On this day, June 24 ...
2004: Federal investigators question President George W. Bush for more than an hour in connection with the news leak of CIA operative Valerie Plame's identity.
Also on this day:
- 1947: What's regarded as the first modern UFO sighting takes place as private pilot Kenneth Arnold, an Idaho businessman, reports seeing nine silvery objects flying in a "weaving formation" near Mount Rainier in Washington.
- 1957: The U.S. Supreme Court, in Roth v. United States, rules 6-3 that obscene materials are not protected by the First Amendment.
- 1983: The space shuttle Challenger — carrying America's first woman in space, Sally K. Ride — coasts to a safe landing at Edwards Air Force Base in California.
- 1992: The Supreme Court, in a 5-4 decision, strengthens its 30-year ban on officially sponsored worship in public schools, prohibiting prayer as a part of graduation ceremonies.
- 1997: The U.S. Air Force releases a report on the so-called "Roswell Incident," suggesting the "alien bodies" that witnesses reported seeing in 1947 were actually life-sized dummies.
- 2004: New York’s Court of Appeals rules the state’s death penalty unconstitutional.
- 2009: South Carolina Gov. Mark Sanford admits he had secretly flown to Argentina to visit a woman with whom he was having an affair and says he would resign as head of the Republican Governors Association.
- 2012: Mohamed Morsi, a member of the Muslim Brotherhood, is announced as the winner of Egypt’s presidential elections.
- 2016: British Prime Minister David Cameron resigns after the Brexit vote.
- 2019: President Trump signs an executive order issuing new, "hard-hitting" financial sanctions against Iranian Supreme Leader Ayatollah Ali Khamenei and his associates for recent aggressive actions, including the shooting down of a U.S. drone.
