June 1981

[June 1], 1981 (Monday)

• A mobile laser weapon, intended to destroy missiles in flight, failed in testing by the U.S. Air Force at the United States Naval Weapons Center at China Lake in California. The high-intensity laser had been fired, from a flying KC-135A Stratotanker, at a Sidewinder missile that was moving at. "The test failed," said Colonel Bob O'Brien, "and we don't know why."
• The first issue of China Daily, an English language newspaper operated by the Chinese Communist Party, was published. A sister paper to the official Chinese language People's Daily, the paper gave a nod to capitalism by carrying advertising.
• Born: Carlos Zambrano, pitcher for the Chicago Cubs and 3-time winner of Silver Slugger Award; in Puerto Cabello, Venezuela
• Died: Carl Vinson, 97, U.S. Congressman from 1914 to 1965, who was known as "The Father of the Two-Ocean Navy" for his successful efforts in expanding the U.S. Navy during the 20th century.

  [June 2], 1981 (Tuesday)

• Ron Settles, 21, running back for California State University, Long Beach, was found hanged in his jail cell, three hours after he had been stopped in Signal Hill, California, for speeding, then booked on other charges. A coroner's jury later ruled 5-4 that the death was not a suicide. Represented by Johnnie Cochran, Settles's parents sued the city and eventually settled the case in January 1983 for $1,000,000.
• Died: Rino Gaetano, 30, Italian singer-songwriter, of injuries in an auto accident

  [June 3], 1981 (Wednesday)

• Wayne Williams, 23, was taken into custody by the FBI, at his home at 1817 Penelope Road N.W. in Atlanta. Though not arrested, Williams was questioned for almost 12 hours by agents investigating the "Atlanta child murders" of 28 young people, most of them children. Released the next morning, Williams was questioned by reporters and his name became known worldwide. He remained free, though under surveillance, until his arrest on June 21, when he was charged with the murder of 27-year-old Nathaniel Cater.
• Died: Carleton S. Coon, 76, American anthropologist and archaeologist

  [June 4], 1981 (Thursday)

• James Earl Ray, who allegedly committed the assassination of Martin Luther King Jr., was stabbed 22 times by four of his fellow inmates at the Brushy Mountain State Penitentiary near Petros, Tennessee. Ray survived the murder attempt, and went on for many years before dying on April 23, 1998, thirty years after the King assassination. Although Ray refused to identify the attackers, three African-American prisoners were later convicted of the attempt and had at least 20 years added to their prison sentences.

  [June 5], 1981 (Friday)

• The Centers for Disease Control and Prevention reported that 5 homosexual men in Los Angeles, California have a rare form of pneumonia seen only in patients with weakened immune systems.

  [June 6], 1981 (Saturday)

• Hundreds of train passengers were killed when seven cars of an overcrowded train fell off the tracks into the Bagmati River in India's Bihar state. Although initial estimates placed the death toll as high as 3,000 people, the figure would later be revised to about 800. The train had been en route from Banmankhi to Samastipur, carrying passengers inside and on the roofs of its cars, and the engineer reported that he had stopped on the bridge after seeing a cow on the tracks. At the same time, heavy winds tipped the cars, five of which were swept downriver.

  [June 7], 1981 (Sunday)

• In carrying out its Operation Opera, the Israeli Air Force destroyed Iraq's Osirak nuclear reactor in a raid that lasted 1 minute and 20 seconds. Eight F-16 jet fighters and six F-15s took off from the Etzion Airbase at 3:55 pm in Israel, arriving over the target in Iraq at 6:35 pm local time. Timed for a Sunday evening when more than 100 foreign scientists would be off for the day, the attack killed ten Iraqis and one Frenchman. Among the pilots was Ilan Ramon, who would later become Israel's first astronaut and would die on the last voyage of the space shuttle Columbia. Israel's Prime Minister Menachem Begin defended the raid despite worldwide condemnation, saying "There will never be another Holocaust in the history of the Jewish people. Never again, never again."
• Born:
• *Anna Kournikova, Russian tennis player, in Moscow
• *Larisa Oleynik, American actress, in Santa Clara, California

  [June 8], 1981 (Monday)

• Iran's President, Abulhassan Banisadr made a speech at the Iranian Air Force base in Shiraz, exhorting officers and airmen to "resistance of dictatorship". The speech outraged Iran's de facto leader, the Ayatollah Khomeini, who removed Banisadr from command of the armed forces two days later. Banisadr went into hiding on June 12 as opponents called for his execution, finally escaping to France on July 29. Many of his supporters were arrested and executed in the months that followed the critical speech.
• By a vote of 4–2, the council of the city of Morton Grove, Illinois, passed ordinance No. 81-11, prohibiting the possession of handguns within city limits, and for residents to turn in their weapons to police

