First Confidential

THIS DAY IN HISTORY - JUNE 26th

This Day in History

June 26th, 221

Roman Empire Decline and Fall of Rome Roman Emperor Elagabalus adopts his cousin Alexander Severus as his heir and receives the title of Caesar

Roman Empire:
221 - Roman Emperor Elagabalus adopts his cousin Alexander Severus as his heir and receives the title of Caesar.
363 - Roman Emperor Julian is killed during the retreat from the Sassanid Empire. General Jovian is proclaimed Emperor by the troops on the battlefield.

Wikipedia  Image: ● Relief from a 3rd-century sarcophagus depicting a battle between Romans and Germanic warriors; the central figure is perhaps the emperor Hostilian / Depiction of the Menorah on the Arch of Titus in Rome.
● Santa Maria in Trastevere - Roma. Its foundations were laid in approximately AD 400.

June 26th, 1917

World War I: Collage World War I: U.S. Troops

World War I, Western Front:
1917 - The first U.S. troops arrive in France to fight alongside Britain and France against Germany.
1918 - Battle of Belleau Wood - Allied Forces under John J. Pershing and James Harbord defeat Imperial German Forces under Wilhelm, German Crown Prince.

Wikipedia  Photo: Trenches on the Western Front; a British Mark IV Tank crossing a trench; Royal Navy battleship HMS Irresistible sinking after striking a mine at the Battle of the Dardanelles; a Vickers machine gun crew with gas masks, and German Albatros D.III biplanes. National Archives and Records Administration. ● U.S. World War I soldiers with cats and guns ● World War I: U.S. troops, Fine Art Print - Granger.

June 26th, 1927

LaMarcus Adna Thompson patented the first roller coasters on January 20, 1885, which were made out of wood (In essence a specialized railroad system, a roller coaster consists of a track that rises in designed patterns, sometimes with one or more inversions (such as vertical loops) that turn the rider briefly upside down)

The Cyclone roller coaster opens on Coney Island.

Wikipedia  Photo: LaMarcus Adna Thompson patented the first roller coaster on January 20, 1885, which were made out of wood. (In essence a specialized railroad system, a roller coaster consists of a track that rises in designed patterns, sometimes with one or more inversions (such as vertical loops) that turn the rider briefly upside down).

June 26th, 1934

Great Depression: After a steady decline in stock market prices since a peak in September, the New York Stock Exchange begins to show signs of panic

Great Depression:
1934 - President Franklin D. Roosevelt signs the Federal Credit Union Act, which establishes credit unions.

Wikipedia  Photo: Dorothea Lange's Migrant Mother depicts destitute pea pickers in California, centering on Florence Owens Thompson, age 32, a mother of seven children, in Nipomo, California, March 1936; Bud Fields and his family. Alabama. 1935 or 1936. Photographer: Walker Evans; Unemployed men vying for jobs at the American Legion Employment Bureau in Los Angeles during the Great Depression.

June 26th, 1936

World War II: Second firestorm raid on Germany, the Royal Air Force conducts an air raid on the town of Kassel, killing 10,000 and rendering 150,000 homeless World War II: Battle of Leyte Gulf; Battle of Leyte Gulf; The first kamikaze attack: A Japanese plane carrying a 200-kilogram (440 lb) bomb attacks HMAS Australia off Leyte Island World War II: German V1 flying-bomb and V2 Rockets - Preparations for a Salvo Launch of V-2 Rockets in the Heidelager near Blizna (Poland) (1944) World War II: Eastern Front (World War II); was a theatre of World War II between the European Axis powers and co-belligerent Finland against the Soviet Union, Poland, and some other Allies which encompassed Northern, Southern and Eastern Europe from 22 June 1941 to 9 May 1945

World War II:
1936 - Initial flight of the Focke-Wulf Fw 61, the first practical helicopter. 1940 - Under the Molotov-Ribbentrop Pact, the Soviet Union presents an ultimatum to Romania requiring it to cede Bessarabia and the northern part of Bukovina.
1941 - Soviet planes bomb Kassa, Hungary (now Košice Slovakia), giving Hungary the impetus to declare war the next day.
1942 - The first flight of the Grumman F6F Hellcat.
1945 - The United Nations Charter is signed in San Francisco.

