1735 Freedom of the press was established with an acquittal of John Peter Zenger. The writer of the New York Weekly Journal had been charged with seditious libel by the royal governor of New York. That jury said, "The truth is not libelous."
1892 Andrew and Abby Borden were axed to death in their home in Fall River, MA. Lizzie, Andrew's daughter, was accused of the killings but was later acquitted.
1922 The death of Alexander Graham Bell, two days earlier, was recognized by AT&T and the Bell Systems by shutting down all of its switchboards and switching stations. The shutdown affected 13 million phones.
1944 Nazi police raided a house in Amsterdam and arrested eight people. Anne Frank, a teenager at the time, was one of the people arrested. Her diary would be published after her death.
1957 Florence Chadwick set a world record by swimming the English Channel in 6 hours and 7 minutes.
1964 The bodies of Michael H. Schwerner, James E. Chaney and Andrew Goodman were found in an earthen dam in Mississippi. The three were civil rights workers. They had disappeared on June 21, 1964.
1983 New York Yankee outfielder, Dave Winfield, threw a baseball during warm-ups and accidentally killed a seagull. After the game, Toronto police arrested him for "causing unnecessary suffering to an animal."
1987 The Fairness Doctrine was rescinded by the Federal Communications Commission. The doctrine had required that radio and TV stations present controversial issues in a balanced fashion. 1993 Los Angeles police officers, Stacey Koon and Laurence Powell, were sentenced to 2 1/2 years in prison for violating Rodney King's civil rights.
