June 1st Major News Events

1942 Poland Extermination Camps

1942 : A Warsaw underground newspaper, the Liberty Brigade, is the first public newspaper to tell the world about the Nazi extermination camps in Poland where tens of thousands of Jews were murdered in Chelmno.

1944 France World War II

1944 : The British Broadcasting Corp. aired the coded message from the first line of a poem by Paul Verlaine to underground resistance fighters in France to inform the French resistance that the D-Day invasion was imminent.

1946 Great Britain First TV Licence Introduced

1946 : The British Broadcasting Corporation/BBC introduces the first TV Licence costing £2 for the British Public. This was in addition to a Radio Licence which cost about 10 shillings (50p). Current TV licence fee is £147.00.

1947 U.S.A. Tornado Arkansas

1947 : A tornado kills an estimated 30 people and leaves over 500 people homeless in Arkansas. Many rural communities were hit by the tornado and destroyed. The storm's path was an estimated 20 miles long, and could have been up to 10 miles wide.

1958 France Charles de Gaulle

1958 : Following a long political crisis over the revolt in Algeria, Charles de Gaulle is called out of retirement to head a new emergency government as a virtual dictator for a 6 month period to bring the country back together.

1965 Japan Mining Disaster

1965 : In one of the worst mining disasters in modern times an explosion kills 236 workers at the Yamano coal mine near Fukuoka, Japan.

1970 Soviet Union Nikita Khruschev

1970 : The former leader of the Soviet Union, Nikita Khruschev , was hospitalized with a burst blood vessel. Although the condition was not life threateningly dangerous, the former Premier was sent to the Kremlin hospital where he was to be kept indoors for a few weeks.

1979 Rhodesia End of White Rule

1979 : Rhodesia ends nearly 100 years of white minority rule and changes it's name to Zimbabwe.

1980 CNN Launched in Atlanta

1980 : The first 24-hour news television station – CNN is launched in Atlanta, Georgia.

1985 UK Stone Henge

1985 : 500 Hippy travelers clash with police on their way to the ancient stone circle of Stonehenge in Wiltshire for an illegal festival, the police set up a roadblock seven miles from Stonehenge. The day is known as "The Battle of the Beanfield" and was the first major test of an English Heritage ban on midsummer festivals at Stonehenge.

1985 U.S.A. Arms Control

1985 : The United States and the Soviet Union faced a stalemate when discussing arms control . Neither side seemed willing to compromise but both sides opened up the possibility for discussion.

1990 U.S.A. Chemical Weapons

1990 : In a historic meeting between President George Bush and Soviet leader Mikhail Gorbachev they sign a historic agreement to end production of chemical weapons and begin the destruction of reserves of chemical weapons.

1993 Forces Kill 4 Children in Artillery Bombardment

1993 : Serb forces shell a football match in Bosnia killing 11 including 4 children who were watching the football match.

2001 Nepal Royal Family

2001 : The king, queen and seven other members of the royal family in Nepal are shot dead after the heir to the throne Crown Prince Dipendra went on a rampage with a gun before turning it on himself.

2005 Zimbabwe Police Crackdown

2005 : The police in Zimbabwe continue the crackdown on shantytowns that have been built in the capital, Harare, destroying thousands of shanty's and arresting more than 22,000 people. The police are destroying these Shanty Towns in an attempt to clean up crime in the cities and forcing the people back to the rural areas of the country.

2005 Sweden Nuclear Reactor

2005 : Sweden shut down the Barseback 2 nuclear reactor as it continued to phase out using nuclear energy. The country had voted to end its nuclear energy program in 1980 and had been working on phasing out the reactors for twenty five years. However concerns over alternative energy options had some Swedes reconsidering nuclear energy, as well as replacing nuclear energy with more renewable sources like wind and solar power.

2006 U.S.A. Hurricane Katrina

2006 : A report on the effects of Hurricane Katrina on New Orleans by the U.S. Army Corps of Engineers admitted that faulty design specifications, incomplete sections and substandard construction of levee segments, contributed up to 2/3rd's of damage done to New Orleans by Hurricane Katrina.

2007 Kevorkian Released From Prison

2007 : Doctor Jack Kervorkian was released from prison in the state of Michigan after serving eight years. Kervorkian had been convicted of murder for helping terminally ill patients die and became known as Doctor Death. Kervorkian, a proponent of euthanasia vowed he would continue to fight for the right of assisted suicide but would do so by legal means.

2010 Homer Simpson Named Best TV Character

2010 : Entertainment Weekly announced that Homer Simpson was to be named the best television and film character of the past twenty years. The cartoon character was best known for his love of eating and oafish antics. The Simpsons character beat out Harry Potter and Buffy the Vampire Slayer, who came in as second and third on the magazine's list.

2012 Mistrial John Edwards Case

2012 : After the jury could not decide on five of the six charges former Presidential candidate John Edwards faced, the judge declared it a mistrial. The jury only found him not guilty of one of the six charges he faced for misuse of campaign funds. The former candidate was accused of using donor funds to cover up his mistress's pregnancy during his 2008 presidential run.

2013 Yemen Drone Kills Seven

2013 :Two drone strikes killed seven suspected al-Qaeda militants in Southern Yemen. The suspected militants had been travelling in two separate vehicles.

Born This Day In History 1st June

Celebrating Birthdays Today

Marilyn Monroe

Born: June 1st, 1926 Los Angeles, California

Died: August 4, 1962 Los Angeles, California

Known For : Marilyn Monroe, born as Norma Jeane Mortenson, was a famous starlet known for playing a blonde bombshell. She began her career as a pin-up model during the 1940s and 1950s. By the early 1950s she had become one of the most popular and marketable actresses in Hollywood, appearing in such films as Monkey Business, Gentlemen Prefer Blondes, The Seven Year Itch, and Some Like It Hot. In the mid-1950s she began her own production company. Monroe had a troubled personal life and her marriages to baseball player Joe DiMaggio and playwright Arthur Miller were of great interest to the public. She died tragically of a drug overdose in 1962 at the age of 36.