Today’s Highlights

On June 11, 1963, the University of Alabama was desegregated as Vivian Malone and James Hood became the first two Black students allowed to enroll in classes; Alabama segregationist and Gov. George Wallace initially blocked the doorway to the auditorium where course registration was taking place, delivering a speech before deferring to National Guard orders to move.

On this date

1962: Frank Morris, Clarence Anglin and John Anglin, prisoners at Alcatraz Federal Penitentiary in San Francisco Bay, staged an escape, leaving the island on a makeshift raft. They were never found or heard from again.

1963: Vietnamese Buddhist monk Thích Quang Ðuc lit himself on fire on a Saigon street as a protest against the Vietnamese government’s persecution of Buddhists.

1987: Margaret Thatcher became the first British prime minister in over 160 years to win a third consecutive term of office as her Conservative Party held onto a reduced majority in Parliament.

2001: Timothy McVeigh, 33, was executed by lethal injection at the federal prison in Terre Haute, Indiana, for the 1995 Oklahoma City bombing that killed 168 people.

Today’s birthdays

Drummer Bernard Purdie is 86. International Motorsports Hall of Famer Jackie Stewart is 86. Rock musician Frank Beard is 76. Singer Graham Russell (Air Supply) is 75. Football Hall of Famer Joe Montana is 69. Actor Hugh Laurie is 66. TV personality and current Medicare Administrator Mehmet Oz is 65. Actor Peter Dinklage is 56. Actor Joshua Jackson is 47.