Today in History
Today is Monday, July 6, the 187th day of 2026. There are 178 days left in the year.
Today in History:
On July 6, 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.
Also on this date:
In 1777, during the American Revolution, British forces captured Fort Ticonderoga (ty-kahn-dur-OH’-gah).
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 behind winning pitcher Lefty Gomez of the New York Yankees.
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 1967, Nigerian forces invaded the Republic of Biafra, sparking the Nigerian Civil War.
In 1988, 167 North Sea oil workers were killed when explosions and fires destroyed a drilling platform.
In 2013, an Asiana Airlines Boeing 777 from Seoul, South Korea, crashed while landing at San Francisco International Airport, killing three passengers and injuring 181.
In 2016, Philando Castile, a Black elementary school cafeteria worker, was fatally shot during a traffic stop in a suburb of St. Paul, Minnesota, by St. Anthony Police Officer Jeronimo Yanez. (Yanez was later acquitted on a charge of second-degree manslaughter.)
In 2018, six followers of the Aum Shinrikyo doomsday cult were hanged along with its leader, Shoko Asahara; they had been convicted of crimes including a 1995 sarin gas attack that killed 13 people and made thousands of others sick on the Tokyo subway system.
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 later halted by President Joseph Biden’s administration but was formally completed in 2026 during Trump’s second term.)
In 2024, Sonya Massey, a Black woman who had dialed 911 to report a possible prowler outside her Springfield, Illinois, home, was fatally shot by Sangamon County Sheriff’s Deputy Sean Grayson; Grayson, who testified at trial that he feared Massey was about to scald him with a pot of steaming hot water that she had removed from the stove, was convicted of second-degree murder and sentenced to 20 years in prison.
Today’s Birthdays: The 14th Dalai Lama, Tenzin Gyatso, is 91. Singer Gene Chandler (“Duke of Earl”) is 89. Actor Burt Ward (TV: “Batman”) is 81. Former President George W. Bush is 80. Actor-director Sylvester Stallone is 80. Actor Geoffrey Rush is 75. Retired MLB All-Star Willie Randolph is 72. Former first daughter Susan Ford Bales is 69. Actor-writer Jennifer Saunders (“Absolutely Fabulous”) is 68. Actor Brian Posehn is 60. Political reporter/moderator John Dickerson is 58. Rapper Inspectah Deck (Wu-Tang Clan) is 56. Rapper 50 Cent is 51. Actors Tia and Tamera Mowry (MOHR’-ee) are 48. Comedian-actor Kevin Hart is 47. Actor Eva Green is 46. San Diego Padres infielder Manny Machado is 34. NBA power forward Zion Williamson is 26.
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