1851 – Harriet Beecher Stowe’s anti-slavery serial Uncle Tom’s Cabin starts a ten-month run in the National Era abolitionist newspaper.
1916 – Louis Brandeis is sworn in as a Justice of the Supreme Court. He is the first American Jew to hold such a position.
1933 – Congress ends the use of the gold standard in the U.S, passing a law that nullifies the right of creditors to demand payment in gold.
1956 – Elvis Presley introduces his new single “Hound Dog” on The Milton Berle Show, scandalizing the audience with his suggestive hip movements.
1967 – The Six-Day War began between Israel and the Arab states of Egypt, Syria and Jordan.
1968 – Sen. Robert Kennedy was shot by Sirhan Sirhan, a Palestinian immigrant, in Los Angeles. Kennedy died the next day.
1976 – The Teton River Dam in Idaho collapses, flooding 300 square miles and causing an estimated $1 billion in damage.
1981 – The Centers for Disease Control and Prevention reports that five people in Los Angeles have a rare form of pneumonia seen only in patients with weakened immune systems, in what turns out to be the first recognized cases of AIDS.
2004 – Former President Ronald Reagan died at the age of 93 of complications from Alzheimer’s disease.
