, French philosopher and existentialist.
1911 Albert Hirschfield, illustrator.
1912 Mary McCarthy, American novelist (Memories of Catholic Girlhood, The Group).
1922 Judy Holliday, actress.
1927 Carl Stokes, the first black mayor of Cleveland, Ohio.
1928 Judith Raskin, soprano.

Actress Jane Russell is 86.
Actor Bernie Kopell is 74.
Actor Monte Markham is 72.
Songwriter Don Black is 69.
Actor Ron Ely is 69.
Actress Mariette Hartley is 67.
Comedian Joe Flaherty is 66.
Rock singer-musician Ray Davies (The Kinks) is 63.
Singer Brenda Holloway is 61.
Actress Meredith Baxter is 60.
Actor Michael Gross is 60.
Former pro football player Duane Thomas is 60.
Rock musician Joe Molland (Badfinger) is 60.
Rock musician Don Airey (Deep Purple) is 59.
Country singer Leon Everette is 59.
Rock musician Joey Kramer (Aerosmith) is 57.
Rock musician Nils Lofgren is 56.
Actress Robyn Douglass is 54.
Actor Leigh McCloskey is 52.
Cartoonist Berke Breathed is 50.
Country singer Kathy Mattea is 48.
Actor Marc Copage is 45.
Actress Sammi Davis is 43.
Actor Doug Savant is 43.
Country musician Porter Howell is 43.
Actor Michael Dolan is 42.
Writer-director Larry Wachowski ("The Matrix") is 42.
Country singer Allison Moorer is 35.
Actress Juliette Lewis is 34.
Musician Justin Cary is 32.
Rock musician Mike Einziger (Incubus) is 31.
Britain's Prince William of Wales is 25.
__________________

First day of Summer!