Today in History....June 12

On this day in …

* 1665, England installed a municipal government in New York, formerly the Dutch settlement of New Amsterdam

* 1776, Virginia's colonial legislature became the first to adopt a Bill of Rights

* 1898, Philippine nationalists declared independence from Spain

* 1939, the National Baseball Hall of Fame and Museum was dedicated in Cooperstown, N.Y.

* 1963, civil rights leader Medgar Evers was fatally shot in front of his home in Jackson, Miss.; he was 37. (In 1994, Byron De La Beckwith was convicted of murdering Evers and sentenced to life in prison; he died in 2001.)

* 1978, David Berkowitz was sentenced to 25 years to life in prison for each of the six "Son of Sam" .44-caliber killings that had terrified New Yorkers

* 1981, major league baseball players began a 49-day strike over the issue of free-agent compensation. (The season did not resume until Aug. 10.)

* 1987, President Reagan, during a visit to the divided German city of Berlin, publicly challenged Soviet leader Mikhail Gorbachev to "tear down this wall."

* 1997, the Treasury Department unveiled a new $50 bill meant to be more counterfeit-resistant. ALSO: Baseball began interleague play, ending a 126-year tradition of separating the major leagues until the World Series.

* 2006, Al-Qaida in Iraq named a successor to slain leader Abu Musab al-Zarqawi, identified by the nom de guerre Abu Hamza al-Muhajer