On This Day: Friday June 17, 2005 This is the 168th day of the year, with 197 days remaining in 2005. Fact of the Day: Watergate Watergate is the political scandal involving illegal activities on the part of the incumbent Republican administration of President Richard M. Nixon during and after the 1972 presidential election campaign. The first inkling of the scandal was the arrests at Democratic Party Headquarters in the Watergate complex in Washington, D.C., of five men who broke into the headquarters - which eventually led to Nixon's resignation in August 1974. So much did the Watergate scandal affect the national and international consciousness that many scandals since then have been labeled with the suffix "-gate." Holidays Feast day of St Moling, St Adulf, St Nectan, St Botulf, St Alban, St Avitus, St Bessarion, St Hypatius, St Rainerius of Pisa, St Emily de Vialai, St Hervé, Saints Nicander and Marcian, and Saints Teresa and Sanchia of Portugal. Iceland: Independence Day (from Denmark, 1944). Boston, MA: Bunker Hill Day. Events 1579 - During his circumnavigation of the world, English seaman Francis Drake anchored in a harbor just north of present-day San Francisco, California, and claimed the territory for Queen Elizabeth I. 1775 - The Revolutionary War's Battle of Bunker Hill took place, near Boston. The British won, but it was a moral victory for the Americans who had far fewer casualties. 1789 - The Third Estate in France declared itself a national assembly and started work on a constitution. 1837 - Charles Goodyear patented rubber. 1856 - The Republican Party opened its first convention, in Philadelphia. 1928 - Amelia Earhart embarked on a trans-Atlantic flight (from Newfoundland to Wales) -- the first for a woman. 1940 - France asked Germany for terms of surrender in World War II. Pétain announced that France was negotiating an armistice with Germany; General Charles de Gaulle fled from Paris to Britain. 1944 - The republic of Iceland was established. 1950 - Dr. Richard H. Lawler performed the first kidney transplant, in Chicago. 1954 - The Army-McCarthy televised hearings ended. 1963 - The Supreme Court struck down rules requiring the recitation of the Lord's Prayer or reading of Biblical verses in public schools. 1972 - President Richard Nixon's eventual downfall began with the arrest of five burglars inside Democratic National Committee headquarters in Washington DC's Watergate complex. 1994 - After a dramatic flight from justice witnessed by millions on live television, former football star and actor O.J. Simpson surrendered outside his Rockingham estate to Los Angeles police. The police charged him with the June 12 double-murder of his ex-wife Nicole Brown Simpson and her friend Ronald L. Goldman. Simpson was later acquitted in a criminal trial, but held liable in a civil trial. Births 1703 - John Wesley, English evangelist. 1871 - James Weldon Johnson, poet, diplomat, songwriter, anthologist of black culture. 1882 - Igor Fedorovich Stravinsky, composer. 1898 - M.C. Escher, Dutch graphic artist. 1917 - Dean Martin (Dino Crocetti), comedian, singer, actor. 1919 - Kingman Brewster, Jr., American educator, diplomat; president of Yale University (1963-77).