Wednesday, June 13, is the 165th day of 2012. There are 201 days left in the year.
Today’s birthdays: Actor Bob McGrath is 80. Artist Christo is 77. Magician Siegfried (Siegfried and Roy) is 73. Singer Bobby Freeman is 72. Actor Malcolm McDowell is 69. UN Secretary-General Ban Ki-moon is 68. Singer Dennis Locorriere is 63. Actor Richard Thomas is 61. Actor Jonathan Hogan is 61. Actor Stellan Skarsgard is 61. Comedian Tim Allen is 59. Actress Ally Sheedy is 50. TV anchor Hannah Storm is 50. Rock musician Paul deLisle (Smash Mouth) is 49. Actress Lisa Vidal is 47. Singer David Gray is 44. Rhythm-and-blues singer Deniece Pearson (Five Star) is 44. Rock musician Soren Rasted (Aqua) is 43. Actor Jamie Walters is 43. Singer-musician Rivers Cuomo (Weezer) is 42. Country singer Susan Haynes is 40. Actor Steve-O is 38. Country singer Jason Michael Carroll is 34. Actor Ethan Embry is 34. Actor Chris Evans is 31. Actress Sarah Schaub is 29. Singer Raz B is 27. Actress Kat Dennings is 26. Twin actresses Ashley and Mary-Kate Olsen are 26.
In 1842, Queen Victoria became the first British monarch to ride on a train, traveling from Slough Railway Station to Paddington in 25 minutes.
In 1927, aviation hero Charles Lindbergh was honored with a ticker-tape parade in New York.
In 1935, James Braddock claimed the title of world heavyweight boxing champion from Max Baer in a 15-round fight in Long Island City, N.Y.
In 1942, the first of two four-man Nazi sabotage teams arrived in the United States during World War II. The first group disembarked from a U-boat off Long Island, N.Y.; the second one arrived several days later on the Florida coast. (The eight were arrested after one of them went to US authorities; eventually six of the saboteurs were executed.) President Franklin D. Roosevelt created the Office of War Information, and appointed radio news commentator Elmer Davis to be its head.
In 1944, Germany began launching flying-bomb attacks against Britain during World War II.
In 1962, ‘‘Lolita,’’ Stanley Kubrick’s film adaptation of the Vladimir Nabokov novel, had its world premiere in New York.
In 1966, the Supreme Court ruled in Miranda v. Arizona that criminal suspects had to be informed of their constitutional right to consult with an lawyer and to remain silent.
In 1971, The New York Times began publishing excerpts of the Pentagon Papers, a secret study of the United States’ involvement in Vietnam from 1945 to 1967 that had been leaked to the paper by military analyst Daniel Ellsberg.
In 1992, Democratic presidential candidate Bill Clinton stirred controversy during an appearance before the Rainbow Coalition by criticizing rap singer Sister Souljah for making remarks that he said were ‘‘filled with hatred’’ toward whites.
In 1996, the 81-day-old Freemen standoff ended as 16 remaining members of the anti-government group surrendered to the FBI.
In 2002, US Roman Catholic bishops opened an extraordinary closed-door meeting in Dallas on the sex scandal that was shaking the church as they crafted a plan for a zero-tolerance policy for pedophile priests. Backed by the United States, Hamid Karzai overwhelmingly won 18 more months as leader of Afghanistan’s fledgling government.
In 2007, in Beirut, a powerful car bombing killed Walid Eido, a prominent anti-Syrian legislator. Insurgents blew up the two minarets of a revered Shiite shrine in Samarra, Iraq, a year after the shrine’s golden dome was destroyed in a bombing.
In 2011, facing off in New Hampshire, Republican White House hopefuls condemned President Obama’s handling of the economy from the opening moments of their first major debate of the campaign season, and pledged emphatically to repeal his historic year-old health care overhaul.