This Day in History

June 9th

411 BC – The Athenian coup succeeds, forming a short-lived oligarchy.

AD 53 – The Roman emperor Nero marries Claudia Octavia.

AD 68 – Nero commits suicide, after quoting Homer's Iliad, thus ending the Julio-Claudian dynasty and starting the civil war known as the Year of the Four Emperors.

721 – Odo of Aquitaine defeats the Moors in the Battle of Toulouse.

747 – Abbasid Revolution: Abu Muslim Khorasani begins an open revolt against Umayyad rule, which is carried out under the sign of the Black Standard.

1311 – Duccio's Maestà, a seminal artwork of the early Italian Renaissance, is unveiled and installed in Siena Cathedral in Siena, Italy.

1523 – The Parisian Faculty of Theology fines Simon de Colines for publishing the Biblical commentary Commentarii initiatorii in quatuor Evangelia by Jacques Lefèvre d'Étaples.

1534 – Jacques Cartier is the first European to describe and map the Saint Lawrence River.

1667 – Second Anglo-Dutch War: The Raid on the Medway by the Dutch fleet begins. It lasts for five days and results in the worst ever defeat of the Royal Navy.

1732 – James Oglethorpe is granted a royal charter for the colony of the future U.S. state of Georgia.

1762 – British forces begin the Siege of Havana and capture the city during the Seven Years' War.

1772 – The British schooner Gaspee is burned in Narragansett Bay, Rhode Island.

1798 – Irish Rebellion of 1798: Battles of Arklow and Saintfield.

1815 – End of the Congress of Vienna: The new European political situation is set.

1856 – Five hundred Mormons leave Iowa City, Iowa for the Mormon Trail.

1862 – American Civil War: Stonewall Jackson concludes his successful Shenandoah Valley Campaign with a victory in the Battle of Port Republic; his tactics during the campaign are now studied by militaries around the world.

1863 – American Civil War: Battle of Brandy Station, Virginia.

1885 – Treaty of Tientsin is signed to end the Sino-French War, with China eventually giving up Tonkin and Annam – most of present-day Vietnam – to France.

1900 – Indian nationalist Birsa Munda dies in a British prison of cholera

1915 – William Jennings Bryan resigns as Woodrow Wilson's Secretary of State over a disagreement regarding the United States' handling of the sinking of the RMS Lusitania.

1923 – Bulgaria's military takes over the government in a coup.

1928 – Charles Kingsford Smith completes the first trans-Pacific flight in a Fokker Trimotor monoplane, the Southern Cross.

1930 – A Chicago Tribune reporter, Jake Lingle, is killed during rush hour at the Illinois Central train station by Leo Vincent Brothers, allegedly over a $100,000 gambling debt owed to Al Capone.

1934 – Donald Duck makes his debut in The Wise Little Hen.

1944 – World War II: Ninety-nine civilians are hanged from lampposts and balconies by German troops in Tulle, France, in reprisal for maquisards attacks.

1944 – World War II: The Soviet Union invades East Karelia and the previously Finnish part of Karelia, occupied by Finland since 1941.

1948 – Foundation of the International Council on Archives under the auspices of the UNESCO.

1953 – The Flint–Worcester tornado outbreak sequence kills 94 people in Massachusetts.

1954 – McCarthyism: Joseph Welch, special counsel for the United States Army, lashes out at Senator Joseph McCarthy during hearings on whether Communism has infiltrated the Army giving McCarthy the famous rebuke, "You've done enough. Have you no sense of decency, sir, at long last? Have you left no sense of decency?"

1957 – First ascent of Broad Peak by Fritz Wintersteller, Marcus Schmuck, Kurt Diemberger, and Hermann Buhl.

1959 – The USS George Washington is launched. It is the first nuclear-powered ballistic missile submarine.

1965 – The civilian Prime Minister of South Vietnam, Phan Huy Quát, resigns after being unable to work with a junta led by Nguyễn Cao Kỳ.

