TIM MAGUIRE
On June 25, 1950, armed forces from communist North Korea
smashed into South Korea, setting off the Korean War.
The United States, acting under the auspices of the United
Nations, quickly sprang to the defense of South Korea and
fought a bloody and frustrating war for the next three years.
The Korean War was the first “hot” war of the Cold War. Over
55,000 American troops were killed in the conflict.
On June 24, 1997, U.S. Air Force officials released a 231-page
report dismissing long-standing claims of an alien spacecraft
crash in Roswell, New Mexico, almost exactly 50 years earlier.
Public interest in Unidentified Flying Objects, or UFOs, began
to flourish in the 1940s, when developments in space travel
and the dawn of the atomic age caused many Americans to
turn their attention to the skies.
The town of Roswell, located near the Pecos River in S.E.
New Mexico, became a magnet for UFO believers due to the
strange events of early July 1947, when ranch foreman W.W.
Brazel found a strange, shiny material scattered over some
of his land.
He turned the material over to the sheriff, who passed it on to
authorities at the nearby Air Force base. On July 8, Air Force
officials announced they had recovered the wreckage of a
“flying disk.” A local newspaper put the story on its front
page, launching Roswell into the spotlight of the public’s
UFO fascination.
MIKE CRACIA
Christopher Latham Sholes patented the QWERTY typewriter, revolutionizing communication. His first version was cobbled
together using an old table, a circular piece of glass, a telegraph
key and piano wire.
Christopher Latham Sholes (1819 – 1890)
On June 23, 1989, Tim Burton’s noir spin on the well-known
story of the DC Comics hero Batman was released in theaters.
Michael Keaton starred in the film as the multimillionaire Bruce
Wayne, who has transformed himself into the crime-fighting
Batman.
Warner Brothers hyped Batman as a major summer “event”
long before its release. The results were stunning, as the film
grossed some $100 million in its first ten days of release,
including $82.8 million at the domestic box office alone.
Reviews for the film were mixed, though most critics praised
Nicholson’s scene-stealing performance as the Joker.
Tim Burton will be 67 on August 25th.
On June 22, 1944, U.S. President Franklin D. Roosevelt signed
the G.I. Bill, an unprecedented act of legislation designed to
compensate returning members of the armed services—known
as G.I.s—for their efforts in World War II.
As the last of its sweeping New Deal reforms, Roosevelt’s
administration created the G.I. Bill (officially the Servicemen’s Readjustment Act of 1944) hoping to avoid a relapse into the
Great Depression after the war ended.
Over 50 years, the impact of the G.I. Bill was enormous, with
20 million veterans and dependents using the education
benefits and 14 million home loans guaranteed, for a total
federal investment of $67 billion.