Wikipedia  Photo: Bombing of Dresden in World War II; August Schreitmüller's sculpture 'Goodness' surveys Dresden after a firestorm started by Allied bombers in 1945. USS Bunker Hill was hit by kamikazes piloted by Ensign Kiyoshi Ogawa and another airman on 11 May 1945. 389 personnel were killed or missing from a crew of 2,600; Ensign Kiyoshi Ogawa, who flew his aircraft into the USS Bunker Hill during a Kamikaze mission on 11 May 1945; Kamikaze Missions - Lt Yoshinori Yamaguchi's Yokosuka D4Y3 (Type 33 Suisei) "Judy" in a suicide dive against USS Essex. The dive brakes are extended and the non-self-sealing port wing tank is trailing fuel vapor and/or smoke November 25th, 1944. German V1 flying-bomb and V2 Rockets - Preparations for a Salvo Launch of V-2 Rockets in the Heidelager near Blizna (Poland) (1944), credit German History in Documents and Images GHDI.

Eastern Front (World War II); Germans race towards Stalingrad. August 1942; Soviet children during a German air raid in the first days of the war, June 1941, by RIA Novosti archive; Soviet sniper Roza Shanina in 1944. About 400,000 Soviet women served in front-line duty units Caucasus Mountains, winter 1942/43; Finnish ski patrol: the invisible enemy of the Soviet Army with an unlimited supply of skis; Men of the German Engineers Corps cross a river which is swollen after the first autumn rains, to strengthen bridges linking the German positions on the central front in Russia. by Keystone / Getty Images. October 1942; Russian snipers fighting on the Leningrad front during a blizzard. Photo by Hulton Archive / Getty Images, 1943; German soldiers surrendering to the Russians in Stalingrad, the soldier holding the white flag of surrender is dressed in white so that there could be no doubt of his intentions, a Russian soldier is on the right of the photograph. by Keystone / Getty Images, January 1943.

June 26th, 1959

The Saint Lawrence Seaway opens, opening North America's Great Lakes to ocean-going ships

The Saint Lawrence Seaway opens, opening North America's Great Lakes to ocean-going ships.

Wikipedia  Photo: Commodity-carrying laker in the St. Lawrence Seaway at Montreal, Canada. © Winston Fraser/Comstock ● Saint Lawrence Seaway, credit U.S. DOT ● Saint Lawrence River, north shore at Saint Siméon, by Bill Brooks, Masterfile) ● Satellite photo shows the strategic point in the Saint Lawence River "where the river narrows" (the meaning of the word Québec), credit Canada Centre.

June 26th, 2015

United States Supreme Court declares Alabama laws requiring segregated buses illegal, thus ending the Montgomery Bus Boycott

2015 - In Obergefell v. Hodges, the Supreme Court of the United States ruled, 5–4, that same-sex couples have a constitutional right to marriage under the Fourteenth Amendment to the United States Constitution.
2013 - In United States v. Windsor, the Supreme Court of the United States rules that Section 3 of the Defense of Marriage Act is unconstitutional and in violation of the Fifth Amendment to the United States Constitution.
2003 - In Lawrence v. Texas, the Supreme Court of the United States rules that gender-based sodomy laws are unconstitutional.
1997 - The Supreme Court of the United States rules that the Communications Decency Act violates the First Amendment to the United States Constitution.

Wikipedia  Photo: United States Supreme Court building; Guardian of Law, by James Earle Fraser, US Supreme Court, Washington, DC, USA.

June 26th, 2015

List of modern conflicts in the Middle East

Modern conflicts in the Middle East, social unrest and terrorist attacks:
2015 - Islamist attacks (Bloody Friday): Five different terrorist attacks in France, Tunisia, Somalia, Kuwait, and Syria occurred on what was dubbed Bloody Friday by international media. Upwards of 750 people were either killed or injured in these uncoordinated attacks.

Wikipedia  Photo: Middle East satellite image, NASA. ● Camels are seen early morning on a beach in the Marina area of Dubai October 16, 2008. (Steve Crisp, Reuters) ● A portrait of Syrian President Bashar al-Assad burns during clashes between rebels and Syrian troops in Selehattin, near Aleppo, on July 23, 2012. (Bulent Kilic, AFP / GettyImages) ● Egyptians gather in their thousands in Tahrir Square to mark the one year anniversary of the revolution on Jan. 25, 2012 in Cairo Egypt. Tens of thousands have gathered in the square on the first anniversary of the Arab uprising which toppled President Hosni Mubarak. (Jeff J Mitchell, Getty Images) ● Black smoke rises above the Tehran skyline as supporters of Mir Hossein Mousavi burn tires and other material in the streets as they fight running battles with police to protest the declared results of the Iranian presidential election in Tehran, Iran, Saturday, June 13, 2009. (Ben Curtis, AP) ● The Iron Dome defense system fires to interecpt incoming missiles from Gaza in the port town of Ashdod, Thursday, Nov. 15, 2012. (Tsafrir Abayov, AP)