Today in History.....June 6

On this day in …

* 1918, the World War I Battle of Belleau Wood, which resulted in a U.S. victory over the Germans, began in France

* 1934, the Securities and Exchange Commission was established

* 1942, Japanese forces retreated in the World War II Battle of Midway

* 1944, the "D-Day" invasion of Europe took place during World War II as Allied forces stormed the beaches of Normandy, France

* 1968, Sen. Robert F. Kennedy died at Good Samaritan Hospital in Los Angeles, a day after he was shot by Sirhan Bishara Sirhan

* 1985, authorities in Brazil exhumed a body later identified as the remains of Dr. Josef Mengele, ym"sh, the notorious "Angel of Death"
of the Holocaust

* 1996, the Senate narrowly rejected a balanced budget amendment to the Constitution as outgoing Majority Leader Bob Dole and the Democrats clashed over deficit reduction. ALSO: a family of four became the first persons to leave the Freemen ranch in Montana since April

* 1981, the U.S. Centers for Disease Control reported that five homosexuals in Los Angeles had come down with a rare kind of pneumonia; they were the first recognized cases of what later became known as AIDS.

* 1986, a federal jury in Baltimore convicted Ronald W. Pelton of selling secrets to the Soviet Union. (Pelton was sentenced to three life prison terms plus 10 years.)

* 2001, Democrats formally assumed control of the U.S. Senate; the unprecedented shift in power came about after the decision of Vermont Republican James Jeffords to become an independent. ALSO: A jury in Los Angeles awarded more than $3 billion to lifelong smoker Richard Boeken, deciding that tobacco giant Philip Morris was responsible for his incurable lung cancer. (The jury award was reduced by a Superior Court judge to $100 million, then cut to $50 million by an appeals court; the U.S. Supreme Court refused in March
2006 to consider tossing out the award altogether; Boeken died in
2002.)

* 2005, the Supreme Court ruled 6-to-3 that people who smoke marijuana because their doctors recommend it to ease pain can be prosecuted for violating federal drug laws