This Day in History: June 23

President Nixon and White House chief of staff H.R. Haldeman discuss using the CIA to obstruct the FBI's Watergate investigation - a pivotal moment that would eventually lead to Nixon's resignation

On this day, June 23 ...

1972: President Richard Nixon and White House chief of staff H.R. Haldeman discuss using the CIA to obstruct the FBI's Watergate investigation. (Revelation of the tape recording of this conversation would spark Nixon's resignation in 1974.)

Also on this day:

  • 1836: Congress approves the Deposit Act, which contains a provision for turning over surplus federal revenue to the states.
  • 1868: Christopher Latham Sholes receives a patent for his "Type-Writer," featuring a QWERTY keyboard; it is the first commercially successful typewriter.
  • 1938: The Civil Aeronautics Authority is established.
  • 1947: The Senate joins the House in overriding President Harry S. Truman’s veto of the Taft-Hartley Act, designed to limit the power of organized labor.
  • 1969: Warren E. Burger is sworn in as chief justice of the United States by the man he was succeeding, Earl Warren.
  • 1972: President Nixon signs Title IX barring discrimination on the basis of sex for "any education program or activity receiving federal financial assistance."
  • 1985: All 329 people aboard an Air India Boeing 747 are killed when the plane crashes into the Atlantic Ocean near Ireland because of a bomb authorities believe was planted by Sikh separatists.
  • 1988: James E. Hansen, a climatologist at the Goddard Institute for Space Studies, tells a Senate panel that global warming of the Earth caused by the "greenhouse effect" was a reality.
  • 1992: John Gotti, convicted of racketeering charges, is sentenced in New York to life in prison.
  • 1995: Dr. Jonas Salk, the medical pioneer who developed the first vaccine to halt the crippling rampage of polio, dies in La Jolla, Calif., at age 80.
  • 2009: "Tonight Show" sidekick Ed McMahon dies in Los Angeles at 86.

President Barack Obama meets with Army Gen. Stanley McChrystal, the Commander of U.S. Forces in Afghanistan, aboard Air Force One in Copenhagen, Denmark on Oct. 2, 2009.

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