Today in History
Today’s highlight:
On June 12, 1994, Nicole Brown Simpson and Ronald
Goldman were slashed to death outside her Los Angeles home. O.J. Simpson was later acquitted of the killings in a criminal trial but was eventually held liable in a civil action.
On this date:
1898: Philippine nationalists declared independence from
Spain.
1942: Anne Frank,
a German-born Jewish girl living in Amsterdam, received a diary for her 13th birthday, less than a month before she and her family went into hiding from the Nazis.
1963: Civil rights leader Medgar Evers, 37, was shot and killed outside his home in Jackson, Mississippi. In 1994, Byron De La Beckwith was convicted of murdering Evers and sentenced to life in prison; he died in 2001.
1964: South African
— Eric Hoffer, black nationalist Nelson American philosopher
Mandela was sentenced (1902-1983) to life in prison along with seven other people, including Walter Sisulu, for committing sabotage against the apartheid regime all were eventually released, Mandela in 1990.
1967: The U.S. Supreme Court, in Loving v. Virginia, unanimously struck down state laws prohibiting interracial marriages.
1978: David Berkowitz was sentenced to 25 years to life in prison for each of the six “Son of Sam” .44-caliber killings that terrified New Yorkers.
1981: “Raiders of the Lost Ark,” directed by Steven
Spielberg and starring Harrison Ford as Indiana Jones, was first released.
1987: President Ronald Reagan, during a visit to the divided German city of Berlin, exhorted Soviet leader
Mikhail S. Gorbachev to “tear down this wall.”
1997: Baseball began regular-season interleague play, ending a 126-year tradition of separating the major leagues until the World Series.
2004: Former President Ronald Reagan’s body was sealed inside a tomb at his presidential library in Simi Valley, California, following a week of mourning and remembrance by world leaders and regular Americans.
2016: An American-born Muslim opened fire at the Pulse nightclub, a gay establishment in Orlando, Florida, leaving 49 people dead and 53 wounded before being shot dead by police.
Ten years ago: A French fishing vessel rescued 16-yearold Abby Sunderland from her crippled sailboat in the turbulent southern Indian Ocean, ending the California teen’s attempt to sail around the world solo.
Five years ago: Joyce Mitchell, a worker at the maximumsecurity Clinton Correctional Facility in Dannemora, New
York, was arrested on charges of helping two convicted killers escape; Mitchell later pleaded guilty to promoting prison contraband and was sentenced to 213 to seven years in prison.
One year ago: President Donald Trump said if a foreign power offered dirt on his 2020 opponent, he’d be open to accepting it, telling ABC News, “There’s nothing wrong with listening.”