Senator Robert F. Kennedy and his wife Ethel visit with Lauren Bacall backstage after a performance of "Cactus Flower" at the Royale Theater on Broadway in New York City, Jan. 17, 1966. (AP Photo/Dave Pickoff)

Today is Sunday, May 31, the 152nd day of 2020. There are 214 days left in the year.

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Today’s Highlight in History

On May 31, 1921, a race riot erupted in Tulsa, Oklahoma, as white mobs began looting and leveling the affluent black district of Greenwood over reports a black man had assaulted a white woman in an elevator; hundreds are believed to have died.

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Special trains, motor-coaches and ferry-boats were run from Sweden and other countries to cope with crowds who invaded Elsinore, Denmark, to see Shakespeare's Hamlet produced by Laurence Olivier and Vivien Leigh and 100 British and Danish players in the great courtyard of Kronberg Castle. It was the first production of the play in the setting named by Shakespeare, and the first in English anywhere in Denmark. A charming study of British actress Vivien Leigh as she appears as Ophelia in the open-air production of Hamlet, at Kronberg Castle, Elsinore, on June 3, 1937. (AP Photo)

On this date

In 1859, the Big Ben clock tower in London went into operation, chiming for the first time.

In 1889, some 2,200 people in Johnstown, Pennsylvania, perished when the South Fork Dam collapsed, sending 20 million tons of water rushing through the town.

In 1910, the Union of South Africa was founded.

In 1949, former State Department official and accused spy Alger Hiss went on trial in New York, charged with perjury (the jury deadlocked, but Hiss was convicted in a second trial).

Pope John Paul II celebrates an open air Mass at Le Bourget Airport in Paris, June 1, 1980, in front of more than half a million people. (AP Photo/Randy G. Taylor)

In 1961, South Africa became an independent republic as it withdrew from the British Commonwealth.

In 1962, former Nazi official Adolf Eichmann was hanged in Israel a few minutes before midnight for his role in the Holocaust.

In 1970, a magnitude 7.9 earthquake in Peru claimed an estimated 67,000 lives.

In 1977, the Trans-Alaska oil pipeline, three years in the making despite objections from environmentalists and Alaska Natives, was completed. (The first oil began flowing through the pipeline 20 days later.)

In 1990, President George H.W. Bush welcomed Soviet leader Mikhail S. Gorbachev to Washington for a summit meeting. The situation comedy “Seinfeld” began airing as a regular series on NBC.

President Richard Nixon walks with Gholam Reza Pahlavi, the brother of the Shah of Iran, at the tomb of Mohammad Reza Shah Pahlavi, father of the Shah, where he placed a wreath, May 31, 1972. It was the final appearance in in Iran in public for the president and was the site of a bomb explosion about an hour before the president was due. Others are unidentified. (AP Photo)

In 2005, breaking a silence of 30 years, former FBI official W. Mark Felt stepped forward as “Deep Throat,” the secret Washington Post source during the Watergate scandal.

In 2009, Dr. George Tiller, a rare provider of late-term abortions, was shot and killed in a Wichita, Kansas, church. (Gunman Scott Roeder was later convicted of first-degree murder and sentenced to life in prison with no possibility of parole for 50 years.) Millvina Dean, the last survivor of the 1912 sinking of the RMS Titanic, died in Southampton, England at 97.

In 2014, Sgt. Bowe Bergdahl, the only American soldier held prisoner in Afghanistan, was freed by the Taliban in exchange for five Afghan detainees from the U.S. prison at Guantanamo Bay, Cuba. (Bergdahl, who’d gone missing in June 2009, later pleaded guilty to endangering his comrades by walking away from his post in Afghanistan; his sentence included a dishonorable discharge, a reduction in rank and a fine, but no prison time.)

Ten years ago: Israeli commandos stormed six ships carrying hundreds of pro-Palestinian activists on an aid mission to the blockaded Gaza Strip; eight Turkish activists and one Turkish-American were killed aboard one vessel, with each side accusing the other of starting the violence. Al-Qaida announced that its No. 3 official, Mustafa al-Yazid, had been killed along with members of his family. (A U.S. official said al-Yazid was believed to have died in a U.S. missile strike.) Artist Louise Bourgeois, 98, died in New York. Chris Haney, 59, co-creator of the popular Trivial Pursuit board game, died in Toronto.

