Paracultural Calendar for June 11

[Mark Thibodeau]

On this day in *1942*, Dutch teenager *Anne Frank* receives a diary as a
birthday present. Years later, she will have to posthumously endure every
teen-age girl's worst nightmare as millions of people go over every word
she wrote in it.

***

On this day in *1963*, civil rights leader *Medgar Evers* is murdered in
front of his home in Jackson, Mississippi by Ku Klux Klan member *Byron De
La Beckwith*. Beckwith would evade justice until his third trial, in 1994.

***

Two years after his arrest, anti-apartheid activist and ANC leader *Nelson
Mandela* is sentenced to life in prison for sabotage in South Africa on
this day in *1964*. He would remain behind bars, occasionally in barbaric
conditions, until being freed in 1990.

***

On this day in *1967*, the United States Supreme Court declares all US
state laws which prohibit interracial marriage to be unconstitutional in
the well-named case of *Loving versus Virginia*.

***

On this day in *1978*, the "Son of Sam" killer *David Berkowitz* is
sentenced to 365 years in prison for six killings in New York City. To this
day, he claims he was part of a network of “Satanic” murderers and that
some of the Son of Sam killings were perpetrated by others who *remain at
large
<http://www.nbcnews.com/id/5351509/ns/dateline_nbc-newsmakers/t/did-son-sam-really-act-alone/#.Ubg6R9LD7yc>*
.

***

On this day in *1979*, a California cyclist named *Bryan Allen* flew a
human-propelled aircraft by the name of *Gossamer Albatross* across the
English Channel. It took him two hours and forty-nine minutes. Also on this
very same day, *Kevin St. Onge* takes an ordinary, everyday playing card
and flicks it an incredible one hundred and eighty-five feet… a world
record that still stands to this day.

***

On this day in *1987*, US President *Ronald Reagan* publicly
challenges *Mikhail
Gorbachev* to tear down the Berlin Wall during a speech given at the
Brandenburg Gate.

***

On this day in *1994*, *Nicole Brown Simpson* and *Ronald Goldman* are
murdered outside her home in Los Angeles, California. *O.J. Simpson* is
later acquitted of the killings, but is held liable in wrongful death civil
suit. Alternative theories have a *serial killer
<http://www.independent.co.uk/voices/iv-drip/documentary-claims-oj-simpson-innocent-of-murders-serial-killer-guilty-8343160.html>*
or
even *OJ's son
<http://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-2123547/OJ-innocent-Private-investigator-claims-Simpsons-SON-hacked-stars-wife-friend-death--went-trial-cover-up.html>*
as
the true culprit.
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