  [June 9], 1981 (Tuesday)

• United Auto Workers President Douglas Fraser announced that UAW officials had voted unanimously to rejoin the AFL-CIO after a 13-year absence. In 1968, Walter Reuther had led the UAW to separate from the larger labor union after disagreements with AFL-CIO President George Meany.
• Born: Natalie Portman, Israeli-born American film actress, as Natalie Hershlag, in Jerusalem
• Died: Allen Ludden, 63, American game show host, and husband of comedian Betty White

  [June 10], 1981 (Wednesday)

• Six-year-old Alfredo Rampi fell into an unprotected artesian well while playing on a neighbor's property in Frascati, Italy. Over the next three days, the nation, and later the world, followed the attempt to save the boy's life. At one point, a rescuer was within reach of Alfredo, but the boy slipped 100 feet further down the well. By Saturday, Alfredo had died, and the property owner was arrested. The little boy's body was recovered on July 11.
• Died: Jenny Maxwell, 39, American film actress, murder victim

  [June 11], 1981 (Thursday)

• A 6.8 earthquake struck Iran's Kerman province at 10:56 am local time, destroying the town of Golbaf and killing 1,027 people.
• 1981 Irish general election: The political party Fianna Fáil, led by Taoiseach Charles Haughey, lost its majority in the 166 seat Dáil Éireann. The Fine Gael assembled a coalition, and its leader, Garret FitzGerald, was elected the new Taoiseach by the Dáil on June 30, beating Haughey by a thin 81-78 margin.

  [June 12], 1981 (Friday)

• Major League Baseball players began a strike at midnight. The first of 713 games to be cancelled was the 1:35 pm game between the Chicago Cubs and the visiting San Diego Padres. The last game before the walkout, the Seattle Mariners' 8–2 win over the visiting Baltimore Orioles, had ended at 9:54 pm local time on June 11. The strike would last until August 1.
• Raiders of the Lost Ark, which would become the highest-grossing film of the year, premiered in the United States, and subsequently was released in other nations.
• Born: Adriana Lima, Brazilian model, in Salvador, Bahia

  [June 13], 1981 (Saturday)

• At the Trooping the Colour ceremony in London, 17-year-old Marcus Sarjeant fired six shots at Queen Elizabeth, who was riding on horseback. The gun was a cartridge pistol that fired blanks, and the Queen was able to bring her startled horse, "Burmese", under control, but the act demonstrated the vulnerability of Britain's reigning monarch. Serjeant, who testified that he had been unable to obtain a real pistol prior to the event, was convicted under the Treason Act 1842, and spent three years in jail, before quietly being released in October 1984. He subsequently changed his name and began a new life.
• Born: Chris Evans, American film actor, in Sudbury, Massachusetts
• Died: George Walsh, 92, American silent film leading man

  [June 14], 1981 (Sunday)

• The California Medfly Crisis began with a mistake made in the implementation of sterile insect technique, a means of controlling insect populations by releasing sterile bugs to mix with fertile ones of the same species during breeding season, thereby lowering the number of new larvae. When an infestation of millions of the Mediterranean fruit flies began destroying crops throughout the state, the California Department of Food and Agriculture discovered that the flies released on June 14 weren't sterile, and that the effort to reduce the population had inadvertently increased it.
• Voters in Switzerland, where women were not allowed to vote in national elections until 1971, approved an equal rights amendment to that nation's Constitution.

  [June 15], 1981 (Monday)

• The State of Oklahoma forgot to execute convicted murderer James William White, who had been sentenced to die by lethal injection, in what would have been the first use in the United States of that form of capital punishment. A reporter from the UPI made a phone call to Oklahoma's Court of Criminal Appeals the next day to inquire about White's status. The Court discovered that nobody had filed an appeal required by state law, and that the state corrections department had incorrectly listed White's sentence as 999 years rather than death.
• In an 8–1 decision, the United States Supreme Court held in the case of Rhodes v. Chapman that the placing of two prison inmates in a cell designed for one was not a violation of the Eighth Amendment protection against cruel and unusual punishment, as long as overall conditions at the prison were adequate. The Court reversed rulings at the district and appellate court level in a class action lawsuit brought by inmates of the Southern Ohio Correctional Facility in Lucasville, Ohio.