Ten years ago: Former Illinois Gov. Rod Blagojevich (blah-GOY’-uh-vich) was convicted by a federal jury in Chicago on a wide range of corruption charges, including the allegation that he’d tried to sell or trade President Barack Obama’s U.S. Senate seat. (Blagojevich was later sentenced to 14 years in prison; his sentence was commuted by President Donald Trump in February 2020.) International judges ordered the arrest of Libya’s Moammar Gadhafi for murdering civilians. Venus and Serena Williams were eliminated in the fourth round of Wimbledon, the first time in five years that neither sister advanced to the quarterfinals at the All England Club.
Five years ago: The U.S. Supreme Court issued its strongest defense of abortion rights in a quarter-century, striking down Texas’ widely replicated rules that sharply reduced abortion clinics. The Supreme Court overturned the bribery conviction of former Virginia Gov. Bob McDonnell, sending the case back to a lower court. (Prosecutors ended up deciding not to retry McDonnell.)
One year ago: Florida set another daily record for the state in the number of daily confirmed coronavirus cases, with more than 9,500 new cases. Thousands of people gathered outside a police building in suburban Denver to call for justice in the death of Elijah McClain, a 23-year-old Black man who’d been put in a chokehold by police in August 2019; he suffered cardiac arrest on the way to the hospital and was later declared brain dead. Princeton University said it would remove the name of former President Woodrow Wilson from its public policy school because of his segregationist views. French cosmetics giant L’Oreal said it would remove words like “whitening” from its skin care products following criticism of the company amid global protests against racism.
