This day in history

[June 21, 2011]  (AP)  Today is Tuesday, June 21, the 172nd day of 2011. There are 193 days left in the year. Day. Summer arrives at 1:16 p.m. EDT.

Today's highlight in history:

On June 21, 1788, the United States Constitution went into effect as New Hampshire became the ninth state to ratify it.

On this date:

In 1834, Cyrus Hall McCormick received a patent for his reaping machine.

In 1932, heavyweight Max Schmeling lost a title fight rematch in New York by decision to Jack Sharkey, prompting Schmeling's manager, Joe Jacobs, to exclaim: "We was robbed!"

In 1948, the Republican national convention opened in Philadelphia. (The delegates ended up choosing Thomas E. Dewey to be their presidential nominee.)

In 1963, Cardinal Giovanni Battista Montini was chosen to succeed the late Pope John XXIII; the new pope took the name Paul VI.

In 1964, civil rights workers Michael H. Schwerner, Andrew Goodman and James E. Chaney were murdered in Philadelphia, Miss.; their bodies were found buried in an earthen dam six weeks later.

In 1970, former Indonesian President Sukarno died at 69.

In 1981, five members of a climbing party fell to their deaths while scaling Mount Hood in Oregon.

In 1982, a jury in Washington D.C. found John Hinckley Jr. not guilty by reason of insanity in the shootings of President Ronald Reagan and three other men.

In 1989, a sharply divided Supreme Court ruled that burning the American flag as a form of political protest was protected by the First Amendment.

In 2005, 41 years to the day after three civil rights workers were beaten and shot to death, Edgar Ray Killen, an 80-year-old former Ku Klux Klansman, was found guilty of manslaughter in a Mississippi court. (Killen was sentenced to 60 years in prison.)

Ten years ago: A federal grand jury in Alexandria, Va., indicted 13 Saudis and a Lebanese in absentia for the 1996 bombing of the Khobar Towers in Saudi Arabia that killed 19 American servicemen. The first total solar eclipse of the new millennium swept across southern Africa. Death claimed actor Carroll O'Connor at age 76 and blues musician John Lee Hooker at age 80.

Five years ago: The Marine Corps announced that seven Marines and a sailor had been charged with murdering an Iraqi civilian in April. (The sailor and three Marines later pleaded guilty to lesser charges.) President George W. Bush, addressing the annual U.S.-European Union summit in Vienna, accused Iran of dragging its feet on a Western incentive package aimed at getting Tehran to suspend uranium enrichment activity.

One year ago: Faisal Shahzad (FY'-sul shah-ZAHD'), a Pakistan-born U.S. citizen, pleaded guilty to charges of plotting a failed car bombing in New York's Times Square. (Shahzad was later sentenced to life in prison.)

Today's birthdays: Actor Bernie Kopell is 78. Actor Monte Markham is 76. Songwriter Don Black is 73. Actress Mariette Hartley is 71. Comedian Joe Flaherty is 70. Rock singer-musician Ray Davies (The Kinks) is 67. Actress Meredith Baxter is 64. Actor Michael Gross is 64. Rock musician Joe Molland (Badfinger) is 64. Rock musician Don Airey (Deep Purple) is 63. Country singer Leon Everette is 63. Rock musician Joey Kramer (Aerosmith) is 61. Rock musician Nils Lofgren is 60. Actress Robyn Douglass is 58. Actor Leigh McCloskey is 56. Cartoonist Berke Breathed is 54. Country singer Kathy Mattea is 52. Actor Marc Copage is 49. Actress Sammi Davis is 47. Actor Doug Savant is 47. Country musician Porter Howell is 47. Actor Michael Dolan is 46. Writer-director Larry Wachowski is 46. Actress Paula Irvine is 43. Rapper/producer Pete Rock is 41. Country singer Allison Moorer is 39. Actress Juliette Lewis is 38. Musician Justin Cary is 36. Rock musician Mike Einziger (Incubus) is 35. Actor Chris Pratt is 32. Rock singer Brandon Flowers is 30. Britain's Prince William is 29. Pop singer Kris Allen ("American Idol") is 26. Actor Jascha Washington is 22.

Thought for today: "In America, to look a couple of years younger than you actually are is not only an achievement for which you are to be congratulated, it is patriotic." -- Cynthia Propper Seton, American writer (1926-1982)

[Associated Press]

Copyright 2011 The Associated Press. All rights reserved. This material may not be published, broadcast, rewritten or redistributed.