1965 – Vietnam War: The Viet Cong commences combat with the Army of the Republic of Vietnam in the Battle of Đồng Xoài, one of the largest battles in the war.

1967 – Six-Day War: Israel captures the Golan Heights from Syria.

1968 – U.S. President Lyndon B. Johnson declares a national day of mourning following the assassination of Senator Robert F. Kennedy.

1972 – Severe rainfall causes a dam in the Black Hills of South Dakota to burst, creating a flood that kills 238 people and causes $160 million in damage.

1973 – In horse racing, Secretariat wins the U.S. Triple Crown.

1978 – The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints opens its priesthood to "all worthy men", ending a 148-year-old policy of excluding black men.

1979 – The Ghost Train fire at Luna Park Sydney, Australia, kills seven.

1999 – Kosovo War: The Federal Republic of Yugoslavia and NATO sign a peace treaty.

2008 – Two bombs explode at a train station near Algiers, Algeria, killing at least 13 people.

2009 – An explosion kills 17 people and injures at least 46 at a hotel in Peshawar, Pakistan.

2010 – At least 40 people are killed and more than 70 wounded in a suicide bombing at a wedding party in Arghandab, Kandahar.

June 11th

1184 BC – Trojan War: Troy is sacked and burned, according to calculations by Eratosthenes.

173 – Marcomannic Wars: The Roman army in Moravia is encircled by the Quadi, who have broken the peace treaty (171). In a violent thunderstorm emperor Marcus Aurelius defeats and subdues them in the so-called "miracle of the rain".

631 – Emperor Taizong of Tang, the Emperor of China, sends envoys to the Xueyantuo bearing gold and silk in order to seek the release of enslaved Chinese prisoners captured during the transition from Sui to Tang from the northern frontier; this embassy succeeded in freeing 80,000 Chinese men and women who were then returned to China.

786 – A Hasanid Alid uprising in Mecca is crushed by the Abbasids at the Battle of Fakhkh. Idris ibn Abdallah flees to the Maghreb, where he later founds the Idrisid dynasty.

980 – Vladimir the Great consolidates the Kievan realm from Ukraine to the Baltic Sea. He is proclaimed ruler (knyaz) of all Kievan Rus'.

1011 – Lombard Revolt: Greek citizens of Bari rise up against the Lombard rebels led by Melus and deliver the city to Basil Mesardonites, Byzantine governor (catepan) of the Catepanate of Italy.

1118 – Roger of Salerno, Prince of Antioch, captures Azaz from the Seljuk Turks.

1157 – Albert I of Brandenburg, also called The Bear (Ger: Albrecht der Bär), becomes the founder of the Margraviate of Brandenburg, Germany and the first margrave.

1345 – The megas doux Alexios Apokaukos, chief minister of the Byzantine Empire, is lynched by political prisoners.

1429 – Hundred Years' War: Start of the Battle of Jargeau.

1488 – Battle of Sauchieburn: Fought between rebel Lords and James III of Scotland, resulting in the death of the king.

1509 – Henry VIII of England marries Catherine of Aragon.

1594 – Philip II recognizes the rights and privileges of the local nobles and chieftains in the Philippines, which paved way to the stabilization of the rule of the Principalía (an elite ruling class of native nobility in Spanish Philippines).

1748 – Denmark adopts the characteristic Nordic Cross flag later taken up by all other Scandinavian countries.

1770 – British explorer Captain James Cook runs aground on the Great Barrier Reef.

1775 – The American Revolutionary War's first naval engagement, the Battle of Machias, results in the capture of a small British naval vessel.

1776 – The Continental Congress appoints Thomas Jefferson, John Adams, Benjamin Franklin, Roger Sherman, and Robert R. Livingston to the Committee of Five to draft a declaration of independence.

1788 – Russian explorer Gerasim Izmailov reaches Alaska.

1805 – A fire consumes large portions of Detroit in the Michigan Territory.

1825 – The first cornerstone is laid for Fort Hamilton in New York City.

