TODAY IN HISTORY

 

First successful ascent of Denali

On June 7, 1913, Hudson Stuck, an Alaskan missionary, leads the first successful ascent of Denali (formerly known as Mt. McKinley), the highest point on the American continent at 20,320 feet.

Stuck, an accomplished amateur mountaineer, was born in London in 1863. After moving to the United States, in 1905 he became archdeacon of the Episcopal Church in Yukon, Alaska. Stuck traveled Alaska’s difficult terrain to preach to villagers and establish schools.

In March 1913, the adventure-seeking Stuck set out from Fairbanks for Denali with three companions, Harry Karstens, co-leader of the expedition, Walter Harper, whose mother was a Native American, and Robert Tatum, a theology student. Their arduous journey was made more challenging by difficult weather and a fire at one of their camps, which destroyed food and supplies. However, the group persevered and on June 7, Harper, followed by the rest of the party, was the first person to set foot on Denali's south peak, considered the mountain’s true summit. (In 1910, a group of climbers had reached the lower north peak.)

Stuck referred to the mountain by its Athabascan Indian name, Denali, meaning “The High One.” In 1889, the mountain, over half of which is covered with permanent snowfields, was dubbed Densmores Peak, after a prospector named Frank Densmore. In 1896, it was renamed in honor of Senator William McKinley, who became president that year.

Mount McKinley National Park was established as a wildlife refuge in 1917. Harry Karstens served as the park’s first superintendent. In 1980, the park was expanded and renamed Denali National Park and Preserve. Encompassing 6 million acres, the park is larger than Massachusetts. In 2015, the mountain was officially renamed Denali. 

Hudson Stuck died in Alaska on October 10, 1920. Today, over 1,000 hopeful climbers attempt to scale Denali each year, with about half of them successfully reaching their goal.

BLACK HISTORY

1979

Texas passes a bill becoming the first state in the nation to make Juneteenth an official state holiday

A celebration that has persisted for over a century receives its first official recognition on June 7, 1979, as the Texas Legislature passes a bill declaring Juneteenth a state holiday. The annual June 19 celebration of the Emancipation Proclamation—not the announcement itself, but the arrival of the news of the proclamation in Texas—is now officially observed in almost all 50 states.

CRIME

2002

Michael Skakel convicted of 1975 murder in Greenwich

On June 7, 2002, 41-year-old Michael Skakel is convicted in the 1975 murder of his former Greenwich, Connecticut, neighbor, 15-year-old Martha Moxley. Skakel, a nephew of Ethel Kennedy, the wife of the late U.S. Senator Robert Kennedy, was later sentenced to 20 years to life in prison. On October 30, 1975, Moxley was bludgeoned to death with a golf club outside her family’s home in Greenwich, one of America’s most affluent communities. The golf club was later determined to have come from a set belonging to the Skakel family, who lived across the street from the Moxleys. Investigators initially focused on one of Michael Skakel’s older brothers, the last person Moxley reportedly was seen alive with, as well as the Skakels’ live-in tutor as possible suspects, but no arrests were made due to lack of evidence, and the case stalled.

WORLD WAR II

1942

Battle of Midway ends

On June 7, 1942, the Battle of Midway—one of the most decisive U.S. victories in its war against Japan—comes to an end. In the four-day sea and air battle, the outnumbered U.S. Pacific Fleet succeeded in destroying four Japanese aircraft carriers with the loss of only one of its own, the Yorktown, thus reversing the tide against the previously invincible Japanese navy. In six months of offensives, the Japanese had triumphed in lands throughout the Pacific, including Malaysia, Singapore, the Dutch East Indies, the Philippines, and numerous island groups. The United States, however, was a growing threat, and Japanese Admiral Isoroku Yamamoto sought to destroy the U.S. Pacific Fleet before it was large enough to outmatch his own. A thousand miles northwest of Honolulu, the strategic island of Midway became the focus of his scheme to smash U.S. resistance to Japan’s imperial designs. Yamamoto’s plan consisted of a feint toward Alaska followed by an invasion of Midway by a Japanese strike force. When the U.S. Pacific Fleet arrived at Midway to respond to the invasion, it would be destroyed by the superior Japanese fleet waiting unseen to the west. If successful, the plan would eliminate the U.S. Pacific Fleet and provide a forward outpost from which the Japanese could eliminate any future American threat in the Central Pacific.

INDIA

1893

Gandhi’s first act of civil disobedience

In an event that would have dramatic repercussions for the people of India, Mohandas K. Gandhi, a young Indian lawyer working in South Africa, refuses to comply with racial segregation rules on a South African train and is forcibly ejected at Pietermaritzburg. 

GREAT BRITAIN

1939

King George VI becomes the first British monarch to visit the U.S.

King George VI becomes the first reigning British monarch to visit the United States when he and his wife, Elizabeth, cross the Canadian-U.S. border to Niagara Falls, New York. The royal couple subsequently visited New York City and Washington, D.C., where they called for a greater U.S. role in resolving the crisis in Europe. On June 12, they returned to Canada, where they embarked on their voyage home. George, who studied at Dartmouth Naval College and served in World War I, ascended to the throne after his elder brother, King Edward VIII, abdicated on December 11, 1936. Edward, who was the first English monarch to voluntarily relinquish the English throne, agreed to give up his title in the face of widespread criticism of his desire to marry Wallis Warfield Simpson, an American divorcee.

