Today is Sunday, June 15, the 167th day of 2008. There are 199 days left in the year.
Highlights in history on this date:
1167 - The city of Copenhagen's official birthday. A document from this day mentions the city for the first time.
1215 - King John of England grants some civil liberties when he signs the Magna Carta under pressure from nobles.
1520 - Pope Leo excommunicates Martin Luther by the Bull Exsurge.
1567 - The troops of Mary, Queen of Scots, refuse to fight rebels at Carberry Hill, and she surrenders on the condition that her husband is allowed to escape.
1672 - Dutch flood parts of Holland to save Amsterdam from the French.
1752 - Benjamin Franklin demonstrates that lightning is an electrical discharge when he launches a kite during a storm at Philadelphia, Pennsylvania.
1862 - Turkish forces bombard Belgrade after Serb uprising there.
1904 - More than 1,000 people die in fire aboard steamboat General Slocum off New York City.
1919 - British pilots John William Alcock and Arthur Whitten Brown complete the first non-stop flight across the Atlantic, flying from Newfoundland, to Ireland.
1940 - Germans outflank Maginot Line in France during World War II.
1944 - U.S. forces begin invasion of Japanese-held Saipan Island in the Marianas in Pacific. It becomes a base for bombing raids against Japan.
1970 - Martial law is declared in Turkey when serious rioting breaks out.
1991 - Kuwait's martial law court sentences six newspaper workers to death for working on an Iraqi publication during the occupation of Kuwait.
1992 - Japan's Parliament approves the use of troops overseas for the first time since World War II, enabling Japan to join international peacekeeping operations.
1993 - Bosnian city of Gorazde is hit with heavy Serb shelling for the 19th day in a row and the U.N. aid airlift is suspended.
1995 - The U.N. Security Council votes to enlarge its force in Bosnia to include up to 12,500 heavily armed troops.
1996 - A bomb explodes in a van near a shopping center in Manchester, England, injuring more than 200 people. Local police and British and Irish leaders believe it was the IRA.
1997 - In Cartagena, Colombian rebels release 70 soldiers captive for nearly a year. In return, the government evacuates its military from a swath of land.
1998 - Nigeria's new military leadership releases nine of the country's most prominent political prisoners, including Gen. Olusegun Obasanjo, who becomes president less than a year later.
1999 - After a final spree of burning, shooting and alleged rapes, Yugoslav forces withdraw from Kosovo's border region with Albania.
2000 - Roman Catholic bishop Augustin Misago, accused of helping orchestrate the 1994 slaughter of more than a half-million Rwandans, is cleared of genocide charges and set free.
2001 - Germany's fund to compensate Nazi-era slave laborers announces plans to compensate elderly survivors. Up to 1.5 million surviving slave and forced laborers _ most in central and eastern Europe _ are expected to be eligible for payments.
2003 - Five suspected al-Qaida militants and two policemen are killed during overnight gunbattles in Mecca, Saudi Arabia. The militants shot their way through a checkpoint killing two policemen and then fled to a nearby apartment building, which was booby trapped. The ensuing gun battles killed the five men and injured at least 5 bystanders.
2004 - Iraq's neighbors endorse the US-backed administration and the transfer of power, giving a boost to Iraq's quest for international legitimacy.
2005 - Spanish police arrest 16 Islamic terror suspects in raids in several cities, including 11 suspected members of a group thought to have ties to Abu-Musab al-Zarqawi's al-Qaida in Iraq.
2006 - Cleanup crews in northern China scramble to absorb 60 tons of toxic coal tar accidentally dumped into the Dasha river before it reaches a reservoir serving 10 million people.
2007 - Ethiopia accepts a U.N. commission's ruling to turn over a disputed town to Eritrea after years of conflict and a tense border dispute. Today's Birthdays:
Issa, Japanese poet (1763-1828); Thomas Mitchell, British explorer of Australia, (1792-1855); Edvard Grieg, Norwegian composer (1843-1907); Jim Belushi, U.S. actor (1954--); Julie Hagerty, U.S. actress (1955--); Helen Hunt, U.S. actress (1963--); Courteney Cox-Arquette, U.S. actress (1964--); Ice Cube, U.S. rapper/actor (1969--); Johnny Hallyday, French rock singer/actor (1949--); Neil Patrick Harris, U.S. actor (1973--).
Thought For Today:
War is a contagion _ Franklin D. Roosevelt, U.S. president (1882-1945).