1837 – The Broad Street Riot occurs in Boston, fueled by ethnic tensions between Yankees and Irish.

1865 – The Naval Battle of the Riachuelo is fought on the rivulet Riachuelo (Argentina), between the Paraguayan Navy on one side and the Brazilian Navy on the other. The Brazilian victory was crucial for the later success of the Triple Alliance (Brazil, Uruguay, and Argentina) in the Paraguayan War.

1892 – The Limelight Department, one of the world's first film studios, is officially established in Melbourne, Australia.

1895 – Paris–Bordeaux–Paris, sometimes called the first automobile race in history or the "first motor race", takes place.

1898 – The Hundred Days' Reform, a planned movement to reform social, political, and educational institutions in China, is started by the Guangxu Emperor, but is suspended by Empress Dowager Cixi after 104 days. (The failed reform led to the abolition of the Imperial examination in 1905.)

1901 – The boundaries of the Colony of New Zealand are extended by the UK to include the Cook Islands.

1903 – A group of Serbian officers stormed the royal palace and assassinated King Alexander Obrenović and his wife, Queen Draga.

1917 – King Alexander assumes the throne of Greece after his father, Constantine I, abdicates under pressure from allied armies occupying Athens.

1919 – Sir Barton wins the Belmont Stakes, becoming the first horse to win the U.S. Triple Crown.

1920 – During the U.S. Republican National Convention in Chicago, U.S. Republican Party leaders gathered in a room at the Blackstone Hotel to come to a consensus on their candidate for the U.S. presidential election, leading the Associated Press to coin the political phrase "smoke-filled room".

1935 – Inventor Edwin Armstrong gives the first public demonstration of FM broadcasting in the United States at Alpine, New Jersey.

1936 – The London International Surrealist Exhibition opens.

1937 – Great Purge: The Soviet Union under Joseph Stalin executes eight army leaders.

1938 – Second Sino-Japanese War: The Battle of Wuhan starts.

1942 – World War II: The United States agrees to send Lend-Lease aid to the Soviet Union.

1942 – Free French Forces retreat from Bir Hakeim after having successfully delayed the Axis advance.

1944 – USS Missouri, the last battleship built by the United States Navy and future site of the signing of the Japanese Instrument of Surrender, is commissioned.

1955 – Eighty-three spectators are killed and at least 100 are injured after an Austin-Healey and a Mercedes-Benz collide at the 24 Hours of Le Mans, the deadliest ever accident in motorsports.

1956 – Start of Gal Oya riots, the first reported ethnic riots that target minority Sri Lankan Tamils in the Eastern Province. The total number of deaths is reportedly 150.

1962 – Frank Morris, John Anglin and Clarence Anglin allegedly become the only prisoners to escape from the prison on Alcatraz Island.

1963 – American Civil Rights Movement: Governor of Alabama George Wallace defiantly stands at the door of Foster Auditorium at the University of Alabama in an attempt to block two black students, Vivian Malone and James Hood, from attending that school. Later in the day, accompanied by federalized National Guard troops, they are able to register.

1963 – Buddhist monk Thích Quảng Đức burns himself with gasoline in a busy Saigon intersection to protest the lack of religious freedom in South Vietnam.

1963 – John F. Kennedy addresses Americans from the Oval Office proposing the Civil Rights Act of 1964, which would revolutionize American society by guaranteeing equal access to public facilities, ending segregation in education, and guaranteeing federal protection for voting rights.

1964 – World War II veteran Walter Seifert attacks an elementary school in Cologne, Germany, killing at least eight children and two teachers and seriously injuring several more with a home-made flamethrower and a lance.

1968 – Lloyd J. Old identified the first cell surface antigens that could differentiate among different cell types.

1970 – After being appointed on May 15, Anna Mae Hays and Elizabeth P. Hoisington officially receive their ranks as U.S. Army Generals, becoming the first females to do so.

1971 – The U.S. Government forcibly removes the last holdouts to the Native American Occupation of Alcatraz, ending 19 months of control.

