Today in History

A June 8th Miscellany

1874: Chief Cochise, one of the great leaders of the Apache Indians in their battles with the Anglo-Americans, dies on the Chiricahua reservation in southeastern Arizona.

1949: George Orwell’s novel of a dystopian future, 1984, is published on June 8, 1949. The novel’s all-seeing leader, known as “Big Brother,” becomes a universal symbol for intrusive government and oppressive bureaucracy. (English, I know, but significant.)

1953: The Supreme Court forbids segregated lunch counters in Washington, D.C.

1965: President Lyndon Johnson authorizes commanders in Vietnam to commit U.S. ground forces to combat.

1968: James Earl Ray is arrested in London, England, and charged with the assassination of African American civil rights leader Martin Luther King, Jr.

1968: Three days after falling to an assassin’s bullet in California, Senator Robert F. Kennedy is laid to rest at Arlington National Cemetery in Virginia, just 30 yards from the grave of his assassinated older brother, President John F. Kennedy.