By The Associated Press

Today in History

Today is Saturday, June 8, the 159th day of 2019. There are 206 days left in the year.

Today’s Highlight in History:

On June 8, 1968, authorities announced the capture in London of James Earl Ray, the suspected assassin of civil rights leader Dr. Martin Luther King Jr.

On this date:

In A.D. 632, the prophet Muhammad died in Medina.

In 1845, Andrew Jackson, seventh president of the United States, died in Nashville, Tennessee.

In 1920, the Republican National Convention opened in Chicago; its delegates ended up nominating Warren G. Harding for president.

In 1939, Britain’s King George VI and his consort, Queen Elizabeth, arrived in Washington, D.C., where they were received at the White House by President Franklin D. Roosevelt.

In 1948, the “Texaco Star Theater” made its debut on NBC-TV with Milton Berle guest-hosting the first program. (Berle was later named the show’s permanent host.)

In 1966, a merger was announced between the National and American Football Leagues, to take effect in 1970.

In 1967, during the six-day Middle East war, 34 American servicemen were killed when Israel attacked the USS Liberty, a Navy intelligence-gathering ship in the Mediterranean Sea. (Israel later said the Liberty had been mistaken for an Egyptian vessel.)

In 1978, a jury in Clark County, Nevada, ruled the so-called “Mormon will,” purportedly written by the late billionaire Howard Hughes, was a forgery.

In 1995, U.S. Marines rescued Capt. Scott O’Grady, whose F-16C fighter jet had been shot down by Bosnian Serbs on June 2. Mickey Mantle received a liver transplant at a Dallas hospital; however, the baseball great died two months later.

In 1998, the National Rifle Association elected actor Charlton Heston to be its president.

In 2003, frustrated and angry over delays, a coalition of the nation’s mayors meeting in Denver asked federal officials to bypass state governments and give them the money they needed to beef up homeland security.

In 2017, former FBI Director James Comey, testifying before Congress, asserted that President Donald Trump fired him to interfere with his investigation of Russia’s ties to the Trump campaign.

Ten years ago: North Korea’s highest court sentenced American journalists Laura Ling and Euna Lee to 12 years’ hard labor for trespassing and “hostile acts.” (The women were pardoned in early August 2009 after a trip to Pyongyang by former President Bill Clinton.) Omar Bongo, 73, the world’s longest-serving president who’d ruled Gabon for 42 years, died at a Spanish hospital.

Five years ago: Gunmen stormed an airport terminal in Karachi, Pakistan, in an attack that left at least 29 people dead, including the assailants (the Pakistani Taliban claimed responsibility).