Also on this date

the first execution resulting from the Salem witch trials in Massachusetts took place as Bridget Bishop was hanged.

during World War II, German forces massacred 173 male residents of Lidice, Czechoslovakia, in retaliation for the killing of Nazi official Reinhard Heydrich.

German forces massacred 642 residents of the French village of Oradour-sur-Glane, and then destroyed the village. (The village, left as it was, remains as a memorial to this day.)

President John F. Kennedy signed into law the Equal Pay Act of 1963, aimed at eliminating wage disparities based on gender.

Affirmed, ridden by Steve Cauthen, won the 110th Belmont Stakes to claim horse racing’s 11th Triple Crown. (Alydar was second while Darby Creek Road came in third in a five-horse field.)

Alberto Fujimori, whose résumé included a master’s degree from the University of WisconsinMilwaukee, was elected president of Peru by a narrow margin over novelist Mario Vargas Llosa.

singer-musician Ray Charles died in Beverly Hills, California, at age 73.

Army Secretary John McHugh announced that an investigation found that potentially hundreds of remains at Arlington National Cemetery were misidentified or misplaced.

Pope Francis took the biggest step yet in cracking down on bishops who covered up for priests who raped and molested children, creating a new tribunal inside the Vatican to hear cases of bishops accused of failing to protect their flocks.

A helicopter pilot died when the aircraft hit the roof of a New York skyscraper in rain and fog, sparking a fire and forcing office workers to flee; records showed that the pilot was not authorized to fly in limited visibility.

Ray Charles, performing at the Wisconsin Theater in Milwaukee in 1963.