June 7
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Featured Event
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On this day in 1929, the Lateran Treaty went into effect, making Vatican City a sovereign stateâand the worldâs smallest country. With a total area of 0.17 square miles, Vatican City is about one-eighth the size of New York Cityâs Central Park. It is also totally surrounded by the city of Rome. [Read todayâs edition of Today in History > >]
Featured Biography
Featured Biography
© Dave HoganâAll Action/Retna Ltd.
Prince, who was born this day in 1958 in Minneapolis, Minnesota, was among the most talented American musicians of his generation, known for groundbreaking music that fused funk, rhythm and blues, rock and roll, and pop.
Famous Birthdays
More on June 7
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2006
Jordanian-born Iraqi militant Abu Musab al-Zarqawiâthe self-styled leader in Iraq of the Islamic militant group al-Qaeda, thought by many to have been the mastermind behind numerous terrorist actsâwas killed in a U.S. military air strike.
© Mkojot/Dreamstime.com
1982
GracelandâElvis Presleyâs home in Memphis, Tennessee, where he died in 1977âwas opened for public tours and became one of the top tourist attractions in the United States. [Can you match the famous building to its city?]
BBC Hulton Picture Library
1970
English novelist, essayist, and social and literary critic E.M. Forster, whose acclaimed novels included Howards End (1910) and A Passage to India (1924), died at the age of 91. [Test your knowledge of English authors.]
© Orhan Ăam/stock.adobe.com
1965
In the landmark case of Griswold v. State of Connecticut, the U.S. Supreme Court ruled in favor of the constitutional right of married persons to use birth control. [Why are there nine justices on the U.S. Supreme Court?]
ChâAP/Shutterstock.com
1917
Poet Gwendolyn Brooks, whose work depicted the everyday life of urban African Americans and who was the first African American poet to win the Pulitzer Prize (1949), was born. [Sort fact from fiction in our poetry quiz.]
© Peter_NileâiStock/Getty Images
1913
Hudson Stuck and Harry Karstens led a mountaineering party to the south peak, the true summit of Mount McKinley (Denali), becoming the first people to ascend North Americaâs highest peak (6,194 meters [20,320 feet]). [Sort fact from fiction in our quiz about mountains.]
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1832
Authored by Prime Minister Charles Grey, 2nd Earl Grey, the Reform Act of 1832 came into effectâthe first of the British parliamentary bills that expanded the electorate for the House of Commons and rationalized the representation of that body. [Take our quiz about British culture and politics.]
The New York Public Library Digital Collection (EM14618)
1576
English navigator Martin Frobisher, seeking a Northwest Passage to the Pacific Ocean, departed England, and weeks later he reached Labrador and Baffin Island and discovered the bay that now bears his name. [Take our quiz about exploration and discovery.]
Daderot
1520
Henry VIII of England and Francis I of France and their entourages gathered at the Field of the Cloth of Gold near Calais, France. [Test your knowledge of kings and emperors.]
EncyclopĂŠdia Britannica, Inc.
1494
The Treaty of Tordesillasâan agreement between Spain and Portugal aimed at settling conflicts over lands newly discovered or explored by Christopher Columbus and other late 15th-century voyagersâwas signed.