Also on this date
In 1862, during the Civil War, Congress approved the Second Confiscation Act, which declared that all slaves taking refuge behind Union lines were to be set free.
In 1918, Russia’s Czar Nicholas II and his family were executed by the Bolsheviks.
In 1945, following Nazi Germany’s surrender, President Harry S. Truman, Soviet leader Josef Stalin and British Prime Minister Winston S. Churchill began meeting at Potsdam in the final Allied summit of World War II.
In 1962, the United States conducted its last atmospheric nuclear test to date, detonating a 20-kiloton device at the Nevada Test Site.
In 1981, 114 people were killed when a pair of suspended walkways above the lobby of the Kansas City Hyatt Regency Hotel collapsed during a tea dance.
In 1996, TWA Flight 800, a Europebound Boeing 747, exploded and crashed off Long Island, New York, shortly after departing John F. Kennedy International Airport, killing all 230 people on board.
In 1997, Woolworth Corp. announced it was closing its 400 remaining stores across the country, ending 117 years in business.
In 2009, former CBS anchorman Walter Cronkite died at 92.
In 2014, Eric Garner, an unarmed Black man accused of selling loose, untaxed cigarettes, died shortly after being wrestled to the ground by New York City police officers; a video of the takedown showed Garner repeatedly saying, “I can’t breathe.” (Garner’s family received $5.9 million from the city in 2015 to settle a wrongful death claim.)
In 2014, all 298 passengers and crew aboard Malaysia Airlines Flight 17 were killed when the Boeing 777 was shot down over rebel-held eastern Ukraine; both Ukraine’s government and pro-Russian separatists denied responsibility.
Ten years ago: Thousands of gays and lesbians from around Europe marched through Poland’s capital, Warsaw, to demand equal rights and more tolerance in the heavily Roman Catholic nation.
Five years ago: A suicide bomber with the Islamic State group attacked a marketplace in Iraq’s Diyala province, killing 115 people.
One year ago: Mexican drug kingpin Joaquin “El Chapo” Guzman was sentenced to life behind bars in a U.S. prison.
As sociated Press