By The Associated Press

Today in History

Today is Tuesday, June 2, the 154th day of 2020. There are 212 days left in the year.

Today’s Highlight in History:

On June 2, 1941, baseball’s “Iron Horse,” Lou Gehrig, died in New York of a degenerative disease, amyotrophic lateral sclerosis; he was 37.

On this date:

In 1886, President Grover Cleveland, 49, married Frances Folsom, 21, in the Blue Room of the White House. (To date, Cleveland is the only president to marry in the executive mansion.)

In 1897, Mark Twain was quoted by the New York Journal as saying from London that “the report of my death was an exaggeration.” (Twain was responding to a report in the New York Herald that he was “grievously ill” and “possibly dying.”)

In 1924, Congress passed, and President Calvin Coolidge signed, a measure guaranteeing full American citizenship for all Native Americans born within U.S. territorial limits.

In 1953, the coronation of Queen Elizabeth II took place in London’s Westminster Abbey, 16 months after the death of her father, King George VI.

In 1962, Soviet forces opened fire on striking workers in the Russian city of Novocherkassk; a retired general in 1989 put the death toll at 22 to 24.

In 1966, U.S. space probe Surveyor 1 landed on the moon and began transmitting detailed photographs of the lunar surface.

In 1976, Arizona Republic investigative reporter Don Bolles (bohlz) was mortally wounded by a bomb planted underneath his car; he died 11 days later. (Prosecutors believed Bolles was targeted because he had written stories that upset a liquor wholesaler; three men were convicted of the killing.)

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