TODAY IN HISTORY

1790: The U.S. Supreme Court convened for the first time in New York. (However, since only three of the six justices were present, the court recessed until the next day.)

1862: “The Battle Hymn of the Republic,” a poem by Julia Ward Howe, was published in the Atlantic Monthly.

1865: Abolitionist John S. Rock became the first Black lawyer admitted to the bar of the U.S. Supreme Court.

1943: During World War II, one of America’s most highly decorated military units, the 442nd Regimental Combat Team, made up almost exclusively of Japanese-Americans, was authorized.

1959: Men in Switzerland rejected giving women the right to vote by a more than 2-1 referendum margin. (Swiss women gained the right to vote in 1971.)

1960: Four Black college students began a sit-in protest at a Woolworth’s lunch counter in Greensboro, N.C., where they’d been refused service.

1979: Iranian religious leader Ayatollah Ruhollah Khomeini received a tumultuous welcome in Tehran as he ended nearly 15 years of exile.

1991: 34 people were killed when an arriving USAir jetliner crashed atop a commuter plane on a runway at Los Angeles International Airport.

1994: Jeff Gillooly, Tonya Harding’s ex-husband, pleaded guilty in Portland, Ore., to racketeering for his part in the attack on figure skater Nancy Kerrigan in exchange for a 24-month sentence (he ended up serving six months) and a $100,000 fine.

2011: Egyptian President Hosni Mubarak announced he would not run for a new term in September elections but rejected protesters’ demands he step down immediately and leave the country, after a dramatic day in which a quarter-million Egyptians staged their biggest protest to date calling on him to go.

2016: The World Health Organization declared a global emergency over the explosive spread of the Zika virus, which was linked to birth defects in the Americas, calling it an “extraordinary event” that posed a public health threat to other parts of the world.

2020: As China’s death toll from the new coronavirus rose to 259, Beijing criticized Washington’s order barring entry to most foreigners who had visited China in the past two weeks. A World Health Organization official said governments needed to prepare for “domestic outbreak control.”