Today in history

On June 11, 1947, the government announced the end of sugar rationing for households and “institutional users” (e.g., restaurants and hotels) as of midnight.

In 1258, the Oxford Parliament (also known as the “Mad Parliament”) convened during the reign of King Henry III, who agreed to the creation of a privy council that would advise him and provide oversight, an arrangement which did not last.

In 1509, England's King Henry VIII married his first wife, Catherine of Aragon.

In 1770, Captain James Cook, commander of the British ship Endeavour, “discovered” the Great Barrier Reef off Australia by running onto it.

In 1919, Sir Barton won the Belmont Stakes, becoming horse racing's first Triple Crown winner.

In 1937, eight members of the Soviet Red Army High Command accused of disloyalty were put on trial, convicted and immediately executed as part of Josef Stalin's Great Purge.

In 1942, the United States and the Soviet Union signed a lend-lease agreement to aid the Soviet war effort in World War II.

In 1959, the Saunders-Roe Nautical 1, the first operational hovercraft, was publicly demonstrated off the southern coast of England.

In 1962, three prisoners at Alcatraz in San Francisco Bay staged an escape, leaving the island on a makeshift raft; they were never found or heard from again.

In 1977, a 20-day hostage drama in the Netherlands ended as Dutch marines stormed a train and a school held by Moluccan extremists; six gunmen and two hostages on the train were killed. Seattle Slew won the Belmont Stakes, capturing the Triple Crown.

In 1987, Margaret Thatcher became the first British prime minister in 160 years to win a third consecutive term of office as her Conservatives held onto a reduced majority in Parliament.

In 1993, the U.S. Supreme Court ruled that people who commit “hate crimes” motivated by bigotry may be sentenced to extra punishment; the court also ruled religious groups had a constitutional right to sacrifice animals in worship services.

In 2001, Timothy McVeigh, 33, was executed by injection at the federal prison in Terre Haute, Indiana, for the 1995 Oklahoma City bombing that killed 168 people.

Ten years ago: Sen. Larry Craig, R-Idaho, was arrested at the Minneapolis-St. Paul International Airport in a restroom sex sting. (Craig, who denied soliciting an undercover police officer, later pleaded guilty to disorderly conduct and paid a fine.)

“A successful man is one who can lay a firm foundation with the bricks others have thrown at him.” — David Brinkley, American broadcast journalist (born 1920, died this date in 2003).