On this day, June 7 …



1998: In a hate crime that stuns the nation, James Byrd Jr., a 49-year-old black man, is hooked by a chain to a pickup truck and dragged to his death in Jasper, Texas. (Two white men would be sentenced to death; Lawrence Russell Brewer would be executed in 2011, and John William King would be executed in April 2019. A third defendant, Shawn Berry, would receive life with the possibility of parole.)

Also on this day:

1769: Daniel Boone begins to explore present-day Kentucky.

Daniel Boone begins to explore present-day Kentucky. 1892: Homer Plessy, a "Creole of color," is arrested for refusing to leave a whites-only car of the East Louisiana Railroad. (Ruling on his case, the U.S. Supreme Court upholds "separate but equal" racial segregation, a concept it would renounce in 1954.)

Homer Plessy, a "Creole of color," is arrested for refusing to leave a whites-only car of the East Louisiana Railroad. (Ruling on his case, the U.S. Supreme Court upholds "separate but equal" racial segregation, a concept it would renounce in 1954.) 1965: The U.S. Supreme Court, in Griswold v. Connecticut, strikes down, 7-2, a Connecticut law used to prosecute a Planned Parenthood clinic in New Haven for providing contraceptives to married couples

The U.S. Supreme Court, in Griswold v. Connecticut, strikes down, 7-2, a Connecticut law used to prosecute a Planned Parenthood clinic in New Haven for providing contraceptives to married couples 1993: The U.S. Supreme Court rules that religious groups could sometimes meet on school property after hours.

The U.S. Supreme Court rules that religious groups could sometimes meet on school property after hours. 1993: Ground is broken for the Rock & Roll Hall of Fame in Cleveland.

2002: A Norwalk, Conn., Superior Court jury convicts Michael Skakel, nephew of the late Sen. Robert F. Kennedy, in the 1975 murder of Martha Moxley, Skakel’s 15-year-old neighbor, after four days of deliberations.