Today in History - June 17 | Car chase that drew bigger audience than the Super Bowl
June 17
An entire city ground to a halt on the evening of June 17, 1994, and people around the country tuned in to watch Los Angeles police chase a white Ford Bronco in a low-speed pursuit, as multiple people tried to persuade one of the men inside the car to surrender peacefully.
That man, Orenthal James "OJ" Simpson, was a suspect in the murder of his ex-partner Nicole Brown and her friend Ronald Goldman, and he'd been declared a fugitive after not showing up to turn himself in as previously agreed earlier that day.
The driver of the Bronco, Al Cowlings, told police Simpson was in the back with a gun pointed at his own head, causing the pursuit to keep its distance.
People lined the streets with signs in support of Simpson, angering some friends who were trying to persuade him to surrender peacefully.
Simpson (pictured with Brown) finally surrendered after the Bronco drove to his home in Brentwood.
The chase had drawn a US viewership of 95 million - more than the previous Super Bowl audience of 90 million - and had been broadcast internationally.
Simpson's arrest led to the "trial of the century", where he was acquitted of the murders in a case that split opinions in the US.
A later civil trial launched by Goldman's father later found Simpson responsible for the deaths.
Mumtaz Mahal, wife of the Mughal emperor Shah Jahan I, died in childbirth on June 17, 1631.
She had been accompanying her husband on a military campaign in present-day Madhya Pradesh, India, and he was left inconsolable at her loss.
Contemporary chroniclers said Shah Jahan went into seclusion to mourn for a year, and emerged seeming much older, bent-backed and white-haired.
He also ordered the construction of a monument to their love that would take decades to complete and is now one of the most famous buildings in the world.
Eugen Weidmann was the last person to be publicly guillotined in France, an event which took place on June 17, 1939.
Weidmann, a German native, moved to Paris in the elate 1930s with some cronies he had done jail time with. Their plan was to rob and kill rich tourists.
Weidmann killed multiple people who crossed his path, including a New York dancer, an anti-Nazi German he had met while in prison, a theatrical producer, a real estate agent, a chauffeur, and a nurse.
He confessed to all the murders after his arrest.
On the night of June 17, 2015, a young white man attended a bible studies meeting at the historic Emanuel African Methodist Episcopal Church, the oldest Black church in the US south.
But when the rest of the attendees bent their heads in prayer, Dylann Roof, 21, pulled a Glock handgun out of his fanny-pack and opened fire on the congregation, killing nine people, all African American.
Roof is reported to have said, "I'll give y'all something to pray about," while firing, along with multiple racial epithets.
Confronting one woman, Roof supposedly confirmed he had left her alive to tell others what had happened, as he would not be around to.
Roof fled the scene, but was arrested in a car emblazoned with Confederate symbols, nearly 400km away in North Carolina.
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