O.J. Simpson Slow Speed Chase

June 17, 1994

Football Hall of Fame running back O.J. Simpson is arrested for the murders of his ex-wife and her friend Ronald Goldman. Blood stains had been found in his home and in his car. Simpson had promised to turn himself in, but instead led police on a "slow-speed chase" across California. More than 90 million people watched live as Simpson in a white Bronco driven by friend Al Cowlings and followed by police cars and helicopters slowly made its way to Simpson's home where he surrendered.
Simpson was later found not guilty of the crime in what would be called "The Trial of the Century."

Bible Reading Banned in Public Schools

June 17, 1963

The U.S. Supreme Court rules that school-sponsored Bible reading in public schools is unconstitutional (Abington School District v. Schempp). School prayer had been banned the previous year. One of the plaintiffs, William J. Murray, claimed his refusal to participate in Bible readings at public school resulted in bullying that was condoned by school administrators.
In an ironic twist, seventeen years later in 1980 Murray converted to Christianity and eventually became a Baptist minister. His mother, Madalyn Murray O'Hair, went on to found the organization American Atheists. She was murdered by a former employee of American Atheists.

First Human Kidney Transplant

June 17, 1950

American physician Dr. Richard H. Lawler implants a kidney from a deceased woman into a patient whose diseased left kidney had been removed due to polycystic kidney disease. This was the first time a vital human organ had ever been transplanted from one person to another. The transplanted kidney only functioned for a few months after which surgeons re-opened her surgical incision to discover her body's immune system had rejected the transplanted kidney. The 44-year-old female patient lived five more years before dying of heart disease.
Lawler was denounced at the time by both the medical and religious community. The religious community in particular denounced the idea that you could take tissue from a dead person and put it someone who was alive, and it would come back to life.
Lawler was eventually recognized for pioneering organ transplant surgery.

Ballpoint Pen

June 17, 1943

The first commercially successful ball-point pen is patented, by László Biró. While working as Hungarian newspaper editor, he noticed that printer's ink dried quickly leaving the paper dry and smudge free and would make a good ink for writing pens, which often left wet smudges on the paper. However, the ink was too thick for use in a typical fountain pen. So, he developed a ball tip that was free to turn in a socket, and would pick up ink from a cartridge as it turned and then deposit the ink on the paper. He originally patented his pen in Paris in 1938, but had to flee to Argentina due to the Nazis. See U.S. Patent 2390636A.
The first patent for a ballpoint pen was issued in 1888, but it and others that followed tended to clog, overflow, and not deliver the ink evenly and were not commercially successful.

Houdini vs. Sherlock Holmes

June 17, 1922

Sir Arthur Conan Doyle's wife performs a séance for Harry Houdini in which Houdini's deceased mother sends him a message. Houdini felt that the message couldn't have been from his mother since it was in English (a language she barely spoke and never used with her son). Doyle (creator of Sherlock Holmes) was a believer in mysticism, fairies, and psychic powers. Houdini famously made it a life mission to debunk such beliefs. Doyle and Houdini had been close friends for years. This event created a rift between the two that even included threats of lawsuits as Houdini went on to debunk Doyle's favorite mediums.

Statue of Liberty

June 17, 1885

The unassembled 151-foot-high gift from the French people arrives in New York. The French donated the Statue of Liberty, but the U.S. was responsible for building its pedestal. In 1884, the governor of New York Grover Cleveland vetoed a bill to provide $50,000 for the project. An attempt the following year to have Congress provide the $100,000 necessary to complete the project also failed. The New York committee, with only $3,000 in the bank, was unable to build the pedestal. With the project in jeopardy, other American cities offered to pay the full cost of erecting the statue in return for relocating it to their city. However, publisher Joseph Pulitzer of the New York World, started a donation drive that drew more than 120,000 contributors, most of whom gave less than a dollar, raising $102,000. With those funds, construction of the pedestal began.
Ironically, Grover Cleveland who vetoed the funding for the pedestal while governor of New York, later became U.S. President and presided over its dedication in 1886, which included New York's first ticker-tape parade.
The pedestal would be inscribed with the poem, by Emma Lazarus, containing the famous lines,
"Give me your tired, your poor,
Your huddled masses yearning to breathe free."

Tallest Married Couple

June 17, 1871

Anna Swan at 7 feet 11 inches (2.42 m) tall marries Martin Van Buren Bates at 7 feet 7.5 inches (2.324 m).

Don't fire until you see the whites of their eyes!

June 17, 1775

During the American Revolution Battle of Bunker Hill (Breed's Hill), colonial leaders declare, "Don't fire until you see the whites of their eyes." Although they suffered many more casualties, the British won the battle.

Igor Fedorovich Stravinsky

Born June 17, 1882 d. 1971

Russian composer. Music: The Firebird, The Rite of Spring, and Petrushka.

Inventor of Wheaties

George Cormack

Born June 17, 1870 d. 1953

American inventor of Wheaties cereal (1921). Originally called "Washburn's Gold Medal Whole Wheat Flakes," the name "Wheaties" was chosen by a company-wide naming contest. They were invented after a clinician working for the Washburn Crosby Company (later General Mills) accidentally spilled wheat gruel onto a hot stove, transforming it into wheat flakes. Cormack, the head miller, developed the process to make the flakes strong enough to withstand packaging.
Future U.S. President Ronald Reagan was doing play-by-play recreations of Chicago Cubs baseball games and in 1937 was selected as the most popular Wheaties announcer in the nation. He was awarded a trip to California, where he took a screen test and began his movie career.