1978 – Altaf Hussain founds the student political movement All Pakistan Muhajir Students Organisation (APMSO) in Karachi University.

1981 – A magnitude 6.9 earthquake at Golbaf, Iran, kills at least 2,000.

1987 – Diane Abbott, Paul Boateng and Bernie Grant are elected as the first black MPs in Great Britain.

1998 – Compaq Computer pays US$9 billion for Digital Equipment Corporation in the largest high-tech acquisition.

2001 – Timothy McVeigh is executed for his role in the Oklahoma City bombing.

2002 – Antonio Meucci is acknowledged as the first inventor of the telephone by the United States Congress.

2004 – Cassini–Huygens makes its closest flyby of the Saturn moon Phoebe.

2007 – Mudslides in Chittagong, Bangladesh, kill 130 people.

2008 – Canadian Prime Minister Stephen Harper makes a historic official apology to Canada's First Nations in regard to abuses at a Canadian Indian residential school.

2008 – The Fermi Gamma-ray Space Telescope is launched into orbit.

2010 – The first African FIFA World Cup kicks off in South Africa.

2012 – More than 80 people die in a landslide triggered by two earthquakes in Afghanistan; an entire village is buried.

2013 – Greece's public broadcaster ERT is shut down by then-prime minister Antonis Samaras.

2015 – Greece's public broadcaster ERT is reopened by then-prime minister Alexis Tsipras.

2018 – United States President Donald Trump and Kim Jong-un of North Korea held the first meeting between leaders of their two countries in Singapore.

2018 – 3 World Trade Center officially opens.

June 13th

313 – The Edict of Milan, signed by Constantine the Great and co-emperor Valerius Licinius granting religious freedom throughout the Roman Empire, is posted in Nicomedia.

1381 – The Peasants' Revolt led by Wat Tyler culminated in the burning of the Savoy Palace.

1514 – Henry Grace à Dieu, at over 1,000 tons the largest warship in the world at this time, built at the new Woolwich Dockyard in England, is dedicated.

1525 – Martin Luther marries Katharina von Bora, against the celibacy rule decreed by the Roman Catholic Church for priests and nuns.

1625 – King Charles I of England marries Catholic princess Henrietta Maria of France and Navarre, at Canterbury.

1740 – Georgia provincial governor James Oglethorpe begins an unsuccessful attempt to take Spanish Florida during the Siege of St. Augustine.

1774 – Rhode Island becomes the first of Britain's North American colonies to ban the importation of slaves.

1777 – American Revolutionary War: Gilbert du Motier, Marquis de Lafayette lands near Charleston, South Carolina, in order to help the Continental Congress to train its army.

1805 – Lewis and Clark Expedition: scouting ahead of the expedition, Meriwether Lewis and four companions sight the Great Falls of the Missouri River.

1881 – The USS Jeannette is crushed in an Arctic Ocean ice pack.

1886 – A fire devastates much of Vancouver, British Columbia.

1893 – Grover Cleveland notices a rough spot in his mouth and on July 1 undergoes secret, successful surgery to remove a large, cancerous portion of his jaw; the operation was not revealed to the public until 1917, nine years after the president's death.

1898 – Yukon Territory is formed, with Dawson chosen as its capital.

1917 – World War I: The deadliest German air raid on London of the war is carried out by Gotha G.IV bombers and results in 162 deaths, including 46 children, and 432 injuries.

1927 – Aviator Charles Lindbergh receives a ticker tape parade down 5th Avenue in New York City.

1944 – World War II: The Battle of Villers-Bocage: German tank ace Michael Wittmann ambushes elements of the British 7th Armoured Division, destroying up to fourteen tanks, fifteen personnel carriers and two anti-tank guns in a Tiger I tank.

1944 – World War II: German combat elements, reinforced by the 17th SS Panzergrenadier Division, launch a counterattack on American forces near Carentan.

1944 – World War II: Germany launches the first V1 Flying Bomb attack on England. Only four of the eleven bombs strike their targets.

