Moments in Time: First Blood Transfusion
The History Channel
On June 15, 1667, French physician Jean-Baptiste Denis performed the first blood transfusion, on a feverish boy, but with lamb rather than human blood. While the boy survived and recovered, two more patients died following the same procedure, leading to a centuries-long ban on transfusions.
On June 16, 1943, Oona O'Neill, the 18-year-old daughter of playwright Eugene O'Neill, married 54-year-old Hollywood legend Charlie Chaplin. It was his fourth marriage (and his third to a teenage girl). Oona's father, who was Chaplin's age, disapproved of the union so strongly that he disinherited his daughter, but the marriage, which produced eight children, was successful and only ended with Chaplin's death more than three decades later.
On June 17, 1976, the National Basketball Association announced a merger with its rival, the American Basketball Association, and acquired the latter's four most successful franchises: the Denver Nuggets, the Indiana Pacers, the New York (later Brooklyn) Nets and the San Antonio Spurs.
On June 18, 1979, at a summit meeting in Vienna, President Jimmy Carter and Soviet leader LEOnid Brezhnev signed the SALT-II agreement dealing with limitations and guidelines for nuclear weapons. Roundly criticized in America as a sellout to the Soviets, the treaty never formally went into effect and did little, if anything at all, to slow the arms race.
On June 19, 1865, on what is now known as Juneteenth, Union soldiers arrived in Galveston, Texas, with the news that the Civil War had ended and slavery in the United States had been abolished. Despite the fact that President Abraham Lincoln's Emancipation Proclamation had been issued on Jan. 1, 1863, a lack of Union troops in the rebel state of Texas had made the order difficult to enforce.
On June 20, 2003, the Wikimedia Foundation, an American nonprofit organization best known for being the host of Wikipedia, one of the world's most-visited websites, was founded in St. Petersburg, Florida.
On June 21, 2001, one of Mexican artist Frida Kahlo's iconic self-portraits was featured on an American postage stamp, making her the first Hispanic woman to be honored in that manner.
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