MOMENTS IN TIME

• On June 15, 1877, Henry Ossian Flipper, born a slave in Thomasville, Ga., in 1856, is the first black cadet to graduate from the United States Military Academy. Flipper was never spoken to by a white cadet during his four years at West Point.

• On June 12, 1924, the first Bush president, George Herbert Walker Bush, is born in Milton, Mass. Bush served in the Navy during World War II and was awarded a Distinguished Flying Cross for bravery in combat.

• On June 10, 1935, in New York City, two recovering alcoholics found Alcoholics Anonymous (A.A.), a 12-step rehabilitation program. Today there are more than 80,000 local groups in the United States, with an estimated membership of almost 2 million people.

• On June 11, 1944, five days after the D-Day landing, the five Allied landing groups link up in Normandy to form a single solid front across northwestern France in Operation Overlord. The Allied invasion force included 3 million men, 13,000 aircraft, 1,200 warships, 2,700 merchant ships and 2,500 landing craft.

• On June 14, 1954, more than 12 million Americans in 54 cities "die" in a mock nuclear attack, as the United States goes through its first nationwide civil-defense drill. At 10 a.m., alarms were sounded in selected cities, at which time all citizens were supposed to get off the streets, seek shelter and prepare for the onslaught.

• On June 9, 1973, Secretariat becomes the first horse since Citation in 1948 to win America's coveted Triple Crown -- the Kentucky Derby, the Preakness and the Belmont Stakes. In 1999, ESPN ranked Secretariat No. 35 in its list of the Top 50 North American athletes of the 20th century, the only non-human on the list.

• On June 13, 1983, after more than a decade in space, Pioneer 10, the world's first outer-planetary probe, leaves the solar system. Headed in the direction of the Taurus constellation, Pioneer 10 will pass within 3 light years of another star -- Ross 246 -- in the year 34,600 A.D.