Today:
1859: The Comstock Lode, one of the most important silver strikes in American history, was discovered near Virginia City, Nevada.
1898: Filipino rebels, led by Emilio Aguinaldo, declared the independence of the Philippines from Spain.
1939: The National Baseball Hall of Fame and Museum was dedicated in Cooperstown, New York.
1942: Anne Frank received a diary for her 13th birthday, which she would later use to document her family’s time in hiding from the Nazis.
1963: Civil rights leader Medgar Evers was assassinated outside his home in Jackson, Mississippi.
1964: Anti-apartheid activist Nelson Mandela was sentenced to life in prison in South Africa for sabotage.
1967: The U.S. Supreme Court, in Loving v. Virginia, unanimously struck down state laws that prohibited interracial marriage, declaring them unconstitutional.
1981: The action-adventure film “Raiders of the Lost Ark,” the first in the Indiana Jones franchise, was released in theaters.
1987: U.S. President Ronald Reagan delivered his famous “Tear Down This Wall” speech at the Brandenburg Gate in West Berlin, challenging Soviet leader Mikhail Gorbachev.
1991: Boris Yeltsin was elected as the first president of the Russian Federation.