INVENTIONS & SCIENCE

1962

Switzerland welcomes first drive-through bank

On June 7, 1962, the banking institution Credit Suisse—then known as Schweizerische Kreditanstalt (SKA)—opens the first drive-through bank in Switzerland at St. Peter-Strasse 17, near Paradeplatz (Parade Square) in downtown Zurich. Like many developments in automotive culture—including drive-through restaurants and drive-in movies—drive-through banking has its origins in the United States. Some sources say that Hillcrest State Bank opened the first drive-through bank in Dallas, Texas, in 1938; others claim the honor belongs to the Exchange National Bank of Chicago in 1946. Regardless of when exactly it began, the trend didn’t reach its height until the car-crazy era of the late 1950s and early 1960s. Around that time, California-based Wells Fargo Bank introduced the “TV Auto Banker Service,” where an image of the teller was broadcast to the customer in their car on a special closed-circuit television. Deposits, withdrawals and other transactions were completed using an underground pneumatic tube that whisked money and paperwork between the car and the teller station.

U.S. PRESIDENTS

1966

Ronald Reagan nominated for governor of California

A former actor named Ronald Reagan receives the Republican nomination for governor of California on June 7, 1966. He won the election that November and was sworn in on January 2, 1967. Reagan’s tenure as the Golden State’s governor gave him credibility as a political leader, paving the way for his victory in the 1980 presidential election. Reagan was born in Illinois and worked as a construction worker, lifeguard and radio announcer before becoming an actor. His first stint at political leadership was as president of the Screen Actors’ Guild from 1947 to 1952. Originally a Democrat, Reagan had grown dissatisfied with New Deal policies and in 1960 switched to the Republican Party. He then started putting his Hollywood fame to work campaigning for Republican candidates. Eventually, Reagan’s charisma and popularity as an actor and a rousing speech he delivered in support of presidential candidate Barry Goldwater in 1964 convinced the California Republican Party to back him for governor in 1966.

NATIVE AMERICAN HISTORY

1866

Chief Seattle dies near the city named for him

Thirteen years after American settlers founded the city named for him, Chief Seattle dies in a nearby village of his people. Born sometime around 1790, Seattle (Seathl) was a chief of the Duwamish and Suquamish tribes who lived around the Pacific Coast bay that is today called Puget Sound. He was the son of a Suquamish father and a Duwamish mother, a lineage that allowed him to gain influence in both tribes. By the early 1850s, small bands of Euro-Americans had begun establishing villages along the banks of Puget Sound. Chief Seattle apparently welcomed his new neighbors and seems to have treated them with kindness. In 1853, several settlers moved to a site on Elliott Bay to establish a permanent town—since Chief Seattle had proved so friendly and welcoming, the settlers named their tiny new settlement in his honor.

ART, LITERATURE, AND FILM HISTORY

1976

“New York” magazine publishes the story that becomes “Saturday Night Fever”

Disco as a musical style predated the movie Saturday Night Fever by perhaps as many as five years, but disco as an all-consuming cultural phenomenon might never have happened without the 1977 film and its multi-platinum soundtrack featuring such era-defining hits as the Bee Gees’ “Stayin’ Alive” and Yvonne Elliman’s “If I Can’t Have You.” What is absolutely certain is that Saturday Night Fever would never have been made were it not for a magazine article detailing the struggles and dreams of a talented, young, Italian-American disco dancer and his scruffy entourage in Bay Ridge, Brooklyn. That article—”The Tribal Rites of the New Saturday Night,” by journalist Nik Cohn—was published on this day in 1976 in the June 7 issue of New York magazine.

ART, LITERATURE, AND FILM HISTORY

1937

Actress Jean Harlow dies

On June 7, 1937, Hollywood is shocked to learn of the sudden and tragic death of the actress Jean Harlow, who succumbs to uremic poisoning (now better known as acute renal failure, or acute kidney failure) at the age of 26. Born Harlean Carpenter in Kansas City, Missouri, she moved with her mother to Los Angeles as a child after her parents separated. Harlean was an amalgam of her mother’s maiden name, Jean Harlow, which the actress later took as her stage name. At the age of 16, she eloped with Charles McGrew, a young bond broker. Their marriage ended after she decided to pursue an acting career, against the will of her husband.

NATURAL DISASTERS & ENVIRONMENT

1692

Earthquake destroys Jamaican town

On June 7, 1692, a massive earthquake devastates the town of Port Royal in Jamaica, killing thousands. The strong tremors, soil liquefaction and a tsunami brought on by the earthquake combined to destroy the entire town. Port Royal was built on a small island off the coast of Jamaica in the harbor across from present-day Kingston. Many of the buildings where the 6,500 residents lived and worked were constructed right over the water. In the 17th century, Port Royal was known throughout the New World as a headquarters for piracy and smuggling.

AMERICAN REVOLUTION

1776

Lee Resolution presented to Continental Congress

On June 7, 1776, Richard Henry Lee of Virginia introduces a resolution for independence to the Continental Congress in Philadelphia; John Adams seconds the motion. Lee’s resolution declared: “That these United Colonies are, and of right out to be, free and independent States, that they are absolved from all allegiance to the British Crown, and that all political connection between them and the State of Great Britain is, and ought to be, totally dissolved; that measures should be immediately taken for procuring the assistance of foreign powers, and a Confederation be formed to bind the colonies more closely together.”