Category: Today

1,701 years ago, Constantine the Great and co-emperor Valerius Licinius signed the Edict of Milan, proclaiming religious tolerance throughout the Roman Empire.

Also on this date, in 1525, Martin Luther, a priest, married Katharina von Bora, a nun, against the celibacy rule decreed by the Roman Catholic Church.

In 1774, Rhode Island became the first British colony in the Americas to prohibit the importation of slaves.

Grover Cleveland had a large portion of his jaw removed, for cancer, during a surgery on a boat in international waters, in 1893. The operation was not officially revealed to the U.S. public until nine years after the president’s death.

In 1776, on June 12, the Fifth Virginia Convention at Williamsburg, Virginia, unanimously adopted a Declaration of Rights, several weeks prior to the adoption of the state’s constitution. George Mason, who drafted the document, stated clearly in the preamble that rights must be “the basis and foundation of Government.”

The first four planks run as follows:

I. That all men are by nature equally free and independent, and have certain inherent rights, of which, when they enter into a state of society, they cannot, by any compact, deprive or divest their posterity; namely, the enjoyment of life and liberty, with the means of acquiring and possessing property, and pursuing and obtaining happiness and safety.

II. That all power is vested in, and consequently derived from, the people; that magistrates are their trustees and servants, and at all times amenable to them.

III. That government is, or ought to be, instituted for the common benefit, protection, and security of the people, nation or community; of all the various modes and forms of government that is best, which is capable of producing the greatest degree of happiness and safety and is most effectually secured against the danger of maladministration; and that, whenever any government shall be found inadequate or contrary to these purposes, a majority of the community hath an indubitable, unalienable, and indefeasible right to reform, alter or abolish it, in such manner as shall be judged most conducive to the public weal.

IV. That no man, or set of men, are entitled to exclusive or separate emoluments or privileges from the community, but in consideration of public services; which, not being descendible, neither ought the offices of magistrate, legislator, or judge be hereditary.

On June 11, 1776, the Continental Congress appointed John Adams, Benjamin Franklin, Thomas Jefferson, Robert R. Livingston, and Roger Sherman to draft a declaration of independence from Great Britain.

In 1963, Thich Quang Duc, a Buddhist monk, doused himself with gasoline and set himself aflame in a busy Saigon intersection as a protest against South Vietnam’s lack of religious freedom.

In 2001, convicted mass murderer Timothy McVeigh died by lethal injection.

Apple shipped the first Apple II computer on June 10, 1977.

Born on this day: historian, jazz critic and civil libertarian Nat Hentoff (1925); children’s writer Maurice Sendak (1929); scientist and pioneer of “sociobiology” E. O. Wilson (1929).

June 10 deaths include military leader Alexander the Great (323 BC), playwright and poet Angelina Weld Grimké (1958); and novelist Louis L’Amour (1988).

On May 30, 1989, student demonstrators unveil a 33-foot high “Goddess of Democracy and Freedom” statue in Tiananmen Square.

Also on this day: Joan of Arc was executed — for heresy, and after much debate about her cross-dressing — by immolation in 1431; Christopher “Kit” Marlowe, poet and playwright, died under mysterious circumstances in 1593; Voltaire died in 1778, and his friends secretly buried him — against Catholic Church policy — in the abbey of Scellières in Champagne (his body was later disinterred and buried in Paris by the order of the National Assembly of France).

On May 27, 1863, Chief Justice Roger B. Taney of Maryland issued Ex parte Merryman, challenging the authority of President Abraham Lincoln to suspend the writ of habeas corpus in Maryland, the legal procedure that prevents the government from holding an individual indefinitely without showing cause. On May 25, John Merryman, a vocal secessionist, had been arrested in Cockeysville. Although military officials continued to arrest suspected Southern sympathizers, the incident led to a softening of the policy.

On May 25, 1810, citizens of Buenos Aires expelled Viceroy Baltasar Hidalgo de Cisneros starting the Argentine War of Independence.

On May 25, 1925, John T. Scopes was indicted for violating Tennessee’s Butler Act, which made it unlawful to teach evolution in any state-funded school. The Scopes Trial — formally known as The State of Tennessee v. John Thomas Scopes and informally known as the Scopes Monkey Trial — drew intense national publicity, as reporters flocked to Dayton, Tennessee, to cover the big-name lawyers representing each side. William Jennings Bryan, three-time presidential candidate for the Democrats, argued for the prosecution, while Clarence Darrow, the famed defense attorney, spoke for Scopes. Scopes was found guilty, but the verdict was overturned on a technicality and he went free.

On May 24, 1775, John Hancock was elected president of the Second Continental Congress. Hancock’s involvement with Samuel Adams and his radical group, the Sons of Liberty, won the wealthy merchant the dubious distinction of being one of only two Patriots (the other being Sam Adams) that the Redcoats marching to Lexington in April 1775 to confiscate Patriot arms were ordered to arrest. When British General Thomas Gage offered amnesty to the colonists holding Boston under siege, he excluded those same two men from his offer.

On May 23, 1788, South Carolina became the 8th state to ratify the U.S. Constitution.

Other May 23 events include:

* 1813: South American independence leader Simón Bolívar entered Mérida, where he was proclaimed El Libertador (“The Liberator”), leading the invasion of Venezuela.

* 1900: Sergeant William Harvey Carney became the first African American to be awarded the Medal of Honor, for his heroism in a Civil War battle fought 37 years prior, in 1863.

* 1958: Birthday of American comedian and game show host Drew Carey.

French economist and Nobel Peace Prize laureate Frédéric Passy was born on May 20, 1822. English economist and philosopher John Stuart Mill was born exactly 16 years earlier.

On May 20, 2002, Portugal recognized the independence of East Timor, formally ending 23 years of Indonesian rule and three years of provisional UN administration. Portugal was the former colonizer of East Timor until 1976.