Today in History

By Associated Press

June 7

In 1712, Pennsylvania’s colonial assembly voted to ban the further importation of enslaved people.

In 1776, Richard Henry Lee of Virginia offered a resolution to the Continental Congress stating “That these United Colonies are, and of right ought to be, free and independent States.”

In 1848, French painter and sculptor Paul Gauguin was born in Paris.

In 1892, Homer Plessy, a “Creole of color,” was arrested for refusing to leave a whites-only car of the East Louisiana Railroad. (Ruling on his case, the U.S. Supreme Court upheld “separate but equal” racial segregation, a concept it renounced in 1954.)

In 1929, the sovereign state of Vatican City came into existence as copies of the Lateran Treaty were exchanged in Rome.

In 1942, the Battle of Midway ended in a decisive victory for American naval forces over Imperial Japan, marking a turning point in the Pacific War.

In 1967, author-critic Dorothy Parker, famed for her caustic wit, died in New York at age 73.

In 1981, Israeli military planes destroyed a nuclear power plant in Iraq, a facility the Israelis charged could have been used to make nuclear weapons.

In 1993, Ground was broken for the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame in Cleveland.

In 1998, in a crime that shocked the nation, James Byrd Jr., a 49-year-old Black man, was hooked by a chain to a pickup truck and dragged to his death in Jasper, Texas. (Two white men were later sentenced to death for the crime.)

In 2021, Maggie Murdaugh, 52, and her son Paul Murdaugh, 22, from a prominent South Carolina legal family, were found shot and killed on their family’s land. (In the aftermath of the deaths, Maggie Murdaugh’s husband, Alex Murdaugh, would be jailed on dozens of charges, including the theft of millions of dollars in legal settlements.)

In 2006, Abu Musab al-Zarqawi, the founder of al-Qaida in Iraq, was killed by a U.S. airstrike on his safe house.

In 2013, Death row inmate Richard Ramirez, 53, the serial killer known as California’s “Night Stalker,” died in a hospital.

In 2016, Democrat Hillary Clinton and Republican Donald Trump claimed their parties’ presidential nominations following contests in New Jersey, California, Montana, New Mexico, North Dakota and South Dakota.

In 2018, the Washington Capitals claimed their first NHL title with a victory over the Vegas Golden Knights in Game 5 of the Stanley Cup Final in Las Vegas.

In 2022, Russia claimed to have nearly taken full control of one of the two provinces that make up Ukraine’s Donbas, bringing the Kremlin closer to its goal of capturing the eastern industrial heartland of coal mines and factories.

In 2023, smoke from Canadian wildfires poured into the U.S. East Coast and Midwest, covering the capitals of both nations in an unhealthy haze, holding up flights at major airports and prompting people to fish out the face masks of the coronavirus pandemic.

June 8

In 1864, Abraham Lincoln was nominated for another term as president during the National Union (Republican) Party’s convention in Baltimore.

In 1867, modern American architect Frank Lloyd Wright was born in Richland Center, Wisconsin.

In 1953, the U.S. Supreme Court ruled unanimously that restaurants in the District of Columbia could not refuse to serve Blacks.

In 1966, a merger was announced between the National and American Football Leagues, to take effect in 1970.

In 1967, during the six-day Middle East war, 34 American servicemen were killed when Israel attacked the USS Liberty, a Navy intelligence-gathering ship in the Mediterranean Sea. (Israel later said the Liberty had been mistaken for an Egyptian vessel.)

In 1968, authorities announced the capture in London of James Earl Ray, the suspected assassin of civil rights leader Dr. Martin Luther King Jr.

In 1978, a jury in Clark County, Nevada, ruled the so-called “Mormon will,” purportedly written by the late billionaire Howard Hughes, was a forgery.

In 1995, U.S. Marines rescued Capt. Scott O’Grady, whose F-16C fighter jet had been shot down by Bosnian Serbs on June 2.

In 2008, the average price of regular gas crept up to $4 a gallon.

In 2009, North Korea’s highest court sentenced American journalists Laura Ling and Euna Lee to 12 years’ hard labor for trespassing and “hostile acts.” (The women were pardoned in early August 2009 after a trip to Pyongyang by former President Bill Clinton.)

In 2015, siding with the White House in a foreign-policy power struggle with Congress, the Supreme Court ruled 6-3 that Americans born in the disputed city of Jerusalem could not list Israel as their birthplace on passports.

In 2017, former FBI Director James Comey, testifying before Congress, asserted that President Donald Trump fired him to interfere with his investigation of Russia’s ties to the Trump campaign.

In 2018, celebrity chef, author and CNN host Anthony Bourdain was found dead in his hotel room in eastern France in what authorities determined was a suicide.

In 2020, thousands of mourners gathered at a church in Houston for a service for George Floyd, as his death during an arrest in Minneapolis stoked protests in America and beyond over racial injustice.

In 2021, Ratko Mladic, the military chief known as the “Butcher of Bosnia” for orchestrating genocide, crimes against humanity and war crimes in the Balkan nation’s 1992-95 war, lost his final legal battle when U.N. judges affirmed his life sentence.

—From AP reports