June 12
1942: Anne Frank, a German-born Jewish girl living in Amsterdam, received a diary for her 13th birthday, less than a month before she and her family went into hiding from the Nazis.
1963: Civil rights leader Medgar Evers, 37, was shot and killed outside his home in Jackson, Mississippi.
1964: Eight South African anti-apartheid activists, including Nelson Mandela, were sentenced to life in prison for acts of sabotage against the apartheid regime.
1994: Nicole Brown Simpson and Ronald Goldman were killed outside Simpson’s Los Angeles home.
June 13
1942: During World War II, a four-man Nazi sabotage team arrived by submarine at Long Island, New York, three days before a second four-man team landed in Florida.
1966: The Supreme Court ruled in Miranda v. Arizona that criminal suspects must be informed of their constitutional rights to remain silent and consult with an attorney.
1971: The New York Times began publishing excerpts of the Pentagon Papers, a top-secret study of America’s involvement in Vietnam since 1945, leaked by military analyst Daniel Ellsberg.
June 14
1775: The Continental Army, forerunner of the United States Army, was created by the Second Continental Congress.
1777: The Second Continental Congress approved the design of the first “stars and stripes” American flag.
1940: German troops entered Paris during World War II; on the same day, the Nazis transported their first prisoners to the Auschwitz concentration camp in German-occupied Poland.
June 15
1215: England’s King John placed his seal on Magna Carta (“the Great Charter”), which curtailed the absolute power of the monarchy.
1775: The Second Continental Congress voted unanimously to appoint George Washington head of the Continental Army.
1934: Great Smoky Mountains National Park, the most-visited national park in the United States, was established by Congress.
June 16
1858: Abraham Lincoln, accepting the Illinois Republican nomination for U.S. Senate, declared, “A house divided against itself cannot stand,” calling for the resolution of the slavery issue.
1903: The Ford Motor Co. was incorporated in Detroit.
1963: Soviet cosmonaut Valentina Tereshkova, 26, became the first woman in space, orbiting Earth 48 times over 71 hours aboard Vostok 6.
June 17
1775: The Revolutionary War Battle of Bunker Hill resulted in a costly British victory, with heavy losses.
1885: The disassembled Statue of Liberty arrived in New York Harbor in 214 crates aboard the French frigate Isère.
1930: President Herbert Hoover signed the Smoot-Hawley Tariff Act, raising U.S. tariffs to historic levels and prompting foreign retaliation.
1994: O.J. Simpson was arrested and charged with murder in the deaths of Nicole Brown Simpson and Ronald Goldman after a slow-speed police chase on Southern California freeways.
June 18
1812: The War of 1812 began as Congress approved, and President James Madison signed, a declaration of war against Britain.
1815: Napoleon Bonaparte was defeated at the Battle of Waterloo as British and Prussian troops overcame the French Imperial Army in Belgium.
1983: Astronaut Sally Ride became the first American woman in space, launching aboard the space shuttle Challenger on a six-day mission.
