POPnews - June 7th

[First opened to the public on this day in 1982, Graceland was was listed in the National Register of Historic Places in November 1991 and declared a National Historic Landmark on March 2006.  It remains the second most-visited private home in America - after the White House.]
1099 - The Siege of Jerusalem began; taking back the city from Muslim occupation had been the principal purpose of the First Crusade.

1494 - Spain and Portugal signed the Treaty of Tordesillas, which divided the New World between the two countries, in keeping with a decree made by the Spanish-born Pope Alexander VI.

1654 - Louis XIV was crowned King of France.

1692 - The Jamaican town of Port Royal was hit by a catastrophic earthquake, causing two-thirds of it to sink into the Caribbean; in just three minutes, 1,600 people were killed and 3,000 were seriously injured. The calamity caused a shift of legislative and commercial responsibility to Kingston, which is still Jamaica's capital today.

1776 - Richard Henry Lee presented the Lee Resolution to the Continental Congress; the motion was seconded by John Adams, and led to the drafting of the Declaration of Independence.

1863 - During the so-called French intervention, Mexico City was captured by French troops.

1905 - Norway dissolved its union with Sweden.

1906 - The Cunard Line's ill-fated RMS Lusitania was launched at the John Brown Shipyard in Glasgow.

1919 - During the Sette giugno riot four people - Ġużeppi Bajjada, Manwel Attard, Wenzu Dyer and Karmenu Abela - were killed in Valletta; the event is still commemorated on this day in Malta.

1940 - Norway's King Haakon VII, Crown Prince Olav and the Norwegian government left Tromsø aboard HMS Devonshire (escorted by HMS Glorious, HMS Acasta, and HMS Ardent) to go into exile in London; five years later to the day the King and his family returned to Oslo.

1945 - Benjamin Britten's opera Peter Grimes - based in part on 'Letter XXII' of George Crabbe's 24 poem collection The Borough (published in 1810) and with a libretto adapted by Montagu Slater - was premiered at Sadler's Wells in London, conducted by Reginald Goodall. When it was broadcast in its entirety on the radio just ten days later it became the first to be thus transmitted by the BBC.

1948 - Edvard Beneš resigned as President of Czechoslovakia rather than signing a Constitution making his nation a Communist state.

1955 - Lux Radio Theater signed off the air permanently; the show, first launched in New York on NBC's Blue Network in 1934, featured radio adaptations of Broadway shows and popular films.

1965 - The US Supreme Court issued its decision in the case of Griswold v. Connecticut, effectively legalizing the use of contraception by married couples.

1968 - The body of assassinated Senator Robert F. Kennedy was flown to New York City, where it lay in state at St. Patrick's Cathedral.

1981 - The Israeli Air Force destroyed Iraq's Osiraq nuclear reactor during Operation Opera; the facility could have been used to make nuclear weapons.

1982 - Priscilla Presley opened Graceland to the public, although in an all-too rare display of good taste for the 23-room mansion the bathroom where Elvis Presley had died five years earlier was kept off-limits.

1991 - The Philippines' Mount Pinatubo exploded, generating an ash column 7 km (4.5 miles) high.

2001 - British Prime Minister Tony Blair's New Labour Party won a second consecutive landslide victory in a General Election.
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