Today in History: June 21, US Constitution becomes law

Today is Saturday, June 21, the 172nd day of 2025. There are 193 days left in the year.

Today in history:

On June 21, 1788, the United States Constitution went into effect as New Hampshire became the required ninth state to ratify it.

Also on this date:

In 1834, Cyrus Hall McCormick received a patent for his mechanical reaper.

In 1893, the first Ferris wheel opened to the public as part of the Chicago World’s Fair.

In 1942, an Imperial Japanese submarine fired shells at Fort Stevens on the Oregon coast, but caused little damage.

In 1954, scientists of the American Cancer Society presented a study to a meeting of the American Medical Association in San Francisco which found that men who regularly smoked cigarettes died, particularly from lung cancer, at a considerably higher rate than non-smokers.

In 1964, civil rights activists James Chaney, Andrew Goodman and Michael Schwerner were murdered in Neshoba County, Mississippi; their bodies were found buried in an earthen dam six weeks later. (Forty-one years later, on this date in 2005, Edgar Ray Killen, an 80-year-old former Ku Klux Klansman, was found guilty of manslaughter in their deaths; he was sentenced to 60 years in prison, where he died in January 2018.)

In 1982, a jury in Washington, D.C. found John Hinckley Jr. not guilty by reason of insanity in the shootings of President Ronald Reagan, Press Secretary James Brady, Washington D.C. police office Thomas Delahanty and Secret Service agent Tim McCarthy.

In 1989, a sharply divided Supreme Court ruled, in Texas v. Johnson, that burning the American flag as a form of political protest was protected by the First Amendment.

In 1997, the WNBA made its debut as the New York Liberty defeated the host Los Angeles Sparks 67-57.

In 2004, the aircraft SpaceShipOne made the first privately funded human spaceflight.

In 2010, Faisal Shahzad, a Pakistan-born U.S. citizen, pleaded guilty to charges of plotting a failed car bombing in New York’s Times Square. (Shahzad was later sentenced to life in prison.)

Today’s Birthdays:

• Composer Lalo Schifrin is 93.
• Musician Ray Davies (The Kinks) is 81.
• Actor Meredith Baxter is 78.
• Nobel peace prize laureate Shirin Ebadi is 78.
• Actor Michael Gross is 78.
• Author Ian McEwan is 77.
• Musician Nils Lofgren is 74.
• Cartoonist Berkeley Breathed is 68.
• Country musician Kathy Mattea is 66.
• Filmmaker Lana Wachowski is 60.
• Rapper-DJ-producer Pete Rock is 55.
• Actor Juliette Lewis is 52.
• Actor Chris Pratt is 46.
• Rock singer Brandon Flowers (The Killers) is 44.
• Britain’s Prince William is 43.
• Singer-songwriter Lana Del Rey is 40.
• Golfer Scottie Scheffler is 29.