Today in history: June 12

Today is Wednesday, June 12, the 164th day of 2024. There are 202 days left in the year.

Today’s Highlight in History:

On June 12, 2016, a gunman opened fire at the Pulse nightclub, a gay establishment in Orlando, Florida, leaving 49 people dead and 53 wounded; Omar Mateen pledged allegiance to the Islamic State group during a three-hour standoff before being killed in a shootout with police.

On this date:

In 1630, Englishman John Winthrop, leading a fleet carrying Puritan refugees, arrived at the Massachusetts Bay Colony, where he became its governor.

In 1776, Virginia’s colonial legislature adopted a Declaration of Rights.

In 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.

In 1963, civil rights leader Medgar Evers, 37, was shot and killed outside his home in Jackson, Mississippi. (In 1994, Byron De La Beckwith was convicted of murdering Evers and sentenced to life in prison; he died in 2001.)

In 1964, South African Black nationalist Nelson Mandela was sentenced to life in prison along with seven other people, including Walter Sisulu, for committing sabotage against the apartheid regime (all were eventually released, Mandela in 1990).

In 1967, the U.S. Supreme Court, in Loving v. Virginia, unanimously struck down state laws prohibiting interracial marriages.

In 1978, David Berkowitz was sentenced to 25 years to life in prison for each of the six “Son of Sam” .44-caliber killings that terrified New Yorkers.

In 1987, President Ronald Reagan, during a visit to the divided German city of Berlin, exhorted Soviet leader Mikhail S. Gorbachev to “tear down this wall.”

In 1991, Russians went to the polls to elect Boris N. Yeltsin president of their republic.

In 1994, Nicole Brown Simpson and Ronald Goldman were slashed to death outside her Los Angeles home. (O.J. Simpson was later acquitted of the killings in a criminal trial but was eventually held liable in a civil action.)

In 2004, former President Ronald Reagan’s body was sealed inside a tomb at his presidential library in Simi Valley, California, following a week of mourning and remembrance by world leaders and regular Americans.

In 2020, Rayshard Brooks, a 27-year-old Black man, was shot and killed by one of the two white officers who responded after he was found asleep in his car in the drive-thru lane of a Wendy’s restaurant in Atlanta; police body camera video showed Brooks struggling with the officers and grabbing a Taser from one of them, firing it as he fled.

Today’s Birthdays: Sportscaster Marv Albert is 84. Singer Roy Harper is 84. Actor Roger Aaron Brown is 76. Actor Sonia Manzano is 74. Rock musician Bun E. Carlos (Cheap Trick) is 73. Country singer-musician Junior Brown is 72. Singer-songwriter Rocky Burnette is 71. Actor Timothy Busfield is 67. Singer Meredith Brooks is 66. Actor Jenilee Harrison is 66. Rock musician John Linnell (They Might Be Giants) is 65. Actor John Enos is 62. Rapper Grandmaster Dee (Whodini) is 62. Actor Paul Schulze is 62. Actor Eamonn Walker is 62. Actor Paula Marshall is 60. Actor Frances O’Connor is 57. Actor Rick Hoffman is 54. Actor-comedian Finesse Mitchell is 52. Actor Mel Rodriguez is 51. Actor Jason Mewes is 50. Actor Michael Muhney is 49. Blues musician Kenny Wayne Shepherd is 47. Actor Timothy Simons is 46. Actor Wil Horneff is 45. Singer Robyn is 45. Rock singer-musician John Gourley (Portugal. The Man) is 44. Actor Dave Franco is 39. Country singer Chris Young is 39. Actor Luke Youngblood is 38. Actor Ryan Malgarini is 32.