Today’s Highlight in History:
On July 6, 1483, England’s King Richard III was crowned in Westminster Abbey.
On this date:
In 1777, during the American Revolution, British forces captured Fort Ticonderoga (ty-kahn-dur-OH’-gah).
In 1854, the first official meeting of the Republican Party took place in Jackson, Michigan.
In 1885, French scientist Louis Pasteur tested an anti-rabies vaccine on 9-year-old Joseph Meister, who had been bitten by an infected dog; the boy did not develop rabies.
In 1933, the first All-Star baseball game was played at Chicago’s Comiskey Park; the American League defeated the National League, 4-2.
In 1942, Anne Frank, her parents and sister entered a “secret annex” in an Amsterdam building where they were later joined by four other people; they hid from Nazi occupiers for two years before being discovered and arrested.
In 1944, an estimated 168 people died in a fire that broke out during a performance in the main tent of the Ringling Bros. and Barnum & Bailey Circus in Hartford, Connecticut.
In 1945, President Harry S. Truman signed an executive order establishing the Medal of Freedom.
In 1957, Althea Gibson became the first Black tennis player to win a Wimbledon singles title as she defeated fellow American Darlene Hard 6-3, 6-2.
In 1988, 167 North Sea oil workers were killed when explosions and fires destroyed a drilling platform.
In 2012: At a 100-nation conference in Paris, U.S. Secretary of State Hillary Rodham Clinton hailed an accelerating wave of defections in President Bashar Assad’s inner circle as the United States and its international allies pleaded once again for global sanctions against the Syrian regime. Former neighborhood watch volunteer George Zimmerman was released from jail in Florida for a second time while he awaited his second-degree murder trial for fatally shooting Trayvon Martin. (Zimmerman was acquitted.)
In 2015, Pope Francis received a hero’s welcome in Guayaquil, Ecuador’s biggest city, as he celebrated the first public Mass of his South American tour.
In 2016, Philando Castile, a Black elementary school cafeteria worker, was killed during a traffic stop in the St. Paul suburb of Falcon Heights by Officer Jeronimo Yanez. (Yanez was later acquitted on a charge of second-degree manslaughter.)
In 2017: The maker of opioid painkiller Opana ER said it would stop selling the drug at the request of the Food and Drug Administration in an effort to curb abuse.
In 2020, the Trump administration formally notified the United Nations of its withdrawal from the World Health Organization; President Donald Trump had criticized the WHO’s response to the coronavirus pandemic. (The pullout was halted by President Joe Biden’s administration.) Amy Cooper, the white woman who called police during a videotaped dispute with a Black man in New York’s Central Park, was charged with filing a false report. (The case would be dismissed after Cooper completed a counseling program.)
In 2021: Brooklyn Borough President Eric Adams won the Democratic primary for mayor of New York City, defeating a large field in New York’s first major race to use ranked choice voting. (Adams would be elected mayor in November.) Filmmaker and actor Robert Downey Sr. died at 85; he was the father of film star Robert Downey Jr.
Celebrity Birthdays
July 6: Singer Gene Chandler is 83. Country singer Jeannie Seely is 83. Actor Burt Ward (“Batman”) is 78. Actor Fred Dryer is 77. Actor Sylvester Stallone is 77. Actor Shelley Hack (TV’s “Charlie’s Angels”) is 76. Actor Allyce Beasley (“Moonlighting”) is 72. Actor Geoffrey Rush is 72. Actor Grant Goodeve (“Eight is Enough”) is 71. Jazz trumpeter Rick Braun is 68. Actor Casey Sander (“Grace Under Fire”) is 68. Actor Jennifer Saunders (“Absolutely Fabulous”) is 65. Drummer John Keeble of Spandau Ballet is 64. Actor Pip Torrens (“The Crown”) is 63. Actor Brian Posehn (“Just Shoot Me”) is 57. Actor Robb Derringer (“Days of Our Lives”) is 56. “CBS This Morning” co-host John Dickerson is 55. Rapper Inspectah Deck of Wu-Tang Clan is 53. NBC Sports correspondent and former “Good Morning America” host Josh Elliott is 52. Rapper 50 Cent is 48. Actors Tia and Tamera Mowry (“Sister, Sister”) are 45. Comedian Kevin Hart is 44. Actor Eva Green (“Penny Dreadful”) is 43. Drummer Chris Wood of Bastille is 38. Actor Jeremy Suarez (“Bernie Mac”) is 33.