1. On June 3, 1861, Mississippi was one of the first states to declare its secession from the United States, joining ten other southern states in the Confederacy.

2. On June 3, 1963, civil rights leader Medgar Evers was assassinated outside of his home in Jackson, Mississippi. His death sparked outrage and contributed to the passage of the Civil Rights Act of 1964.

3. On June 3, 1887, future Pulitzer Prize-winning author William Faulkner was born in New Albany, Mississippi. Faulkner went on to write many of his most famous works, including "The Sound and the Fury" and "As I Lay Dying," set in and around his native Mississippi.

4. On June 3, 1937, a tornado struck the town of Tupelo, Mississippi, killing over 200 people and causing widespread destruction. The disaster prompted the creation of the Federal Emergency Management Agency (FEMA) in 1979.

5. On June 3, 1955, Emmett Till, a 14-year-old African American boy, was brutally lynched in Money, Mississippi after being accused of whistling at a white woman. Till's death became a powerful symbol of the violence and injustice of segregation in the South, and helped to galvanize the civil rights movement.