Today’s Highlights

On June 7, 1998, in a crime that shocked the nation and led to stronger state and federal hate crime laws, 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 and executed for the crime; a third was sentenced to life in prison.)

On this date

1929: The sovereign state of Vatican City formally came into existence as the Italian Parliament ratified the Lateran Treaty in Rome.

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.

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.

1979: Texas became the first state to recognize Juneteenth as an official state holiday. (Juneteenth became a federal holiday in 2021.)

1982: Graceland, Elvis Presley’s Memphis mansion, was opened to the public as a tourist destination, five years after Presley’s death.

Today’s birthdays

Filmmaker James Ivory is 97. Singer Tom Jones is 85. Actor Liam Neeson is 73. Author Orhan Pamuk is 73. Author Louise Erdrich is 71. Music producer L.A. Reid is 69. Musician Juan Luis Guerra is 68. Former Vice President Mike Pence is 66. Rock musician-TV host Dave Navarro is 58. Sen. Ben Ray Luján, D-N.M., is 53. Actor Karl Urban is 53. TV personality Bear Grylls is 51. Basketball Hall of Famer Allen Iverson is 50.