Editorials

On this date: 

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

In 1932, heavyweight Max Schmeling lost a title fight by decision to Jack Sharkey, prompting Schmeling’s manager, Joe Jacobs, to exclaim: “We was robbed!” 

In 1945, during World War II, American soldiers on Okinawa found the body of the Japanese commander, Lt. Gen. Mitsuru Ushijima, who had committed suicide. 

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

In 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. 

In 1973, the Supreme Court ruled that states may ban materials found to be obscene according to local standards. 

In 1977, Menachem Begin became Israel’s sixth prime minister. 

In 1982, a jury in Washington D.C. found John Hinckley Jr. innocent by reason of insanity in the shootings of President Reagan and three other men. 

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

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

Ten years ago: Russian President Boris Yeltsin returned home from his North America tour. Democrat Bill Clinton unveiled an economic blueprint calling for substantially higher taxes on the rich. 

Five 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. 

One year ago: A federal grand jury in Alexandria, Va., indicted 13 Saudis and a Lebanese in the 1996 bombing of the Khobar Towers in Saudi Arabia that killed 19 American servicemen. The first total solar eclipse of the new millennium swept across southern Africa. Death claimed actor Carroll O’Connor at 76 and blues musician John Lee Hooker at 80. 

Today’s Birthdays: Cartoonist Al Hirschfeld is 99. Actress Jane Russell is 81. Actress Maureen Stapleton is 77. Actor Bernie Kopell is 69. Actor Monte Markham is 67. Actor Ron Ely is 64. Actress Mariette Hartley is 62. Comedian Joe Flaherty is 61. Rock singer-musician Ray Davies (The Kinks) is 58. Singer Brenda Holloway is 56. Actress Meredith Baxjter is 55. Actor Michael Gross is 55. Rock musician Joe Molland (Badfinger) is 55. Country singer Leon Everette is 54. Rock musician Joey Kramer (Aerosmith) is 52. Rock musician Nils Lofgren is 51. Actress Robyn Douglass is 49. Actor Robert Pastorelli is 48. Actor Leigh McCloskey is 47. Cartoonist Berke Breathed is 45. Country singer Kathy Mattea is 43. Actor Marc Copage is 40. Actress Sammi Davis-Voss is 38. Actor Doug Savant is 38. Country musician Porter Howell is 38. Actor Michael Dolan is 37. Country singer Allison Moorer is 30. Actress Juliette Lewis is 29. Musician Justin Cary (Sixpence None the Richer) is 27. Rock musician Mike Einziger (Incubus) is 26. Britain’s Prince William of Wales is 20.