Today in History, 6/5

70: Titus and the Roman Legions breach the middle wall of Jerusalem during the Siege of Jerusalem.
1723: Adam Smith is born. He wrote The Wealth of Nations one of the seminal books in the rise of capitalism.1817: The first Great Lakes steamer, the Frontenac is launched.

1829: The HMS Pickle captures the armed slave ship Voladora off the coast of Cuba.

HMS Pickle

1850: Pat Garrett, Western lawman, is born.1851: Uncle Tom's Cabin by Harriet Beecher Stowe is published in serial form in the National Era abolitionist newsletter.1877: Pancho Villa, Mexican revolutionary, is born.1883: John Maynard Keynes, economist, is born.1917: During WWI, conscription begins in the US as "Army Registration Day."
1919: Richard Scarry, children's book author, is born. If you deal with little kids on a regular basis, you're familiar with the exploits of Lowly Worm.1920: Cornelius Ryan is born. He wrote military history books, most famously A Bridge Too Far and The Longest Day. Boy, he looks a lot cooler than I had imagined!

"Hello, darling...let's talk about
Operation Market Garden, shall we?"

1933: The US goes off the gold standard.
1941: Spalding Gray is born.

1943: Matthew Lesko is born. He's the guy who does those terrible commercials on how to scam money from the government.

1944: More than a thousand British bombers plaster German gun emplacements on the French coast in preparation for the D-Day landings.
1947: At a speech at Harvard University, General George C. Marshall lays out an economic aid plan for Europe which later came to be known as the Marshall Plan.
1956: Elvis Presley introduces his new song "Hound Dog" on The Milton Berle Show and scandalizes a generation with his suggestive hip movements.

1967: The Six Day War begins as Israel launches a preemptive attack on the air forces of Egypt, Jordan and Syria.
1968: Presidential candidate Robert F. Kennedy is gunned down by Sirhan Sirhan in the kitchen of the Ambassador Hotel in Los Angeles. Here he is announcing the assassination of Martin Luther King at a speech in Indianapolis April 5, 1968. This is one of the greatest speeches of the 20th century and he was only working off some notes he had jotted down on the ride over.

1976: The Teton Dam collapses in Idaho.

1977: The Apple II, the first practical personal computer, goes on sale.1981: The Center for Disease Control reports on a new disease affecting homosexuals in California that mimicked the symptoms of pneumonia. It would later be known as AIDS.
1984: In an effort to curb terrorism, Prime Minister Indira Gandhi of India orders a military strike on the Golden Temple, one of the holiest sites of the Sikh religion and which was being held by Sikh terrorists. Hundreds died, including civilians, army and terrorists and it is arguable that it led directly to her assassination at the hand of two of her Sikh bodyguards some months later.

The Golden Temple

Today in History elements mostly cribbed from The History Channel, Wikipedia, The New York Times, The Jewish World Review, The Writer's Almanac and anything else I can dig up.