1952 – Catalina affair: A Swedish Douglas DC-3 is shot down by a Soviet MiG-15 fighter.

1966 – The United States Supreme Court rules in Miranda v. Arizona that the police must inform suspects of their rights before questioning them.

1967 – U.S. President Lyndon B. Johnson nominates Solicitor-General Thurgood Marshall to become the first black justice on the U.S. Supreme Court.

1971 – Vietnam War: The New York Times begins publication of the Pentagon Papers.

1977 – Convicted Martin Luther King Jr. assassin James Earl Ray is recaptured after escaping from prison three days before.

1981 – At the Trooping the Colour ceremony in London, a teenager, Marcus Sarjeant, fires six blank shots at Queen Elizabeth II.

1982 – Fahd becomes King of Saudi Arabia upon the death of his brother, Khalid.

1982 – Battles of Tumbledown and Wireless Ridge, during the Falklands War.

1983 – Pioneer 10 becomes the first man-made object to leave the central Solar System when it passes beyond the orbit of Neptune.

1990 – First day of the June 1990 Mineriad in Romania. At least 240 strikers and students are arrested or killed in the chaos ensuing from the first post-Ceaușescu elections.

1994 – A jury in Anchorage, Alaska, blames recklessness by Exxon and Captain Joseph Hazelwood for the Exxon Valdez disaster, allowing victims of the oil spill to seek $15 billion in damages.

1996 – The Montana Freemen surrender after an 81-day standoff with FBI agents.

1997 – A jury sentences Timothy McVeigh to death for his part in the 1995 Oklahoma City bombing.

2000 – President Kim Dae-jung of South Korea meets Kim Jong-il, leader of North Korea, for the beginning of the first ever inter-Korea summit, in the northern capital of Pyongyang.

2000 – Italy pardons Mehmet Ali Ağca, the Turkish gunman who tried to kill Pope John Paul II in 1981.

2002 – The United States withdraws from the Anti-Ballistic Missile Treaty.

2007 – The Al Askari Mosque is bombed for a second time.

2010 – A capsule of the Japanese spacecraft Hayabusa, containing particles of the asteroid 25143 Itokawa, returns to Earth.

2012 – A series of bombings across Iraq, including Baghdad, Hillah and Kirkuk, kills at least 93 people and wounds over 300 others.

2015 – A man opens fire at policemen outside the police headquarters in Dallas, Texas, while a bag containing a pipe bomb is also found. He was later shot dead by police.

June 15th

763 BC – Assyrians record a solar eclipse that is later used to fix the chronology of Mesopotamian history.

844 – Louis II is crowned as king of Italy at Rome by pope Sergius II.

923 – Battle of Soissons: King Robert I of France is killed and King Charles the Simple is arrested by the supporters of Duke Rudolph of Burgundy.

1184 – King Magnus V of Norway is killed at the Battle of Fimreite.

1215 – King John of England puts his seal to Magna Carta.

1219 – Northern Crusades: Danish victory at the Battle of Lindanise (modern-day Tallinn) establishes the Danish Duchy of Estonia.

1246 – With the death of Frederick II, Duke of Austria, the Babenberg dynasty ends in Austria.

1300 – The city of Bilbao is founded.

1312 – At the Battle of Rozgony, King Charles I of Hungary wins a decisive victory over the family of Palatine Amade Aba.

1389 – Battle of Kosovo: The Ottoman Empire defeats Serbs and Bosnians.

1410 – In a decisive battle at Onon River, the Mongol forces of Oljei Temur were decimated by the Chinese armies of the Yongle Emperor.

1502 – Christopher Columbus lands on the island of Martinique on his fourth voyage.

1520 – Pope Leo X threatens to excommunicate Martin Luther in Exsurge Domine.

1648 – Margaret Jones is hanged in Boston for witchcraft in the first such execution for the Massachusetts Bay Colony.

1667 – The first human blood transfusion is administered by Dr. Jean-Baptiste Denys.

