Today in History.....June 8

On this day in …

* 2006, We celebrate the death of.....Abu Musab al-Zarqawi..... rot in hell.

* 1861, Tennessee seceded from the Union

* 1905, President Theodore Roosevelt offered to act as a mediator in the Russo-Japanese War

* 1915, Secretary of State William Jennings Bryan resigned in a disagreement over U.S. handling of the sinking of the Lusitania

* 1941, Allies invade Syria and Lebanon

* 1944, as British and American troops meet up at Normandy, Stalin telegraphs British Prime Minister Winston Churchill to announce that the Allied success at Normandy "is a source of joy to us all," and promises to launch his own offensive on the Eastern Front, as had been agreed upon at the Tehran Conference in late '43, and thereby prevent Hitler from transferring German troops from the east to support troops at Normandy

* 1966, a merger was announced between the National and American Football Leagues, to take effect in 1970

* 1968, authorities announced the capture in London of James Earl Ray, the suspected assassin of civil rights leader the Rev. Martin Luther King Jr. ALSO: Three days after falling prey to an assassin in California, Senator Robert F. Kennedy is laid to rest at Arlington National Cemetery in Virginia, just 30 yards from the grave of his assassinated older brother, President John F. Kennedy

* 1978, a jury in Clark County, Nev., ruled the so-called "Mormon will," purportedly written by the late billionaire Howard Hughes, was a forgery

1986, at the end of a controversial campaign marked by allegations that he had participated in Nazi atrocities during World War II, former United Nations Secretary-General Kurt Waldheim is elected president of Austria, a largely ceremonial post