TODAY IN HISTORY

TODAY’S HIGHLIGHT

June 8, 1968

Authorities announced the capture in London of James Earl Ray, the suspected assassin of civil rights leader Dr. Martin Luther King Jr.

ALSO ON THIS DATE

1042

Edward the Confessor became King of England, beginning a reign of 231⁄2 years.

1845

Andrew Jackson, seventh president of the United States, died in Nashville, Tennessee.

1917

During World War I, Maj. Gen. John J. Pershing, commander of the American Expeditionary Force, arrived in Liverpool, England, while en route to France; also, the 1st Expeditionary Division was organized at Fort Jay in NewYork.

1939

Britain’s King George VI and his consort, Queen Elizabeth, arrived in Washington, D.C., where they were received at the White House by President Franklin D. Roosevelt.

1953

The U.S. Supreme Court ruled unanimously that restaurants in the District of Columbia could not refuse to serve blacks. Eight tornadoes struck Michigan’s Lower Peninsula, killing 126people.

1967

During the six-day Middle East war, 34American servicemen were killed when Israel attacked the USS Liberty, a Navy intelligencegathering ship in the Mediterranean Sea.

1987

Fawn Hall began testifying at the Iran-Contra hearings, describing how, as secretary to National Security aide Oliver L. North, she had helped shred some documents and spirit away others.

2017

Former FBI Director James Comey, testifying before Congress, asserted that President Donald Trump fired him to interfere with his investigation of Russia’s ties to the Trump campaign.