June 5
1794: Congress passed the Neutrality Act, which prohibited Americans from taking part in any military action against a country that was at peace with the United States.
1968: Sen. Robert F. Kennedy was shot and mortally wounded at the Ambassador Hotel in Los Angeles; assassin Sirhan Bishara Sirhan was arrested at the scene.
2002: Fourteen-year-old Elizabeth Smart was abducted from her Salt Lake City home.
June 6
1844: The Young Men’s Christian Association (YMCA) was founded in London.
1939: The first Little League Baseball game was played in Williamsport, Pennsylvania.
1944: During World War II, nearly 160,000 Allied troops landed in Normandy, France, on D-Day as they launched Operation Overlord to liberate German-occupied Western Europe. More than 4,400 Allied troops were killed on D-Day, including 2,501 Americans.
June 7
1776: Richard Henry Lee of Virginia offered a resolution to the Continental Congress stating “these united colonies are and of right ought to be free and independent States.”
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.
June 8
A.D. 632: The prophet Muhammad died in Medina.
1867: Modern American architect Frank Lloyd Wright was born in Richland Center, Wisconsin.
1968: Authorities announced the capture in London of James Earl Ray, the suspected assassin of civil rights leader Dr. Martin Luther King Jr.
2018: Celebrity chef, author, and CNN host Anthony Bourdain was found dead in his hotel room in eastern France in what authorities determined was a suicide.
June 9
1732: James Oglethorpe received a charter from Britain’s King George II to found the colony of Georgia.
1870: Author Charles Dickens died in Gad’s Hill Place, England.
1915: Guitarist, songwriter, and inventor Les Paul was born in Waukesha, Wisconsin.
1983: Britain’s Conservatives, led by Prime Minister Margaret Thatcher, won a decisive election victory.
June 10
1692: The first execution resulting from the Salem witch trials in Massachusetts took place as Bridget Bishop was hanged.
1935: Alcoholics Anonymous was founded by Dr. Robert Holbrook Smith and William Griffith Wilson.
1977: James Earl Ray, the convicted assassin of civil rights leader Martin Luther King Jr., escaped from Brushy Mountain State Prison in Tennessee with six others.
June 11
1509: England’s King Henry VIII married his first wife, Catherine of Aragon.
1770: Captain James Cook, commander of the British ship Endeavour, “discovered” the Great Barrier Reef off Australia by running onto it.
1955: In motor racing’s worst disaster, more than 80 people were killed during the 24 Hours of Le Mans in France when two of the cars collided and crashed into spectators.
1962: Three prisoners at Alcatraz in San Francisco Bay staged an escape, leaving the island on a makeshift raft; they were never found or heard from again.
2001: Timothy McVeigh was executed by injection for the 1995 Oklahoma City bombing that killed 168 people.