Five years ago: The U.S. Senate held an extraordinary Sunday session during which it failed to produce an 11th-hour deal to extend the National Security Agency’s authority to collect Americans’ phone records in bulk. U.S. Secretary of State John Kerry broke his leg in a bicycle crash near Geneva, forcing him to return to the U.S. for treatment and to scrap the rest of a four-nation trip. Jim Bailey, 77, a singer-actor who transformed himself into such show biz legends as Judy Garland, Barbra Streisand and Peggy Lee during a career that spanned decades, died in Los Angeles. Harriette Thompson of Charlotte, North Carolina, a 92-year-old cancer survivor, became the oldest woman to finish a marathon as she completed the Rock ‘n’ Roll Marathon in San Diego in 7:24:36.

One year ago: A longtime city employee opened fire in a municipal building in Virginia Beach, Virginia, killing 12 people on three floors before police shot and killed him; officials said DeWayne Craddock had resigned by email hours before the shooting. As he prepared for a three-day visit to Britain, President Donald Trump told the British tabloid The Sun that Boris Johnson would make an “excellent” prime minister; he also called Meghan, the Duchess of Sussex, “nasty.” Relentless flooding in the central U.S. inundated communities and damaged or spilled over levees on three major rivers in two states.

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JUNE 1

On June 1, 1939, Lou Nova defeated Max Baer at Yankee Stadium in the first U.S. televised heavyweight prizefight.

In 1813, the mortally wounded commander of the USS Chesapeake, Capt. James Lawrence, gave the order, “Don’t give up the ship” during a losing battle with the British frigate HMS Shannon in the War of 1812.

In 1926, actress Marilyn Monroe was born Norma Jeane Mortenson in Los Angeles.

In 1967, the Beatles album “Sgt. Pepper’s Lonely Hearts Club Band” was released, as was David Bowie’s debut album, eponymously titled “David Bowie.”

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JUNE 2

On June 2, 1941, baseball’s “Iron Horse,” Lou Gehrig, died in New York of a degenerative disease, amyotrophic lateral sclerosis; he was 37.

In 1886, President Grover Cleveland, 49, married Frances Folsom, 21, in the Blue Room of the White House. (To date, Cleveland is the only president to marry in the executive mansion.)

In 1953, the coronation of Queen Elizabeth II took place in London’s Westminster Abbey, 16 months after the death of her father, King George VI.

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JUNE 3

On June 3, 1965, astronaut Edward H. White became the first American to “walk” in space during the flight of Gemini 4.

In 1861, Illinois Sen. Stephen A. Douglas, the Democratic presidential nominee in the 1860 election, died in Chicago of typhoid fever; he was 48.

In 1924, author Franz Kafka, 40, died near Vienna.

In 1963, Pope John XXIII died at age 81; he was succeeded by Pope Paul VI.

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JUNE 4

On June 4, 1998, a federal judge sentenced Terry Nichols to life in prison for his role in the 1995 bombing of the Alfred P. Murrah Federal Building in Oklahoma City.

In 1985, the Supreme Court upheld a lower court ruling striking down an Alabama law providing for a daily minute of silence in public schools.

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JUNE 5

On June 5, 1968, Sen. Robert F. Kennedy was shot and mortally wounded after claiming victory in California’s Democratic presidential primary at the Ambassador Hotel in Los Angeles; assassin Sirhan Bishara Sirhan was arrested at the scene.

In 1999, jazz and pop singer Mel Torme died in Los Angeles at age 73.

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June 6

On June 6, 1968, Sen. Robert F. Kennedy died at Good Samaritan Hospital in Los Angeles, 25 1/2 hours after he was shot by Sirhan Bishara Sirhan.

In 1799, American politician and orator Patrick Henry died at Red Hill Plantation in Virginia.

In 1816, a snowstorm struck the northeastern U.S., heralding what would become known as the “Year Without a Summer.”

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