TODAY IN HISTORY
Today is Friday, June 17.
Today’s highlight:
On June 17, 2015, nine people were shot to death in a historic African American church in Charleston, South Carolina; suspect Dylann Roof was arrested the following morning.
On this date:
In 1775, the Revolution- ary War Battle of Bunker Hill resulted in a costly vic- tory for the British, who suffered heavy losses.
In 1885, the Statue of Lib- erty arrived in New York Harbor aboard the French ship Isere.
In 1963, the U.S. Supreme Court, in Abington (Pa.) School District v. Schempp, struck down, 8-1, rules requiring the recitation of the Lord’s Prayer or read- ing of Biblical verses in pub- lic schools.
In 1967, China successfully tested its first thermo- nuclear (hydrogen) bomb.
In 1972, President Rich- ard Nixon’s eventual down- fall began with the arrest of five burglars inside the Democratic headquarters in Washington, D.C.’S, Watergate complex.
In 1994, after leading police on a slow-speed chase on Southern Califor- nia freeways, O.J. Simpson was arrested and charged with murder in the slayings of his ex-wife, Nicole, and her friend, Ronald Goldman. (Simpson was later acquitted in a criminal trial but held liable in a civil trial.)
In 2008, hundreds of same-sex couples got mar- ried across California on the first full day that gay mar- riage became legal by order of the state’s highest court.
In 2009, President Barack Obama extended some ben- efits to same-sex partners of federal employees.
In 2020, prosecutors in Atlanta brought murder charges against white police officer Garrett Rolfe in the fatal shooting of a Black man, Rayshard Brooks, following a struggle; a second officer, Devin Brosnan, was charged with aggravated assault and violating his oath. (Both officers are awaiting trial.) Quaker Oats announced that it would retire the Aunt Jemima brand, saying the company recognized that the character’s origins were “based on a racial stereotype.”
Ten years ago: Rodney King, 47, whose 1991 videotaped beating by Los Angeles police sparked widespread outrage and who struggled with addiction and repeated arrests, died in Rialto, California, in an apparent accidental drowning.
Five years ago: The jury in Bill Cosby’s sexual assault case declared itself hopelessly deadlocked, resulting in a mistrial for the 79-yearold TV star charged with drugging and groping a woman more than a decade earlier; prosecutors immediately announced they would pursue a second trial. (That trial resulted in Cosby’s conviction, but Pennsylvania’s highest court later overturned it.) The Navy destroyer USS Fitzgerald was damaged in a collision with a Philippine-flagged container ship off Japan that killed seven sailors.
One year ago: The Supreme Court, in a 7-2 ruling, left intact the entire Affordable Care Act, rejecting the latest major Republican-led effort to kill the national health care law known as “Obamacare.” A St. Louis couple who pointed guns at social justice demonstrators in front of their home in 2020 pleaded guilty to misdemeanor charges; Mark and Patricia Mccloskey were fined and agreed to forfeit the weapons they carried when they confronted several hundred protesters.