June 16 1904
Bloomsday

June 17,1972 : WATERGATE BURGLARS ARRESTED:

In the early morning of June 17, 1972, five men are arrested for
breaking into the Democratic National Committee headquarters at the
Watergate, an office-hotel-apartment complex in Washington, D.C. In
their possession were burglary tools, cameras and film, and three
pen-size tear gas guns. At the scene of the crime, and in rooms the
men rented at the Watergate, sophisticated electronic bugging
equipment was found. Three of the men were Cuban exiles, one was a
Cuban American, and the fifth was James W. McCord, Jr., a former CIA
agent. That day, the suspects, who said they were "anti-communists,"
were charged with felonious burglary and possession of implements of
crime.

On June 18, however, it was revealed that James McCord was the
salaried security coordinator for President Richard Nixon's reelection
committee. The next day, E. Howard Hunt, Jr., a former White House
aide, was linked to the five suspects. In July, G. Gordon Liddy,
finance counsel for the Committee for the Re-election of the
President, was also implicated as an accomplice. In August, President
Nixon announced that a White House investigation of the Watergate
break-in had concluded that administration officials were not
involved. In September, Liddy, Hunt, McCord, and the four Cubans were
indicted by a federal grand jury on eight counts of breaking into and
illegally bugging the Democratic National Committee headquarters.

In September and October, reporters Carl Bernstein and Bob Woodward of
The Washington Post uncovered evidence of illegal political espionage
carried out by the White House and the Committee for the Re-election
of the President, including the existence of a secret fund kept for
the purpose and the existence of political spies hired by the
committee. Despite these reports, and a growing call for a Watergate
investigation on Capitol Hill, Richard Nixon was reelected president
in November 1972 in a landslide victory.

In January 1973, five of the Watergate burglars pleaded guilty, and
two others, Liddy and McCord, were convicted. At their sentencing on
March 23, U.S. District Court Judge John J. Sirica read a letter from
McCord charging that the White House had conducted an extensive
"cover-up" to conceal its connection with the break-in. In April,
Attorney General Richard Kleindienst and two top White House advisers,
H.R. Haldeman and John Ehrlichman, resigned, and White House counsel
John Dean was fired.

On May 17, 1973, the Senate Select Committee on Presidential Campaign
Activities, headed by Senator Sam Ervin of North Carolina, began
televised proceedings on the rapidly escalating Watergate affair. One
week later, Harvard Law professor Archibald Cox was sworn in as
special Watergate prosecutor. During the Senate hearings, former White
House legal counsel John Dean testified that the Watergate break-in
had been approved by former Attorney General John Mitchell with the
knowledge of White House advisers Ehrlichman and Haldeman, and that
President Nixon had been aware of the cover-up. Meanwhile, Watergate
prosecutor Cox and his staff began to uncover widespread evidence of
political espionage by the Nixon re-election committee, illegal
wiretapping of thousands of citizens by the administration, and
contributions to the Republican Party in return for political favors.

In July, the existence of what were to be called the Watergate
tapes--official recordings of White House conversations between Nixon
and his staff--was revealed during the Senate hearings. Cox subpoenaed
these tapes, and after three months of delay President Nixon agreed to
send summaries of the recordings. Cox rejected the summaries, and
Nixon fired him. His successor as special prosecutor, Leon Jaworski,
leveled indictments against several high-ranking administration
officials, including Mitchell and Dean, who were duly convicted.

Public confidence in the president rapidly waned, and by the end of
July 1974 the House Judiciary Committee had adopted three articles of
impeachment against President Nixon: obstruction of justice, abuse of
presidential powers, and hindrance of the impeachment process. On July
30, under coercion from the Supreme Court, Nixon finally released the
Watergate tapes. On August 5, transcripts of the recordings were
released, including a segment in which the president was heard
instructing Haldeman to order the FBI to halt the Watergate
investigation. Four days later, Nixon became the first president in
U.S. history to resign. On September 8, his successor, President
Gerald Ford, pardoned him from any criminal charges.

June 18, 1815 : NAPOLEON DEFEATED AT WATERLOO:

At Waterloo in Belgium, Napoleon Bonaparte suffers defeat at the hands
of the Duke of Wellington, bringing an end to the Napoleonic era of
European history.

The Corsica-born Napoleon, one of the greatest military strategists in
history, rapidly rose in the ranks of the French Revolutionary Army
during the late 1790s. By 1799, France was at war with most of Europe,
and Napoleon returned home from his Egyptian campaign to take over the reigns of the French government and save his nation from collapse.
After becoming first consul in February 1800, he reorganized his
armies and defeated Austria. In 1802, he established the Napoleonic
Code, a new system of French law, and in 1804 was crowned emperor of
France in Notre Dame Cathedral. By 1807, Napoleon controlled an empire that stretched from the River Elbe in the north, down through Italy in the south, and from the Pyrenees to the Dalmatian coast.

Beginning in 1812, Napoleon began to encounter the first significant
defeats of his military career, suffering through a disastrous
invasion of Russia, losing Spain to the Duke of Wellington in the
Peninsula War, and enduring total defeat against an allied force by
1814. Exiled to the island of Elba in the Mediterranean, he escaped to
France in early 1815 and set up a new regime. As allied troops
mustered on the French frontiers, he raised a new Grand Army and
marched into Belgium. He intended to defeat the allied armies one by
one before they could launch a united attack.

