June 7th

Roger Federer of Switzerland became the sixth man in tennis history to win a career Grand Slam and tied Pete Sampras' record of 14 major singles titles when he won the French Open.

In a national first, New Hampshire Episcopalians elected an openly gay man, the Rev. V. Gene Robinson, to be bishop.

A federal judge ordered the breakup of Microsoft Corp.

James Byrd Jr., a 49-year-old African-American man, was chained to a pickup truck and dragged to his death in Jasper, Texas.

A Surinam Airways jet crashes on landing in Paramaribo. The pilots were blamed for the disaster. They had attempted to land using the wrong navigation signal. Of the 187 people on board, 11 survived.

Israeli military planes destroyed a nuclear power plant in Iraq, a facility the Israelis charged could have been used to make nuclear weapons.

Sony introduces the Betamax videocassette recorder for sale to the public.

The world's first Legoland resort opens. The Legoland in Billund, Denmark was the first of six theme parks based around the Lego interlocking plastic bricks. Billund is the home of The Lego Group.

Dorothy Parker, American short story writer, poet, and critic, died.

The Supreme Court of the United States decides on Griswold v. Connecticut, effectively legalizing the use of contraception by married couples.

President Eduard Beneš of Czechoslovakia resigned and the Communist takeover of the country was completed.

King George VI arrived at Niagara Falls, N.Y., from Canada on the first visit to the U.S. by a reigning British monarch.

Vatican City became a sovereign state as copies of the Lateran Treaty were exchanged in Rome.

Homer Plessy was arrested when he refused to leave a whites-only train car in New Orleans. (The case led to the U.S. Supreme Court's landmark 'separate but equal' decision in Plessy v. Ferguson in 1896.).

Postimpressionist painter Paul Gauguin was born in Paris.

Richard Henry Lee of Virginia introduced a resolution in the Continental Congress proposing a Declaration of Independence.

Louis XIV was crowned king of France in Rheims.

English King Charles I ratifies the Petition of Rights.

Spain and Portugal signed the Treaty of Tordesillas, which divided the New World between the two countries.