1670 – The first stone of Fort Ricasoli is laid down in Malta.

1752 – Benjamin Franklin proves that lightning is electricity (traditional date, the exact date is unknown).

1776 – Delaware Separation Day: Delaware votes to suspend government under the British Crown and separate officially from Pennsylvania.

1800 – The Provisional Army of the United States is dissolved.

1804 – New Hampshire approves the Twelfth Amendment to the United States Constitution, ratifying the document.

1808 – Joseph Bonaparte becomes King of Spain.

1836 – Arkansas is admitted as the 25th U.S. state.

1844 – Charles Goodyear receives a patent for vulcanization, a process to strengthen rubber.

1846 – The Oregon Treaty establishes the 49th parallel as the border between the United States and Canada, from the Rocky Mountains to the Strait of Juan de Fuca.

1859 – Pig War: Ambiguity in the Oregon Treaty leads to the "Northwestern Boundary Dispute" between United States and British/Canadian settlers.

1864 – American Civil War: The Second Battle of Petersburg begins.

1864 – Arlington National Cemetery is established when 200 acres (0.81 km2) around Arlington Mansion (formerly owned by Confederate General Robert E. Lee) are officially set aside as a military cemetery by U.S. Secretary of War Edwin M. Stanton.

1877 – Henry Ossian Flipper becomes the first African American cadet to graduate from the United States Military Academy.

1878 – Eadweard Muybridge takes a series of photographs to prove that all four feet of a horse leave the ground when it runs; the study becomes the basis of motion pictures.

1888 – Crown Prince Wilhelm becomes Kaiser Wilhelm II; he will be the last Emperor of the German Empire. Due to the death of his predecessors Wilhelm I and Frederick III, 1888 is the Year of the Three Emperors.

1896 – The deadliest tsunami in Japan's history kills more than 22,000 people.

1904 – A fire aboard the steamboat SS General Slocum in New York City's East River kills 1,000.

1916 – United States President Woodrow Wilson signs a bill incorporating the Boy Scouts of America, making them the only American youth organization with a federal charter.

1919 – John Alcock and Arthur Brown complete the first nonstop transatlantic flight when they reach Clifden, County Galway, Ireland.

1920 – A new border treaty between Germany and Denmark gives northern Schleswig to Denmark.

1921 – Bessie Coleman earns her pilot's license, becoming the first female pilot of African-American descent.

1934 – The United States Great Smoky Mountains National Park is founded.

1936 – First flight of the Vickers Wellington bomber.

1937 – A German expedition led by Karl Wien loses sixteen members in an avalanche on Nanga Parbat. It is the worst single disaster to occur on an 8000m peak.

1940 – World War II: Operation Ariel begins: Allied troops start to evacuate France, following Germany's takeover of Paris and most of the nation.

1944 – World War II: Battle of Saipan: The United States invade Japanese-occupied Saipan.

1944 – In the Saskatchewan general election, the CCF, led by Tommy Douglas, is elected and forms the first socialist government in North America.

1970 – Charles Manson goes on trial for the Sharon Tate murders.

1972 – Red Army Faction co-founder Ulrike Meinhof is captured by police in Langenhagen.

1977 – After the death of dictator Francisco Franco in 1975, the first democratic elections took place in Spain on this day.

1978 – King Hussein of Jordan marries American Lisa Halaby, who takes the name Queen Noor.

1985 – Rembrandt's painting Danaë is attacked by a man (later judged insane) who throws sulfuric acid on the canvas and cuts it twice with a knife.

1991 – In the Philippines, Mount Pinatubo erupts in the second largest volcanic eruption of the 20th century, killing over 800 people.

1992 – The United States Supreme Court rules in United States v. Álvarez-Machaín that it is permissible for the United States to forcibly extradite suspects in foreign countries and bring them to the United States for trial, without approval from those other countries.

1994 – Israel and Vatican City establish full diplomatic relations.

