Nicole Brown Simpson and Ronald Goldman killed – Chicago Tribune

Today is Wednesday, June 12, the 164th day of the year 2024. There are 202 days left in the year.

Today’s highlight of the story:

On June 12, 1994, Nicole Brown Simpson and Ronald Goldman were massacred outside their Los Angeles home. (OJ Simpson was later acquitted of murder charges in a criminal trial, but was found responsible in a civil case.)

Related: The OJ Simpson case put domestic violence in the spotlight and fueled a movement

On this date:

In 1630, the Englishman John Winthrop reached the Massachusetts Bay Colony at the head of a fleet of Puritan refugees, where he became governor.

In 1776, Virginia’s colonial legislature passed a Declaration of Rights.

In 1942, Anne Frank, a German-born Jewish girl living in Amsterdam, received a diary for her 13th birthday, less than a month before she and her family went into hiding from the Nazis.

In 1963, 37-year-old civil rights activist Medgar Evers was shot to death outside his home in Jackson, Mississippi. (In 1994, Byron De La Beckwith was sentenced to life in prison for Evers’ murder; he died in 2001.)

In 1964, South African black nationalist Nelson Mandela was sentenced to life imprisonment along with seven others, including Walter Sisulu, for sabotage against the apartheid regime (all were eventually released, Mandela in 1990).

In 1967, in Loving v. Virginia, the U.S. Supreme Court unanimously struck down state laws banning interracial marriage.

In 1978, David Berkowitz was sentenced to 25 years to life in prison for each of the six “Son of Sam” .44 pistol murders that had terrified New Yorkers.

In 1987, during a visit to divided Berlin, Germany, President Ronald Reagan called on Soviet leader Mikhail S. Gorbachev to “tear down this wall.”

In 1991, the Russians elected Boris N. Yeltsin as president of their republic.

In 2004, the body of former President Ronald Reagan was sealed in a crypt in his presidential library in Simi Valley, California, after a week of mourning and remembrance by world leaders and the general public.

In 2016, a gunman opened fire at Pulse nightclub, a gay bar in Orlando, Florida, killing 49 people and injuring 53. Omar Mateen pledged allegiance to the Islamic State group during a three-hour standoff before being killed in a shootout with police.

In 2020, Rayshard Brooks, a 27-year-old Black man, was shot and killed by one of the two white police officers who responded after he was found sleeping in his car in the drive-thru lane of a Wendy’s restaurant in Atlanta. Police bodycam video showed Brooks struggling with the officers and wrestling a Taser from one of them, which he fired as he fled.

Birthdays today: Sports reporter Marv Albert is 84. Singer Roy Harper is 84. Actor Roger Aaron Brown is 76. Actress Sonia Manzano is 74. Rock musician Bun E. Carlos (Cheap Trick) is 73. Country singer and musician Junior Brown is 72. Singer-songwriter Rocky Burnette is 71. Actor Timothy Busfield is 67. Singer Meredith Brooks is 66. Actress Jenilee Harrison is 66. Rock musician John Linnell (They Might Be Giants) is 65. Actor John Enos is 62. Rapper Grandmaster Dee (Whodini) is 62. Actor Paul Schulze is 62. Actor Eamonn Walker is 62. Actress Paula Marshall is 60. Actor Frances O’Connor is 57. Actor Rick Hoffman is 54. Actor and comedian Finesse Mitchell is 52. Actor Mel Rodriguez is 51. Actor Jason Mewes is 50. Actor Michael Muhney is 49. Blues musician Kenny Wayne Shepherd is 47. Actor Timothy Simons is 46. Actor Wil Horneff is 45. Singer Robyn is 45. Rock singer and musician John Gourley (Portugal. The Man) is 44. Actor Dave Franco is 39. Country singer Chris Young is 39. Actor Luke Youngblood is 38. Actor Ryan Malgarini is 32.