TODAY IN HISTORY

TODAY’S HIGHLIGHT 1963

More than 200,000 people listened as the Rev. Martin Luther King Jr. delivered his “I Have a Dream” speech in front of the Lincoln Memorial in Washington, D.C.

ALSO ON THIS DATE 1941

Japan’s ambassador to the U.S., Kichisaburo Nomura, presented a note to President Franklin D. Roosevelt from Japan’s prime minister, Prince Fumimaro Konoye, expressing a desire for improved relations.

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.

1964

Two days of race-related rioting erupted in North Philadelphia over a false rumor that white police officers had beaten to death a pregnant Black woman.

1968

Police and anti-war demonstrators clashed in the streets of Chicago as the Democratic National Convention nominated Hubert H. Humphrey for president.

1988

70 people were killed when three Italian stunt planes collided during an air show at the U.S. Air Base in Ramstein, West Germany.

1996

The troubled 15-year marriage of Britain’s Prince Charles and Princess Diana officially ended with the issuing of a divorce decree.

2005

New Orleans Mayor Ray Nagin ordered everyone in the city to evacuate after Hurricane Katrina grew to a huge storm.

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 sedative lorazepam.