1947

President Harry S. Truman signed a Presidential Succession Act that placed the speaker of the House and the Senate president pro tempore next in the line of succession after the vice president.

1964

Nearly a week of rioting erupted in New York’s Harlem neighborhood following the fatal police shooting of a Black teenager, James Powell, two days earlier.

1969

Sen. Edward M. Kennedy, D-Mass., left a party on Chappaquiddick Island near Martha’s Vineyard with Mary Jo Kopechne, 28. Kennedy’s car later went off a bridge into the water. Kennedy was able to escape, but Kopechne drowned.