Denali National Park

First successful ascent of Denali

Born on This Day

US singer Prince performs on October 11,

Prince

1958 - 2016

Singer and songwriter whose flamboyant style and musical prowess led to hits such as "Purple Rain," "When Doves Cry" and "Kiss."

Dean Martin

Dean Martin

1917 - 1995

Singer and actor who found fame with comedian Jerry Lewis, palled around with the "Rat Pack" and became a TV staple starting in the 1960s.

Gwendolyn Brooks At Her Typewriter

Gwendolyn Brooks

1917 - 2000

The first African American to win the Pulitzer Prize for poetry, Brooks used her work to explore the urban African American experience.

PrinceAFP via Getty Images

Dean MartinGetty Images

Gwendolyn BrooksBettmann Archive

1958

JUN7

Berry Gordy Jr. launches Tamla Records in Detroit with an $800 loan. The label, later known as Motown, became a cultural powerhouse, with its artists delivering 110 Top 10 hits between 1961 and 1971 alone.

Timeline

Also on This Day in History

Discover more of the major events, famous births, notable deaths and everything else history-making that happened on June 7th

Earthquake destroys Jamaican town

On June 7, 1692, a massive earthquake devastates the town of Port Royal in Jamaica, killing thousands. The strong tremors, soil liquefaction and a tsunami brought on by the earthquake combined to destroy the entire town. Port Royal was built on a peninsula off the coast of Jamaica in the harbor across from present-day Kingston. […]

Lee Resolution presented to Continental Congress

On June 7, 1776, Richard Henry Lee of Virginia introduces a resolution for independence to the Continental Congress in Philadelphia; John Adams seconds the motion. Lee’s resolution declared: “That these United Colonies are, and of right out to be, free and independent States, that they are absolved from all allegiance to the British Crown, and […]

Chief Seattle dies near the city named for him

Thirteen years after American settlers founded the city named for him, Chief Seattle dies in a nearby village of his people. Born sometime around 1790, Seattle (Seathl) was a chief of the Duwamish and Suquamish tribes who lived around the Pacific Coast bay that is today called Puget Sound. He was the son of a […]

Gandhi’s first act of civil disobedience

In an event that would have dramatic repercussions for the people of India, Mohandas K. Gandhi, a young Indian lawyer working in South Africa, refuses to comply with racial segregation rules on a South African train and is forcibly ejected at Pietermaritzburg. Born in India and educated in England, Gandhi traveled to South Africa in […]

Actress Jean Harlow, 26, dies suddenly

On June 7, 1937, Hollywood is shocked to learn of the sudden and tragic death of the actress Jean Harlow, who succumbs to uremic poisoning (now better known as acute renal failure, or acute kidney failure) at the age of 26. Born Harlean Carpenter in Kansas City, Missouri, she moved with her mother to Los […]

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King George VI becomes the first British monarch to visit the U.S.

King George VI becomes the first reigning British monarch to visit the United States when he and his wife, Elizabeth, cross the Canadian-U.S. border to Niagara Falls, New York. The royal couple subsequently visited New York City and Washington, D.C., where they called for a greater U.S. role in resolving the crisis in Europe. On […]

Battle of Midway ends

On June 7, 1942, the Battle of Midway—one of the most decisive U.S. victories in its war against Japan—comes to an end. In the four-day sea and air battle, the outnumbered U.S. Pacific Fleet succeeded in destroying four Japanese aircraft carriers with the loss of only one of its own, the Yorktown, thus reversing the […]

U.S. Supreme Court strikes down Connecticut law banning contraception

On June 7, 1965, the U.S. Supreme Court strikes down a Connecticut law banning contraception in the case Griswold vs. Connecticut. This landmark ruling regarding the right to privacy is cited in future significant cases, including Roe v. Wade, which established a constitutional right to abortion in 1973. The court case began in 1961, when […]

Ronald Reagan nominated for governor of California

A former actor named Ronald Reagan receives the Republican nomination for governor of California on June 7, 1966. He won the election that November and was sworn in on January 2, 1967. Reagan’s tenure as the Golden State’s governor gave him credibility as a political leader, paving the way for his victory in the 1980 […]

Mr. Rogers airs special episode addressing the assassination of Robert F. Kennedy

On June 7, 1968, two days after an assassin’s bullet felled Democratic presidential hopeful Robert F. Kennedy, Fred Rogers, soft-spoken host of the children’s public television show “Mr. Rogers’ Neighborhood,” dedicates an episode to explaining the national tragedy to his young, largely pre-school audience. Kennedy’s shocking murder, at a California campaign event, came just two […]

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“New York” magazine publishes the story that becomes “Saturday Night Fever”

The article that inspired the blockbuster movie Saturday Night Fever—”The Tribal Rites of the New Saturday Night,” by journalist Nik Cohn—was published on this day in 1976 in the June 7 issue of New York magazine. Disco as a musical style predated the movie Saturday Night Fever by perhaps as many as five years, but […]

Texas passes a bill becoming the first state in the nation to make Juneteenth an official state holiday

A celebration that has persisted for over a century receives its first official recognition on June 7, 1979, as the Texas Legislature passes a bill declaring Juneteenth a state holiday. The annual June 19 celebration of the Emancipation Proclamation—not the announcement itself, but the arrival of the news of the proclamation in Texas—is now officially observed […]

Michael Skakel convicted of 1975 murder in Greenwich

On June 7, 2002, 41-year-old Michael Skakel is convicted in the 1975 murder of his former Greenwich, Connecticut, neighbor, 15-year-old Martha Moxley. Skakel, a nephew of Ethel Kennedy, the wife of the late U.S. Senator Robert Kennedy, was later sentenced to 20 years to life in prison. On October 30, 1975, Moxley was bludgeoned to […]

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