TODAY IN HISTORY 1902 - German automaker Daimler-Motoren-Gesellschaft (DMG) first registered Mercedes as a brand name. The name gained full legal protection the following September. 1972 - President Richard Nixon signed into law the Higher Education Act, which includes the groundbreaking Title IX legislation. Title IX barred discrimination in higher education programs, including funding for sports and other extracurricular activities. As a result, womens participation in team sports, particularly in collegiate athletics, surged with the passage of this act. 1992 - Mafia boss John Gotti, who was nicknamed the Teflon Don after escaping unscathed from several trials during the 1980s, was sentenced to life in prison after being found guilty on 14 accounts of conspiracy to commit murder and racketeering. Gotti, became head of the powerful Gambino family after boss Paul Castellano was murdered outside a steakhouse in Manhattan in December 1985. The gang assassination, the first in three decades in New York, was organized by Gotti and his colleague Sammy the Bull Gravano. The Gambino family was known for its illegal narcotics operations, gambling activities, and car theft. During the next five years, Gotti rapidly expanded his criminal empire, and his family grew into the nations most powerful Mafia family. Despite wide publicity of his criminal activities, Gotti managed to avoid conviction several times, usually through witness intimidation. In 1990, however, he was indicted for conspiracy to commit murder in the death of Paul Castellano, and Gravano agreed to testify against him in a federal district court in exchange for a reduced prison sentence. While still imprisoned, Gotti died of throat cancer on June 10, 2002. 2013 - 34-year-old aerialist Nik Wallenda became the first person to walk a high wire across the Little Colorado River Gorge near Grand Canyon National Park in Arizona. Wallenda did not wear a safety harness as he made the quarter-mile traverse on a 2-inch-thick steel cable some 1,500 feet above the gorge.
Posted on: Mon, 23 Jun 2014 15:00:01 +0000
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