Local history

June 5, 1989: An explosion rocked the rural Mankato home of Blue Earth County Sheriff LeRoy Wiebold. The blast destroyed a machine shed and caused $100,000 in damage.

June 7, 1989: District 241 school board voted 4-2 to take the issue of a new high school before the voters. Board members George Ehrhardt and Tom Lang voted against the measure, saying they were not against putting the referendum to the people, but thought that a unanimous vote may give the impression of blanket approval for a new school by the board.

June 7, 1989: Mayor Harlan Nelson met with members from the musical group Up With People prior to their concert in the Albert Lea High School auditorium. Barb Greguson of Albert Lea toured with Up With People in 1983 to 1984.

June 10, 1989: The Rev. Wayne Edmund of Salem Lutheran Church celebrated his 25th anniversary of ordination. Edmund graduated from Northwestern Lutheran and spent four years ministering in north Minneapolis.

 

U.S. history

June 4, 1942: The World War II Battle of Midway began, resulting in a decisive American victory against Japan and marking the turning point of the war in the Pacific.

1812: The Louisiana Territory was renamed the Missouri Territory, to avoid confusion with the recently admitted state of Louisiana. The U.S. House of Representatives approved, 79-49, a declaration of war against Britain.

1919: Congress approved the 19th Amendment to the U.S. Constitution, guaranteeing citizens the right to vote regardless of their gender, and sent it to the states for ratification.

1940: During World War II, the Allied military evacuation of some 338,000 troops from Dunkirk, France, ended. British Prime Minister Winston Churchill declared: “We shall fight on the beaches, we shall fight on the landing grounds, we shall fight in the fields and in the streets, we shall fight in the hills; we shall never surrender.”

1990: Dr. Jack Kevorkian carried out his first publicly assisted suicide, helping Janet Adkins, a 54-year-old Alzheimer’s patient from Portland, Oregon, end her life in Oakland County, Michigan.

2000: President Bill Clinton and Russian President Vladimir Putin ended their summit by conceding differences on missile defense, agreeing to dispose of weapons-grade plutonium and pledging early warning of missile and space launches.

2003: Martha Stewart stepped down as head of her media empire, hours after federal prosecutors in New York charged her with obstruction of justice, conspiracy, securities fraud and lying to investigators.

Five years ago: On the second day of a visit to Poland, President Barack Obama held up the nation as a guidepost for neighboring Ukraine as it sought to fend off a pro-Russian insurgency; later that same day, in Brussels, Obama attended a meeting of the Group of Seven major industrial nations, with the pointed exclusion of Russia from the gathering.

One year ago: President Donald Trump claimed that he had an “absolute right” to pardon himself, but that it wouldn’t be necessary because he had “done nothing wrong.” Trump also tweeted that the Justice Department’s appointment of a special counsel in the Russia probe was “totally unconstitutional.”

 

—   Information from Albert Lea Tribune archives and the Associated Press.