Happy Juneteenth!
Started by WxFollower - June 19, 2025, 2:13 a.m.
On June 20, 1967, boxer Muhammad Ali was convicted in Houston of violating Selective Service laws by refusing to be drafted and was sentenced to five years in prison. (Ali’s conviction would ultimately be overturned by the U.S. Supreme Court).
In 1782, the Continental Congress approved the Great Seal of the United States, featuring the emblem of the bald eagle.
In 1837, Queen Victoria acceded to the British throne following the death of her uncle, King William IV.
In 1893, a jury in New Bedford, Massachusetts, found Lizzie Borden not guilty of the ax murders of her father and stepmother.
In 1943, race-related rioting erupted in Detroit; federal troops were sent in by President Franklin D. Roosevelt to quell the violence that resulted in more than 30 deaths.
In 1947, gangster Benjamin “Bugsy” Siegel was shot dead at the Beverly Hills, California, home of his girlfriend, Virginia Hill, likely at the order of mob associates.
In 1972, three days after the arrest of the Watergate burglars, President Richard Nixon met at the White House with his chief of staff, H.R. Haldeman; the secretly made tape recording of this meeting ended up with a notorious 18 1/2-minute gap.
In 2002, in the case Atkins v. Virginia, the Supreme Court ruled in a 6-3 decision that executing people with intellectual disabilities qualified as cruel and unusual punishment and was therefore in violation of the Eight Amendment.
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https://www.history.com/this-day-in-history/april-28/muhammad-ali-refuses-army-induction
On April 28, 1967, boxing champion Muhammad Alirefuses to be inducted into the U.S. Army and is immediately stripped of his heavyweight title. Ali, a Muslim, cited religious reasons for his decision to forgo military service.
On June 20, 1967, Ali was convicted of draft evasion, sentenced to five years in prison, fined $10,000 and banned from boxing for three years. He stayed out of prison as his case was appealed and returned to the ring on October 26, 1970, knocking out Jerry Quarry in Atlanta in the third round. On March 8, 1971, Ali fought Joe Frazier in the “Fight of the Century” and lost after 15 rounds, the first loss of his professional boxing career. On June 28 of that same year, the U.S. Supreme Court overturned his conviction for evading the draft.
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https://www.bbc.com/sport/boxing/16146367
"Why should they ask me to put on a uniform and go 10,000 miles from home and drop bombs and bullets on brown people in Vietnam while so-called Negro people in Louisville are treated like dogs and denied simple human rights?"
"Man, I ain't got no quarrel with them Viet Cong. No Viet Cong ever called me nigger."
"I'm not going 10,000 miles from home to help murder and burn another poor nation simply to continue the domination of white slave masters of the darker people the world over."