On June 8, 632, the Prophet Muhammad died; he was believed to be in his early 60s.
In 1625 French astronomer Gian Domenico Cassini was born in Perinaldo in present-day Italy.
In 1809 American revolutionary and pamphleteer Thomas Paine died in New York; he was 72.
In 1810 romantic composer Robert Schumann was born in Zwickau, Germany.
In 1845 Andrew Jackson, the nation’s seventh president, died in Nashville; he was 78.
In 1861 Tennessee seceded from the Union.
In 1867 architect Frank Lloyd Wright was born in Richland Center, Wis.
In 1874 Apache Indian leader Cochise died in present-day Arizona.
In 1876 author George Sand died in Nohant, France; she was 71.
In 1905 President Theodore Roosevelt offered to act as a mediator in the Russo-Japanese War.
In 1915 Secretary of State William Jennings Bryan resigned in a disagreement over U.S. handling of the sinking of the Lusitania by Germany in World War I.
In 1921 Suharto, leader of Indonesia from 1966 to 1998, was born in Java.
In 1925 Barbara Bush, wife of former President George H.W. Bush, was born in Rye, N.Y.
In 1947 mystery writer Sara Paretsky was born in Ames, Iowa.
In 1948 ”Texaco Star Theater,” the long-running television variety program, made its debut on NBC with Milton Berle as guest host. (Three months later, Berle became the show’s permanent host.)
In 1953 the Supreme Court ruled that restaurants in the District of Columbia could not refuse to serve blacks.
In 1955 Tim Berners-Lee, the computer scientist generally acknowledged as the inventor of the World Wide Web, was born in London.
In 1957 cartoonist Scott Adams, the creator of the comic strip “Dilbert,” was born in Windham, N.Y.
In 1966 a merger was announced between the National and American Football Leagues, to take effect in 1970.
In 1967 Israeli torpedo boats and planes raided the U.S. communications ship Liberty, resulting in the deaths of 34 American seamen, during the Arab-Israeli Six-Day War. (Israel later called the attack a mistake.)
In 1968 James Earl Ray, indicted in the assassination of Martin Luther King Jr., was arrested in London.
In 1970 psychologist and philosopher Abraham Maslow died in Menlo Park, Calif.; he was 62.
In 1978 a Clark County, Nev., jury ruled that the “Mormon will” purportedly written by the late billionaire Howard Hughes was a forgery.
In 1982 Ronald Reagan became the first U.S. president to address the British Parliament. Also in 1982 Negro Leagues pitching legend Leroy “Satchel” Paige died in Kansas City, Mo.; he was 75.
In 1987 Fawn Hall, secretary to national security aide Oliver North, testified at the Iran-contra hearings, saying she had helped to shred some documents.
In 1994 President Bill Clinton received an honorary degree from Oxford University, where he had studied as a Rhodes scholar.
In 1995 U.S. Marines rescued Capt. Scott O’Grady, whose F-16-C fighter jet had been shot down by Bosnian Serbs on June 2. Also in 1995 Mickey Mantle received a liver transplant at a Dallas hospital; however, the baseball great succumbed to disease two months later.
In 1996 China set off an underground nuclear test blast. Also in 1996 Editor’s Note won the Belmont Stakes.
In 1998 actor Charlton Heston was elected president of the National Rifle Association.
In 2000 Jeff MacNelly, Pulitzer Prize-winning Chicago Tribune editorial cartoonist and creator of the comic strip “Shoe,” died in Baltimore; he was 52.
In 2001, in a crime that stunned Japan, a knife-wielding man killed eight children at an Osaka elementary school.
In 2003 Poles voted to join the European Union in 2004. Also in 2003 “Hairspray” won eight Tony Awards, including best musical.
In 2004 the UN Security Council gave unanimous approval to a resolution endorsing the transfer of sovereignty to Iraq’s new government by the end of June. Also in 2004, in a celestial rarity, Venus lined up between the sun and the Earth.
In 2005 former Boston Bruins star Cam Neely, the late Valeri Kharlamov and Murray Costello were named to the Hockey Hall of Fame.
