Ten years ago: The Affordable Care Act narrowly survived, 5-4, an election-year battle at the U.S. Supreme Court with the improbable help of conservative Chief Justice John Roberts. Attorney General Eric Holder became the first sitting Cabinet member held in contempt of Congress, a rebuke pushed by Republicans seeking to unearth the facts behind a bungled gun-tracking operation known as Fast and Furious. (The vote was 255-67, with more than 100 Democrats boycotting.) Katie Holmes filed for divorce from Tom Cruise after five years of marriage.
Five years ago: Republican donors paid $35,000 apiece to hear a familiar message from President Donald Trump: that the media, particularly CNN, kept trying to take him down, and yet Republicans just kept on winning elections. ABC and a South Dakota meat producer announced a settlement in a $1.9 billion lawsuit against the network over its reports on a beef product that critics dubbed “pink slime.”
One year ago: Temperatures in parts of the Pacific Northwest wiped out records that had been set the day before, with Seattle reaching 108 degrees by evening; meteorologists said the record-breaking heat was caused by a dome of high pressure, and worsened by human-caused climate change. Big-wave surfer Greg “Da Bull” Noll died at 84; he’d become a surfing legend by combining an outsized personality with the courage and skill to ride bigger, more powerful waves than anyone had attempted before.
