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Today in History: June 10, Opportunity rover sends last message from Mars
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In 1772, rebels in Rhode Island looted and set afire the HMS Gaspee in Narragansett Bay after the ship ran aground chasing smugglers. The defiant act was considered one of the sparks igniting the American Revolution.
In 1775, 250 years ago, the Provincial Congress of Massachusetts set down guidelines for daily provisions for each soldier in the 'Massachusetts army.' Those include: 'One pound of bread : 2d. Half a pound of beef and half a pound of pork; and if pork cannot be had, one pound and a quarter of beef; and one day in seven they shall have one pound and one quarter of salt fish, instead of one day's allowance of meat : 3d. One pint of milk, or, if milk cannot be had, one gill of rice : 4th. One quart of good spruce or malt beer : 5th. One gill of peas or beans, or other sauce equivalent : 6th. Six ounces of good butter per week: 7th. One pound of good common soap for six men per week.'
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In 1854, the Naval Academy held its first graduation ceremony.
In 1906, the Mother Church of Christian Science was rededicated in Boston after an expansion tripled its seating capacity to 3,000.
In 1940, Italian dictator Benito Mussolini declared war on France and Great Britain, formally entering Italy into World War II.
In 1963, President John F. Kennedy signed into law the Equal Pay Act of 1963, aimed at eliminating wage disparities based on gender.
In 1967, six days of war in the Mideast involving Israel, Syria, Egypt, Jordan, and Iraq ended as Israel and Syria accepted a United Nations-mediated cease-fire.
In 1977, James Earl Ray, the convicted assassin of civil rights leader Martin Luther King Jr., escaped from Brushy Mountain State Penitentiary in Tennessee with six others. He was recaptured three days later.
In 1978, racehorse Affirmed, ridden by Steve Cauthen, won the 110th Belmont Stakes to claim the 11th Triple Crown. Alydar, ridden by Jorge Velasquez, finished a close second in each of the Triple Crown races.
In 1991, 11-year-old Jaycee Dugard of Meyers, Calif., was abducted by Phillip and Nancy Garrido; Dugard was held by the couple for 18 years before she was found by authorities.
In 2009, James von Brunn, an 88-year-old white supremacist, opened fire in the US Holocaust Memorial Museum in Washington, D.C., killing security guard Stephen T. Johns. (Von Brunn died at a North Carolina hospital in January 2010 while awaiting trial.)
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In 2018, the rover Opportunity sent its last message from the surface of Mars. Originally expected to serve a three-month mission, Opportunity functioned for over 14 years, traveling over 28 miles across Mars and unveiling critical discoveries about the planet's geology.
In 2019, former Red Sox star David Ortiz flew to Boston for medical care; he'd undergone surgery in his native Dominican Republic after an ambush by a gunman at a bar.
In 2020, protesters pulled down a century-old statue of Confederate President Jefferson Davis in Richmond, Va., the former capital of the Confederacy.