On June 16, 1815, he defeated the Prussians under Gebhard Leberecht
von Blucher at Ligny, and sent 33,000 men, or about one-third of his
total force, in pursuit of the retreating Prussians. On June 18,
Napoleon led his remaining 72,000 troops against the Duke of
Wellington's 68,000-man allied army, which had taken up a strong
position 12 miles south of Brussels near the village of Waterloo. In a
fatal blunder, Napoleon waited until mid-day to give the command to
attack in order to let the ground dry. The delay in fighting gave
Blucher's troops, who had eluded their pursuers, time to march to
Waterloo and join the battle by the late afternoon.

In repeated attacks, Napoleon failed to break the center of the allied
center. Meanwhile, the Prussians gradually arrived and put pressure on
Napoleon's eastern flank. At 6 p.m., the French under Marshal Michel
Ney managed to capture a farmhouse in the allied center and began
decimating Wellington's troops with artillery. Napoleon, however, was
preoccupied with the 30,000 Prussians attacking his flank and did not
release troops to aid Ney's attack until after 7 p.m. By that time,
Wellington had reorganized his defenses, and the French attack was
repulsed. Fifteen minutes later, the allied army launched a general
advance, and the Prussians attacked in the east, throwing the French
troops into panic and then a disorganized retreat. The Prussians
pursued the remnants of the French army, and Napoleon left the field.
French casualties in the Battle of Waterloo were 25,000 men killed and
wounded and 9,000 captured, while the allies lost about 23,000.

Napoleon returned to Paris and on June 22 abdicated in favor of his
son. He decided to leave France before counterrevolutionary forces
could rally against him, and on July 15 he surrendered to British
protection at the port of Rochefort. He hoped to travel to the United
States, but the British instead sent him to Saint Helena, a remote
island in the Atlantic off the coast of Africa. Napoleon protested but
had no choice but to accept the exile. With a group of followers, he
lived quietly on St. Helena for six years. In May 1821, he died, most
likely of stomach cancer. He was only 51 years old. In 1840, his body
was returned to Paris, and a magnificent funeral was held. Napoleon's
body was conveyed through the Arc de Triomphe and entombed under the dome of the Invalides.

June 20 1782:

Congress adopts the Great Seal of the United States after six years of discussion.

The front of the seal depicts a bald eagle clutching an olive branch in its right talon and arrows in its left.
On its breast appears a shield marked with 13 vertical red and white stripes topped by a bar of blue.
The eagle’s beak clutches a banner inscribed, E pluribus unum, a Latin phrase meaning “Out of Many One.”
Above the eagle’s head, golden rays burst forth, encircling 13 stars.

Charles Thomas outlined the symbolic connotations of the seal’s elements when he presented his design to Congress.
The bottom of the shield (or pale) represents the 13 states united in support of the blue bar at the top of the shield (or chief), “which unites the whole and represents Congress.”
The motto E Pluribus Unum serves as a textual representation of the same relationship.
The colors used in the shield are the same as those in the flag: alternating red and white for the important balance between innocence and valor, topped by the blue of “vigilance, perseverance and justice.”
The eagle’s talons hold symbols of Congress’ power to make peace (the olive branch) and war (arrows).
The constellation of stars indicates that “a new State [is] taking its place and rank among other sovereign powers.”

The reverse side of the seal bears the familiar Masonic motif of a pyramid, which Thomas proposed as a symbol of “Strength and Duration.”
The pyramid, like the new nation, is unfinished and frequently depicted as having 13 steps for the original states.
The disembodied eye floating above the structure is that of providence, which Thomas believed had acted “in favour of the American cause.”
Beneath the pyramid, the number 1776 appears in Roman numerals as a reminder of the year of independence.
The phrase Annuit Coeptis or “Providence has Favored Our Undertakings” appears above the providential eye;
Novus Ordo Seclorum or “A New Order of the Ages” appears beneath the pyramid.

June 21 1779:

Spain declares war on Great Britain, creating a de facto alliance with the Americans.

Spain’s King Charles III would not consent to a treaty of alliance with the United States.
For one imperial power to encourage another imperial power’s colonies in revolt was a treacherous game, and he was unwilling to play.
However, French Foreign Minister Charles Gravier, comte de Vergennes,
managed to negotiate a treaty with Spain to join their war against the British.
As the ally of the United States’ ally, Spain managed to endorse the revolt at a critical diplomatic distance.

The American Revolution had already spawned a world war between the two international powers of Britain and France.
Spain’s entry into the imbroglio ensured that the British would have to spread their resources even thinner.
King Charles wanted to reclaim Gibraltar for Spain and secure Spanish borders in North America and the Spanish immediately laid siege to Gibraltar at the mouth of the Mediterranean Sea.
The British managed to drive the Spanish from Gibraltar on February 7, 1783, having constructed an 82-foot-long tunnel into the north face of the rock of Gibraltar, known as the “Notch,” in order to supply it with cannon.
However, King Charles succeeded in his North American goals.
The Spanish took West Florida by force and attained East Florida by cession when the War for Independence ended;
they were also able to secure the Gulf of Mexico.