Today in History....June 4

On this day in …

* 1783, the Montgolfier brothers first publicly demonstrated their hot-air balloon, which did not carry any passengers, over Annonay, France

* 1878, the Ottoman Empire turned over control of Cyprus to the British

* 1896, Henry Ford made a successful pre-dawn test run of his horseless carriage, called a "quadricycle," through the streets of Detroit

* 1940, the Allied military evacuation from Dunkirk, France, ended

* 1942, the Battle of Midway began during World War II

* 1947, the House of Representatives overwhelmingly approved a House-Senate conference report on the Taft-Hartley Act

* 1954, French Premier Joseph Laniel and Vietnamese Premier Buu Loc signed treaties in Paris according "complete independence" to Vietnam

* 1989, hundreds, possibly thousands, of people died as Chinese army troops stormed Beijing to crush a pro-democracy movement

* 1997, at the Oklahoma City bombing trial, prosecutors urged the jury to sentence Timothy McVeigh to death, calling relatives of the victims to testify about their agonizing loss

* 2002, President Bush said the CIA and FBI had failed to communicate adequately before the Sept. 11 terror attacks; Congress began extraordinary closed-door hearings into intelligence lapses

* 2006, Palestinian standoff intensified after Hamas rejected an ultimatum from President Mahmoud Abbas to endorse a plan implicitly recognizing Israel