Today is Sunday, June 7, the 158th day of 2009. There are 207 days left in the year.

Today’s Highlights in History

One hundred years ago, on June 7, 1909, “The Violin Maker of Cremona,” a short film directed by D.W. Griffith and featuring Mary Pickford in her first notable screen role, was released. In London, actress Jessica Tandy was born.

On this date

In 1753, Britain’s King George II gave his assent to an Act of Parliament establishing the British Museum.

In 1769, frontiersman Daniel Boone first began to explore present-day Kentucky.

In 1776, Richard Henry Lee of Virginia proposed to the Continental Congress a resolution calling for American independence from Britain.

In 1929, the sovereign state of Vatican City came into existence as copies of the Lateran Treaty were exchanged in Rome.

In 1937, actress Jean Harlow died in Los Angeles at age 26.

In 1939, King George VI and his wife, Queen Elizabeth, arrived at Niagara Falls, N.Y., from Canada on the first visit to the United States by a reigning British monarch.

In 1948, the Communists completed their takeover of Czechoslovakia with the resignation of President Edvard Benes.

In 1967, the Haight Ashbury Free Medical Clinic opened in San Francisco.

In 1981, Israeli military planes destroyed a nuclear power plant in Iraq, a facility the Israelis charged could have been used to make nuclear weapons.

In 1998, in a crime that shocked the nation, James Byrd Jr., a 49-year-old black man, was chained to a pickup truck and dragged to his death in Jasper, Texas. (Two white men were later sentenced to death for the crime; a third received life.)

Ten years ago

The FBI put alleged terrorist mastermind Osama bin Laden, and anti-abortion activist and accused doctor killer James Charles Kopp on the bureau’s list of the Ten Most Wanted fugitives. (Kopp was arrested in 2001 and later convicted of killing Dr. Barnett Slepian.) Gunmen killed popular Mexican television host Francisco “Paco” Stanley.

Five years ago

A steady, near-silent stream of people circled through the rotunda of the Ronald Reagan Presidential Library in Simi Valley, Calif., where the body of the nation’s 40th president lay in repose before traveling to Washington for a state funeral. The Tampa Bay Lightning held off the Calgary Flames 2-1 in Game 7 to win their first Stanley Cup.

One year ago

Hillary Clinton suspended her pioneering campaign for the presidency and endorsed fellow Democrat Barack Obama. Longshot Da’ Tara spoiled Big Brown’s bid for a Triple Crown by winning the Belmont Stakes. Ana Ivanovic won her first Grand Slam tennis title by beating Dinara Safina 6-4, 6-3 in the French Open. Veteran sportscaster Jim McKay died in Monkton, Md., at age 86. Former Egyptian Prime Minister Mustafa Khalil died in Cairo at age 88.

Today’s Birthdays

Movie director James Ivory is 81. Actress Virginia McKenna is 78. Singer Tom Jones is 69. Poet Nikki Giovanni is 66. Actor Ken Osmond (“Leave It to Beaver”) is 66. Former talk-show host Jenny Jones is 63. Actress Anne Twomey is 58. Actor Liam Neeson is 57. Actress Colleen Camp is 56. Singer-songwriter Johnny Clegg is 56. Author Louise Erdrich is 55. Actor William Forsythe is 54. Record producer L.A. Reid is 53. Latin pop singer Juan Luis Guerra is 52. Singer-songwriter Prince is 51. Rock singer-musician Gordon Gano (The Violent Femmes) is 46. Rapper Ecstasy (Whodini) is 45. Rock musician Eric Kretz (Stone Temple Pilots) is 43. Rock musician Dave Navarro is 42. Actress Helen Baxendale is 39. Actor Karl Urban is 37. Rock musician Eric Johnson (The Shins) is 33. Actor-comedian Bill Hader is 31. Actress Anna Torv (“Fringe”) is 30. Actress Larisa Oleynik is 28. Tennis player Anna Kournikova is 28. Actor Michael Cera is 21. Actress Shelley Buckner is 20.

Thought for Today

“The slight that can be conveyed in a glance, in a gracious smile, in a wave of the hand, is often the ne plus ultra of art. What insult is so keen or so keenly felt, as the polite insult which it is impossible to resent?”

— Julia Kavanagh,

Irish novelist (1824-1877)