Also on this date
In 1955,
Emmett Till, a Black teen from Chicago, was abducted from his uncle’s home in Money, Mississippi, by two white men after he had supposedly whistled at a white woman; he was found brutally slain three days later.
In 1968,
police and anti-war demonstrators clashed in the streets of Chicago as the Democratic National Convention nominated Hubert H. Humphrey for president.
In 1996,
the troubled 15-year marriage of Britain’s Prince Charles and Princess Diana officially ended with the issuing of a divorce decree.
In 2005,
New Orleans Mayor Ray Nagin ordered everyone in the city to evacuate after Hurricane Katrina grew to a monster storm.
In 2009,
the Los Angeles County coroner’s office announced that Michael Jackson’s death was a homicide caused primarily by the powerful anesthetic propofol and another sedative, lorazepam.
In 2013,
a military jury sentenced Maj. Nidal Hasan to death for the 2009 shooting rampage at Fort Hood that claimed 13 lives.
In 2014,
comedian Joan Rivers was rushed to New York’s Mount Sinai Hospital after she suffered cardiac arrest at a doctor’s office where she’d gone for a routine outpatient procedure (Rivers died a week later at age 81).
In 2018,
a white former police officer, Roy Oliver, was convicted of murder for fatally shooting an unarmed Black 15-year-old boy, Jordan Edwards, while firing into a car packed with teenagers in suburban Dallas; Oliver was sentenced to 15 years in prison.
Ten years ago:
Conservative commentator Glenn Beck and former Alaska Gov. Sarah Palin headlined a “Restoring Honor” rally attended by tens of thousands in Washington.
Five years ago:
A jury in Concord, New Hampshire, acquitted Owen Labrie, a prep school graduate, of rape but convicted him of committing lesser sex offenses against a 15-year-old freshman girl in a case that exposed a tradition in which seniors competed to see how many younger students they could have sex with.
One year ago:
British Prime Minister Boris Johnson maneuvered to give opponents less time to block a chaotic no-deal Brexit, winning Queen Elizabeth’s approval to suspend Parliament. (A British court later ruled that Johnson broke the law by suspending Parliament.)