TODAY IN HISTORY
Today is Tuesday, June 7.
Today’s highlight:
On June 7, 1965, the U.S. Supreme Court, in Griswold v. Connecticut, struck down, 7-2, a Connecticut law used to prosecute a Planned Parenthood clinic in New Haven for providing contraceptives to married couples.
On this date:
In 1712, Pennsylvania’s colonial assembly voted to ban the further importation of slaves.
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 Dor- othy 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 facil- ity the Israelis charged could have been used to make nuclear weapons.
In 1993, the U.S. Supreme Court ruled that religious groups could sometimes meet on school property after hours. 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; one of them, Lawrence Russell Brewer, was executed in 2011 and the other, John William King, was executed in April 2019. A third defendant received life with the possibility of parole.)
In 2006, Abu Mu ab al-zarqawi, the founder of al-qaida in Iraq, was killed by a U.S. airstrike on his safe house. The U.S. Senate rejected a constitutional amendment to ban gay marriage.
Five years ago: President Donald Trump announced his choice to replace James Comey a day ahead of the ousted FBI director’s congressional testimony, tapping Christopher Wray, a white-collar defense lawyer with a strong law enforcement bac grou d. he Islamic State group claimed responsibility for a stunning pair of deadly attacks on Iran’s parliament and the tomb of its revolutionary leader, Ayatollah Ruhollah Khomeini.
One year ago: A unanimous Supreme Court ruled that thousands of people living in the U.S. for humanitarian reasons were ineligible to apply to become permanent residents. 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.)