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On This Day: New York Times publishes Pentagon Papers info

On June 13, 1971, The New York Times began publishing the Pentagon Papers, top secret documents on the U.S. decision making process on Vietnam policy.

By UPI Staff
Daniel Ellsberg attends the Senate Watergate hearing in 1973. In 1971, he leaked the so-called Pentagon Papers to The New York Times. UPI File Photo
1 of 5 | Daniel Ellsberg attends the Senate Watergate hearing in 1973. In 1971, he leaked the so-called Pentagon Papers to The New York Times. UPI File Photo | License Photo

On this date in history:

In 323 B.C., Alexander the Great died of fever in Babylon at age 33.

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In 1910, former President Theodore Roosevelt cured a severe case of seasickness which overcame his daughter Ethel's dog, Bongo.

In 1944, the first German V-1 "buzz bomb" hit London.

In 1966, the U.S. Supreme Court, in Miranda vs. Arizona, ruled that police must inform all arrested people of their constitutional rights before questioning them.

In 1967, President Lyndon B. Johnson nominated Thurgood Marshall to the Supreme Court. He became the first African American on the high court in August.

File Photo courtesy Library of Congress

In 1971, The New York Times began publishing top secret, sensitive details and documents from 47 volumes that comprised the history of the U.S. decision making process on Vietnam policy, better known as the Pentagon Papers. Daniel Ellsberg, a former U.S. military analyst, leaked the documents to Times reporter Neil Sheehan.

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In 1976, Arizona Republic investigative reporter Don Bolles died as a result of injuries suffered when a bomb blew up his car 11 days earlier. He had been working on an organized crime story at the time of his death.

In 1977, James Earl Ray, convicted assassin of Martin Luther King Jr., was captured in a Tennessee wilderness area after escaping from prison.

In 1983, the robot spacecraft Pioneer 10 became the first man-made object to leave the solar system. It did so 11 years after it was launched.

In 1993, Canada got its first female prime minister when the ruling Progressive Conservative Party elected Kim Campbell to head the party and thus the country.

In 1994, Nicole Brown Simpson, the ex-wife of former football star O.J. Simpson, and her friend Ronald Goldman were found stabbed to death outside her condominium in the Brentwood section of Los Angeles. Simpson was charged with the murders and acquitted in a trial that became a media sensation. A civil court later found him liable in a wrongful-death lawsuit and, in an unrelated robbery case in Nevada, he was convicted in 2008 and sentenced to 33 years in prison.

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In 1996, members of the Freeman militia surrendered, 10 days after the FBI cut off electricity to their Montana compound. The standoff lasted 81 days.

In 2000, South Korean President Kim Dae-jung and North Korean leader Kim Jong Il meet for the first-ever inter-Korea summit in Pyongyang.

In 2005, pop superstar Michael Jackson was acquitted by a California jury on charges of child molestation.

File Photo by Jim Ruymen/UPI

In 2009, incumbent Mahmoud Ahmadinejad was declared the winner in a disputed Iranian presidential election, touching off widespread clashes between protesters and police.

In 2011, the complete Pentagon Papers, a secret history of the Vietnam War, were made public 40 years after the first leaks were published. The excerpts leaked by Daniel Ellsberg led to a battle with the Nixon administration and a landmark ruling by the U.S. Supreme Court expanding freedom of the press.

In 2012, ousted Tunisian President Zine el-Abidine Ben Ali, in exile and tried in absentia, was sentenced to life imprisonment for ordering the shooting of protesters.

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In 2013, the U.S. Supreme Court ruled that human genes cannot be patented.

In 2020, Atlanta police chief Erika Shields resigned after the death of Rayshard Brooks, a Black man, at the hands of a police officer. The officer who shot Brooks, Garrett Rolfe, was fired, but reinstated in May 2021.

File Photo by John Amis/EPA-EFE

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