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19681776 Club

James Earl Ray caught at Heathrow; a ticket agent spots his name on a watchlist

The fugitive, traveling as Ramon George Sneyd on a false Canadian passport and bound for Brussels, is taken into custody two months after King's death in Memphis.

Two months after a single rifle shot killed Martin Luther King Jr. on a Memphis motel balcony, the fugitive responsible was still loose — moving through Canada, Portugal, and England on a stolen identity. On June 8, 1968, James Earl Ray walked up to a check-in counter at London Heathrow Airport carrying a false Canadian passport in the name of Ramon George Sneyd, bound for Brussels. A ticket agent noticed the name appeared on a Royal Canadian Mounted Police watchlist, and Ray was taken into custody on the spot. He had also been carrying a second passport under a different name. The UK extradited him to Tennessee within weeks…

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More from June 8
1789

Madison rises in the House with a list of amendments; rivals are still calling for a second convention

Drawing on more than two hundred proposals from state ratifying conventions, he moves to revise the Constitution before its opponents can dismantle it.
1906

Roosevelt signs the Antiquities Act; no proclamation needed from Congress to seal off federal land

For decades, pot hunters have stripped pottery and bones from Chaco Canyon and across the Southwest. The president can now designate national monuments alone, by proclamation.
1861

Tennessee votes to leave the Union; the eleventh state is also the last

Middle Tennessee swings from 51 percent against secession in February to 88 percent in favor today, providing the decisive margin, though East Tennessee refuses to accept the result.
17761776 Club
A local farmer leads the 2,000-man column off the road as British reinforcements land behind them, cutting off any retreat north.
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Read the full June 8 edition →Everything that happened on June 8 →
More from Cold War America
1979

A US spy satellite catches a double flash near Antarctica; no one will say what caused it

Vela 6911's sensors record the exact signature built to catch an atmospheric nuclear blast.
1952

Nixon goes on television and refuses to give up the dog

Facing calls to quit the ticket, the senator lays open his bank accounts and says he is keeping Checkers no matter what.
1957

Eisenhower orders troops into Little Rock to open Central High's doors

The same Arkansas Guard Governor Faubus used to bar nine Black students is now ordered to protect them.
1964

Warren Commission hands Johnson its verdict: Oswald acted alone

Ten months of testimony from 552 witnesses ends with a single conclusion: no conspiracy, foreign or domestic.
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