June 7
Today is Friday, June 7, the 159th day of 2024. There are 207 days left in the year.
Today’s Highlight in History:
On June 7, 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. The law was based on the Comstock Act, a federal law dating back to 1873, prohibiting the distribution of contraceptives, deeming them “obscene and illicit.” The High Courts’ decision relied on the 1st, 3rd, 4th, 5th and 9th Amendments, the latter which states, “The enumeration in the Constitution, of certain rights, shall not be construed to deny or disparage others retained by the people.”
On this date:
In 1712, Pennsylvania’s colonial assembly voted to ban the further importation of enslaved people.
In 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.”
In 1848, French painter and sculptor Paul Gauguin was born in Paris.
In 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.)
In 1929, the sovereign state of Vatican City came into existence as copies of the Lateran Treaty were exchanged in Rome.
In 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.
In 1967, author-critic Dorothy Parker, famed for her caustic wit, died in New York at age 73.
In 1981, Israeli military planes destroyed a nuclear power plant in Iraq, a facility the Israelis charged could have been used to make nuclear weapons.
In 1993, Ground was broken for the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame in Cleveland.
In 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 for the crime.)
In 2021, Maggie Murdaugh, 52, and her son Paul Murdaugh, 22, from a prominent South Carolina legal family, were found shot and killed on their family’s land. (In the aftermath of the deaths, Maggie Murdaugh’s husband, Alex Murdaugh, would be jailed on dozens of charges, including the theft of millions of dollars in legal settlements.)
In 2006, Abu Musab al-Zarqawi (AH’-boo MOO’-sahb ahl-zahr-KOW’-ee), the founder of al-Qaida in Iraq, was killed by a U.S. airstrike on his safe house.
In 2013, Death row inmate Richard Ramirez, 53, the serial killer known as California’s “Night Stalker,” died in a hospital.
In 2016, Democrat Hillary Clinton and Republican Donald Trump claimed their parties’ presidential nominations following contests in New Jersey, California, Montana, New Mexico, North Dakota and South Dakota.
In 2018, the Washington Capitals claimed their first NHL title with a victory over the Vegas Golden Knights in Game 5 of the Stanley Cup Final in Las Vegas.
In 2022, Russia claimed to have nearly taken full control of one of the two provinces that make up Ukraine’s Donbas, bringing the Kremlin closer to its goal of capturing the eastern industrial heartland of coal mines and factories.
In 2023, smoke from Canadian wildfires poured into the U.S. East Coast and Midwest, covering the capitals of both nations in an unhealthy haze, holding up flights at major airports and prompting people to fish out the face masks of the coronavirus pandemic.
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