This Day In History — King Awarded Presidential Medal of Freedom

July 11

1533
Pope Clement VII excommunicated England’s King Henry VIII.

1804
Former vice president Aaron Burr fatally wounded former Secretary of the Treasury Alexander Hamilton in a duel. Hamilton died the following afternoon.

1864
Confederate General Jubal A. Early and his troops attacked Washington, DC. They retreated the next day, ending the Confederate threat to occupy the capital.

1914
Babe Ruth made his major league baseball debut as a pitcher for the Boston Red Sox.

1977
The Rev. Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr., was posthumously awarded the Presidential Medal of Freedom for his work to advance civil rights.

1989
Actor Laurence Olivier died.

1995
The United States and Vietnam established full diplomatic relations.

2011
The News of the World, a British newspaper owned by Rupert Murdoch, closes after several allegations that the paper’s journalists hacked into voicemail accounts belonging to not only a 13-year-old murder victim but also the relatives of soldiers killed in Iraq and Afghanistan.

Birthdays

John Quincy Adams

1767–1848, American president, born in Braintree, Mass.

Robert the Bruce

Scottish King (1274)

Thomas Bowdler

editor (1754)

E. B. White

writer (1899)

Yul Brynner

actor (1920)

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