This Day in History for June 26 – Cyclone Coaster Opens and More

Here’s a look at some interesting events that took place on this day in history:

1870 – Christmas is declared a federal holiday in the United States (More info)

1927 – The Cyclone roller coaster opens on Coney Island (More info)

1963 – President John Kennedy gives his “Ich bin ein Berliner” (I am a Berliner) speech in West Berlin (More info)

1974 – The Universal Product Code (UPC) is scanned for the first time to sell a package of Wrigley’s chewing gum at the Marsh Supermarket in Troy, Ohio (More info)

2000 – The first map of the human genome, which required decoding more than 3 billion biochemical “letters” of human DNA, is completed (More info)

2003 – The US Supreme Court rules in Lawrence v. Texas that gender-based sodomy laws are unconstitutional (More info)