Today In History
In 1888: The poem “Casey at the Bat,” by Ernest Lawrence Thayer, was first published, in the San Francisco Daily Examiner.
In 1937: The Duke of Windsor married Wallis Warfield Simpson in Monts, France.
In 1942: The U.S. fleet turned back a Japanese attempt to take Midway Island. It marked a turning point in the Pacific war.
In 1963: Pope John XXIII died at the age of 81, ending a papacy marked by innovative reforms in the Roman Catholic Church. He was succeeded by Pope Paul VI.
In 1983: Gordon Kahl, a militant tax protester wanted in the slayings of two U.S. marshals in North Dakota, died in a gun fight with law officers near Smithville, Ark.