This Day in History: June 30

On this day, June 30 …

1971: The Supreme Court rules, 6-3, that the government could not prevent the New York Times or the Washington Post from publishing the Pentagon Papers.

Also on this day:

• 1865: Eight people, including Mary Surratt and Dr. Samuel Mudd, are convicted by a military commission of conspiring with John Wilkes Booth, the assassin of President Abraham Lincoln. (Four defendants, including Surratt, are executed; Mudd is sentenced to life in prison but pardoned by President Andrew Johnson in 1869.)
• 1934: Adolf Hitler launched his "blood purge" of political and military rivals in Germany in what came to be known as "The Night of the Long Knives."
• 1936: The Civil War novel "Gone with the Wind" by Margaret Mitchell is first published by The Macmillan Company in New York.
• 1950: President Truman orders ground troops to Korea.
• 1953: The first Chevrolet Corvette, with its innovative fiberglass body, is built at a General Motors assembly facility in Flint, Mich.
• 1963: Pope Paul VI is crowned the 262nd head of the Roman Catholic Church.
• 1966: The National Organization for Women (NOW) is founded in Washington, D.C.
• 1971: The 26th Amendment, which lowers the voting age from 21 to 18, is ratified.
• 1971: The Supreme Court rules, 6-3, that the government could not prevent the New York Times or the Washington Post from publishing the Pentagon Papers.
• 1971: A Soviet space mission ends in tragedy when three cosmonauts aboard Soyuz 11 are found dead of asphyxiation inside their capsule after it had returned to Earth.
• 1985: The 39 remaining hostages from hijacked TWA Flight 847 are freed in Beirut after 17 days.
• 1997: The British territory of Hong Kong is transferred to China.

Bowe Bergdahl, left, in a framegrab from Taliban video. (AP Photo/IntelCenter, File)

• 2009: American soldier Bowe Bergdahl vanishes from his base in eastern Afghanistan, and is later confirmed to have been captured by insurgents. (Bergdahl would be released on May 31, 2014, in exchange for five Taliban detainees.)
• 2017: German parliament votes to legalize same-sex marriage.

Video

• 2019: President Trump and North Korean leader Kim Jong Un meet and shake hands at the Demilitarized Zone between North and South Korea in their first face-to-face meeting since an ill-fated summit in Hanoi, Vietnam that past February.