TODAY IN HISTORY

Thursday, June  07, 2012 AP Highlight in History:  On June 7, 2001, President George W. Bush signed a $1.35 trillion, 10-year tax cut into law.   AP Photo/Ron Edmonds
On this date in: 1654 Louis XIV was crowned king of France in Rheims. 1776 Richard Henry Lee of Virginia proposed to the Continental Congress a resolution calling for a Declaration of Independence. 1848 Postimpressionist painter Paul Gauguin was born in Paris. 1892 Homer Plessy was arrested when he refused to leave a whites-only train car in New Orleans. The case led to the U.S. Supreme Court's landmark "separate but equal" decision in Plessy v. Ferguson in 1896. 1929 Vatican City became a sovereign state as copies of the Lateran Treaty were exchanged in Rome. 1939 King George VI arrived at Niagara Falls, N.Y., from Canada on the first visit to the U.S. by a reigning British monarch. 1972 The musical "Grease" opened on Broadway. 1981 Israeli military planes destroyed a nuclear power plant in Iraq, a facility the Israelis charged could have been used to make nuclear weapons.  Read the original AP story 1998 James Byrd Jr., a 49-year-old African-American man, was chained to a pickup truck and dragged to his death in Jasper, Texas. AP Photo/Pat Sullivan 2000 A federal judge ordered the breakup of Microsoft Corp. 2002 A yearlong hostage crisis in the Philippines involving three Americans came to a bloody end as Filipino commandos managed to save only one of the captives. 2003 In a national first, New Hampshire Episcopalians elected an openly gay man, the Rev. V. Gene Robinson, to be bishop. 2006 Abu Musab al-Zarqawi, the leader of al-Qaida in Iraq, was killed by a U.S. airstrike. 2009 Roger Federer of Switzerland became the sixth man in tennis history to win a career Grand Slam and tied Pete Sampras' record of 14 major singles titles when he won the French Open.		Video Highlights of This Day in History Today's Birthdays: Actor Liam Neeson turns 60 years old today. AP Photo/Chris Pizzello Name Profession Age James Ivory Director 84 Bert Sugar Boxing journalist 75 Tom Jones Singer 72 Jenny Jones TV talk show host 66 Colleen Camp Actress 59 Johnny Clegg Singer, songwriter 59 Louise Erdrich Author 58 L.A. Reid Record producer 56 Prince Rock musician 54 Dave Navarro Rock musician (Jane's Addiction, Red Hot Chili Peppers) 45 Allen Iverson Basketball player 37 Anna Torv Actress ("Fringe") 33 Anna Kournikova Tennis player 31 Michael Cera Actor 24 Actor-comedian Bill Hader ("Saturday Night Live") turns 34 years old today. AP Photo/Evan Agostini