Today in History

On June 25, 1950, war broke out in Korea as forces from the communist North invaded the South. The conflict would last for over three years and would be responsible for an estimated 4 million deaths, an estimated 3 million of whom were civilians.

On this date

1938: The Fair Labor Standards Act of 1938, which set a minimum wage, guaranteed overtime pay and banned “oppressive child labor,” was signed into law by President Franklin D. Roosevelt.

In 1947: “The Diary of a Young Girl,” the personal journal of Anne Frank, a German-born Jewish girl hiding with her family from the Nazis in Amsterdam during World War II, was first published.

1990: The U.S. Supreme Court, in Cruzan v. Director, Missouri Department of Health, its first “right-to-die” decision, ruled 5-4 that family members could be barred from ending the lives of persistently comatose relatives who had not made their wishes known conclusively.

1993: Kim Campbell was sworn in as Canada’s 19th prime minister, the first woman to hold the post.

1996: A truck bomb killed 19 Americans and injured hundreds at a U.S. military housing complex in Saudi Arabia.

Today’s birthdays

Actor June Lockhart is 100. Civil rights activist James Meredith is 92. Singer Carly Simon is 82. Musician Tim Finn is 73. U.S. Supreme Court Justice Sonia Sotomayor is 71. Actor-writer-comedian Ricky Gervais is 64. Hockey Hall of Famer Doug Gilmour is 62. Actor Angela Kinsey (“The Office”) is 54. Actor Linda Cardellini is 50. Actor Busy Philipps is 46.