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June 13, 1994: A jury in Anchorage, Alaska, rules that Exxon and Capt. Joseph Hazelwood acted recklessly in the Exxon Valdez oil spill five years earlier, opening a second phase of the proceedings to decide damages. Appeals and further litigation last another 15 years before Exxon compensates the first victims — 20 percent of whom died while waiting two decades for justice.

 

June 13, 2004: Anti-Stalin freedom fighter Valdas Adamkus (at right, in 2007) fled Lithuania in 1944. Landing in the U.S., Adamkus works a series of menial jobs. Ten years later, he joins the U.S. EPA as a charter employee and becomes regional administrator in 1981. Eight years later, he leaves EPA and in 1998 is elected president of Lithuania. He is voted out in 2003, but he returns in 2004, on this date, after his successor bogs down in scandal.

 

June 13, 2010: A rare diplomatic feud between the U.S. and U.K. is defused. In a half-hour phone call between President Barack Obama and Prime Minister David Cameron, the two talk out tensions over the BP oil spill, and the perception that "British Petroleum" was engendering anti-U.K. feelings in the U.S.

 

Photo: Wikimedia Commons

 

This feature is compiled by Peter Dykstra, an MNN contributor and publisher of Environmental Health News and The Daily Climate.