On This Day, June 24: Soviets blockade western zones of Berlin

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U.S. Air Force Douglas C-47 transport planes prepare to take off from Tempelhof Airport during the Berlin airlift in August 1948. On June 24, 1948, Soviet forces blockaded the western zones of Berlin, setting the stage for the Berlin airlift to support the 2 million people of the divided German city. File Photo by USAF

On this date in history:

In 1901, Pablo Picasso’s artwork had its first exhibition in Paris.

In 1908, former president Grover Cleveland died in Princeton, N.J., at the age of 71.

In 1948, Soviet forces blockaded the western zones of Berlin, setting the stage for the Berlin airlift to support the 2 million people of the divided German city.

In 1970, the Senate repealed the Gulf of Tonkin Resolution, named for the 1964 incident the U.S. government used to justify war against Vietnam. The resolution gave President Lyndon B. Johnson authorization for the war, but the vote was largely symbolic because the Nixon administration didn’t use it for legal authority to be in Vietnam.

In 1975, an Eastern Airlines Boeing 727 en route from New Orleans crashed at New York’s Kennedy International airport, killing 113 people. There were 11 survivors.

In 1986, Raquel Welch won a $10.8 million verdict against MGM, which she said ruined her career by firing her from the 1980 movie Cannery Row.

File Photo by Jim Ruymen/UPI

In 1993, a Yale professor was injured by a mail bomb, the second sent by Ted Kaczynski, the so-called Unabomber, in two days. It was the 14th bomb Kaczynski sent since the 1970s.

In 2009, South Carolina Gov. Mark Sanford admitted to having an extramarital affair with a woman in Argentina. He resigned as chairman of the GOP governors association but stayed on as governor and was later elected to Congress.

In 2010, John Isner defeated Nicolas Mahut in a first-round match played over three days at Wimbledon. The match — longest in pro-tennis history — took 11 hours, 5 minutes and 183 games to decide a winner.

File Photo by Hugo Philpott/UPI

In 2012, the Muslim Brotherhood’s Mohamed Morsi was elected president of Egypt. The military removed him from the office in 2013 and he was later sentenced to death for his role in a mass prison break in 2011.

In 2013, Belgian Steve Darcis, ranked 135th in the world, upset Rafael Nadal at Wimbledon, the first time the Spanish star ever lost in the opening round of a Grand Slam event.

In 2021, the 12-story Champlain Towers condo building in Surfside, Fla., collapsed, killing 98 people and injuring 11 others.

In 2022, the conservative-majority U.S. Supreme Court handed down a decision that overturned its 1973 opinion in Roe vs. Wade, which legalized abortion nationwide.