William Laws Calley Jr. was a United States Army officer who was convicted by court-martial of the murder of 22 unarmed South Vietnamese civilians in the My Lai massacre on March 16, 1968, during the Vietnam War. Calley was released to house arrest under orders by President Richard Nixon three days after his conviction. The United States District Court for the Middle District of Georgia granted him a new trial, but that ruling was overturned by the United States Court of Appeals for the Fifth Circuit. His initial life sentence having been modified to a term of 20 years and then further reduced to ten, Calley ultimately served three years of house arrest for the murders. Public opinion at the time about Calley was divided. After his dismissal from the U.S. Army and release from confinement, Calley avoided public attention.
Biography from Wikipedia, available under CC BY-SA 4.0.
Also born on June 8
- Kanye West1977 · American rapper and producer
- Frank Lloyd Wright1867 · American architect
- Tim Berners-Lee1955 · English computer scientist
- Joan Rivers1933 · American comedian and television host
- Bonnie Tyler1951 · Welsh singer
- Suharto1921 · President of Indonesia from 1967 to 1998
- Nancy Sinatra1940 · American singer
- Barbara Bush1925 · First Lady of the United States from 1989 to 1993
Also born in 1943
- Robert De Niro1943 · American actor
- George Harrison1943 · English musician
- Jim Morrison1943 · American singer
- Mick Jagger1943 · English musician and songwriter
- Janis Joplin1943 · American singer
- Malcolm McDowell1943 · British actor
- Bobby Fischer1943 · American chess grandmaster
- Penny Marshall1943 · American actress, director, and producer