Today in history
On July 6, 1942, Anne Frank, her parents and sister entered a “secret annex” in an Amsterdam building where they were later joined by four other people; they hid from Nazi occupiers for two years before being discovered and arrested.
In 1777, during the American Revolution, British forces captured Fort Ticonderoga (tykahn-dur-OH’-gah).
In 1854, the first official meeting of the Republican Party took place in Jackson, Michigan.
In 1885, French scientist Louis Pasteur tested an anti-rabies vaccine on 9-year-old Joseph Meister, who had been bitten by an infected dog; the boy did not develop rabies.
In 1944, an estimated 168 people died in a fire that broke out during a performance in the main tent of the Ringling Bros. and Barnum & Bailey Circus in Hartford, Connecticut.
In 1945, President Harry S. Truman signed an executive order establishing the Medal of Freedom.
In 1957, Althea Gibson became the first Black tennis player to win a Wimbledon singles title as she defeated fellow American Darlene Hard 6-3, 6-2.
In 1962, Nobel Prize-winning author William Faulkner, one of the giants of Southern literature, died in Byhalia (beye-HAYL’-yuh), Mississippi, at age 64.
In 1967, war erupted as Nigeria sent troops into the secessionist state of Biafra.
In 1971, jazz trumpeter and singer Louis Armstrong died in New York at age 69.
In 1988, 167 North Sea oil workers were killed when explosions and fires destroyed a drilling platform. Medical waste and other debris began washing up on New York City-area seashores, forcing the closing of several popular beaches.
In 1997, the rover Sojourner rolled down a ramp from the Mars Pathfinder lander onto the Martian landscape to begin inspecting the soil and rocks of the red planet.
In 2004, Democratic presidential candidate John Kerry chose former rival John Edwards to be his running mate.
Ten years ago: President Barack Obama and Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu dismissed talk of a rift at a White House meeting. Queen Elizabeth II addressed the United Nations for the first time since 1957 during her first New York visit in over
30 years; she then laid a wreath at ground zero. Actress Lindsay Lohan was sentenced to
90 days in jail and 90 days in a residential substance-abuse program after a judge found the actress had violated her probation in a 2007 drug case by failing to attend alcohol education classes. (Lohan ended up serving 14 days behind bars and was released on Aug. 2.)
Five years ago: The Associated Press obtained documents in which Bill Cosby admitted in 2005 that he’d secured quaaludes with the intent of giving them to young women he wanted to have sex with and that he gave the sedative to at least one woman and other people; Cosby’s lawyers insisted that two of the accusers knew they were taking quaaludes from the comedian, according to the unsealed documents. Pope Francis received a hero’s welcome in Guayaquil, Ecuador’s biggest city, as he celebrated the first public Mass of his South American tour.
One year ago: Brazilian singer, guitarist and songwriter Joao Gilberto, considered one of the fathers of bossa nova music, died at the age of 88. Prosecutors dropped a manslaughter charge against an Alabama woman, Marshae Jones, who had lost her fetus when she was shot during what authorities said was an argument over the fetus’ father.