7th June: Today In History

Today is Wednesday, June 7th, the 158th day of 2017. There are 207 days left in the year.

Today’s Highlight in History:

Events:

1942:  The Battle of Midway ended in a decisive victory for American naval forces over Imperial Japan, marking a turning point in the Pacific War.

1654: King Louis XIV, age 15, was crowned in Rheims, 11 years after the start of his reign.

1776:  Richard Henry Lee of Virginia offered a resolution to the Continental Congress stating “That these United Colonies are, and of right ought to be, free and independent States.”

1892:  Homer Plessy, a “Creole of color,” was arrested for refusing to leave a whites-only car of the East Louisiana Railroad. (Ruling on his case, the U.S. Supreme Court upheld “separate but equal” racial segregation, a concept it renounced in 1954.)

1917:  The Lions Clubs service organization was founded in Chicago. Actor-singer Dean Martin was born Dino Paul Crocetti in Steubenville, Ohio.

1929:  The sovereign state of Vatican City came into existence as copies of the Lateran Treaty were exchanged in Rome.

1937:  Actress Jean Harlow died in Los Angeles at age 26.

1958:  Singer-songwriter Prince was born Prince Rogers Nelson in Minneapolis.

1965:  The U.S. Supreme Court, in Griswold v. Connecticut, struck down, 7-2, a Connecticut law used to prosecute a Planned Parenthood clinic in New Haven for providing contraceptives to married couples.

1967:  The Haight Ashbury Free Medical Clinic opened in San Francisco. Author-critic Dorothy Parker, famed for her caustic wit, died in New York at age 73.

1977:  Britons thronged London to celebrate the silver jubilee of Queen Elizabeth II, who was marking the 25th year of her reign.

1981:  Israeli military planes destroyed a nuclear power plant in Iraq, a facility the Israelis charged could have been used to make nuclear weapons.

1998:  In a crime that shocked the nation, James Byrd Jr., a 49-year-old black man, was hooked by a chain to a pickup truck and dragged to his death in Jasper, Texas. (Two white men were later sentenced to death; one of them, Lawrence Russell Brewer, was executed in 2011. A third defendant received life with the possibility of parole.)

Birthdays:

Movie director James Ivory is 89.

Former Canadian Prime Minister John Turner is 88.

Actress Virginia McKenna is 86.

Singer Tom Jones is 77.

Actor Ronald Pickup is 77.

Poet Nikki Giovanni is 74.

Actor Ken Osmond (TV: “Leave It to Beaver”) is 74.

Former talk show host Jenny Jones is 71. 

Quotes Of The Day:

One of the most important days of your life was the day you were born. The other one will be the day you find out why.

At the end of the day, say thank you and get a good night’s rest.