Week marks first sightings of ‘Jaws’

• On June 16, 1884, the first roller coaster in America opens at Coney Island in New York. Known as a switchback railway, it traveled approximately 6 mph and cost a nickel to ride. The roller coaster was paid for in three weeks.

• On June 22, 1937, in Chicago’s Comiskey Park, Joe Louis wins the world heavyweight boxing title when he defeats Jim Braddock in an eighth-round knockout. Louis was the first black heavyweight champ since Jack Johnson, who lost the title in 1915.

• On June 19, 1953, Julius and Ethel Rosenberg, convicted of conspiring to pass U.S. atomic secrets to the Soviets, are executed at Sing Sing Prison in New York. Both refused to admit any wrongdoing and proclaimed their innocence right up to the time of their deaths.

• On June 21, 1964, three young civil-rights workers working to register black voters are killed by a Ku Klux Klan lynch mob near Meridian, Miss. Deputy sheriff Cecil Price, who was a Klan member, pulled them over for speeding, then held them in custody while other KKK members prepared for their murder.

• On June 20, 1975, “Jaws,” a film directed by Steven Spielberg that made countless viewers afraid to go into the water, opens in theaters. The story of a great white shark that terrorizes a New England resort town was the highest-grossing film in movie history until it was bested by 1977’s “Star Wars.”

• On June 18, 1983, the space shuttle Challenger is launched into space from Cape Canaveral, Fla., on its second mission. Aboard the shuttle was Dr. Sally Ride, who, as a mission specialist, became the first American woman to travel into space.

• On June 17, 1994, after a dramatic flight from justice witnessed by millions on live television, former football star and actor O.J. Simpson surrenders to Los Angeles police, who charged him with the June 12 double-murder of his ex-wife and her friend. In the vehicle and on his person were discovered a gun, a mustache and goatee disguise, and his passport.