Today in history

Today is Monday, July 6, the 188th day of 2020. There are 178 days left in the year.

Today’s Highlight 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. On this date:

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 Prizewinning 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.