On June 11, 1776, the Continental Congress formed a committee to draft a Declaration of Independence calling for freedom from Britain.

In 1942, the United States and the Soviet Union signed a lend-lease agreement to aid the Soviet war effort in World War II.

In 1962, three prisoners at Alcatraz in San Francisco Bay staged an escape, leaving the island on a makeshift raft; they were never found or heard from again.

In 1978, Joseph Freeman Jr. became the first black priest ordained in the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-Day Saints.

In 1986, the John Hughes comedy “Ferris Bueller’s Day Off,” starring Matthew Broderick, was released by Paramount Pictures.

In 1993, The Steven Spielberg science-fiction film “Jurassic Park” opened in wide release two days after its world premiere in Washington, D.C.