1996 – The Troubles: The Provisional Irish Republican Army (IRA) detonates a powerful truck bomb in the middle of Manchester, England, devastating the city centre and injuring 200 people.

2001 – Leaders of the People's Republic of China, Russia, Kazakhstan, Kyrgyzstan, Tajikistan and Uzbekistan formed the Shanghai Cooperation Organisation.

2012 – Nik Wallenda becomes the first person to successfully tightrope walk directly over Niagara Falls.

2013 – A bomb explodes on a bus in the Pakistani city of Quetta, killing at least 25 people and wounding 22 others.

June 17th

653 – Pope Martin I is arrested in the Lateran Palace before being taken to Constantinople and tried for high treason.

1244 – Following the Disputation of Paris, twenty-four carriage loads of Jewish religious manuscripts were burnt in Paris.

1397 – The Kalmar Union is formed under the rule of Margaret I of Denmark.

1462 – Vlad III the Impaler attempts to assassinate Mehmed II (The Night Attack at Târgovişte), forcing him to retreat from Wallachia.

1497 – Battle of Deptford Bridge: Forces under King Henry VII defeat troops led by Michael An Gof.

1565 – Matsunaga Hisahide assassinates the 13th Ashikaga shōgun, Ashikaga Yoshiteru.

1579 – Sir Francis Drake claims a land he calls Nova Albion (modern California) for England.

1596 – The Dutch explorer Willem Barentsz discovers the Arctic archipelago of Spitsbergen.

1631 – Mumtaz Mahal dies during childbirth. Her husband, Mughal emperor Shah Jahan I, will spend the next 17 years building her mausoleum, the Taj Mahal.

1665 – Battle of Montes Claros: Portugal definitively secured independence from Spain in the last battle of the Portuguese Restoration War.

1673 – French explorers Jacques Marquette and Louis Jolliet reach the Mississippi River and become the first Europeans to make a detailed account of its course.

1767 – Samuel Wallis, an English sea captain, sights Tahiti and is considered the first European to reach the island.

1773 – Cúcuta, Colombia, is founded by Juana Rangel de Cuéllar.

1775 – American Revolutionary War: Colonists inflict heavy casualties on British forces while losing the Battle of Bunker Hill.

1789 – In France, the Third Estate declares itself the National Assembly.

1794 – Foundation of Anglo-Corsican Kingdom.

1795 – The burghers of Swellendam expel the Dutch East India Company magistrate and declare a republic.

1839 – In the Kingdom of Hawaii, Kamehameha III issues the edict of toleration which gives Roman Catholics the freedom to worship in the Hawaiian Islands. The Hawaii Catholic Church and the Cathedral of Our Lady of Peace are established as a result.

1843 – The Wairau Affray, the first serious clash of arms between Māori and British settlers in the New Zealand Wars, takes place.

1861 – American Civil War: Battle of Vienna, Virginia.

1863 – American Civil War: Battle of Aldie in the Gettysburg Campaign.

1876 – American Indian Wars: Battle of the Rosebud: One thousand five hundred Sioux and Cheyenne led by Crazy Horse beat back General George Crook's forces at Rosebud Creek in Montana Territory.

1877 – American Indian Wars: Battle of White Bird Canyon: The Nez Perce defeat the U.S. Cavalry at White Bird Canyon in the Idaho Territory.

1885 – The Statue of Liberty arrives in New York Harbor.

1898 – The United States Navy Hospital Corps is established.

1900 – Boxer Rebellion: Western Allied and Japanese forces capture the Taku Forts in Tianjin, China.

1901 – The College Board introduces its first standardized test, the forerunner to the SAT.

1910 – Aurel Vlaicu pilots an A. Vlaicu nr. 1 on its first flight.

1922 – Portuguese naval aviators Gago Coutinho and Sacadura Cabral complete the first aerial crossing of the South Atlantic.

1929 – The town of Murchison, New Zealand Is rocked by a 7.8 magnitude earthquake killing 17. At the time it was New Zealand's worst natural disaster.

1930 – U.S. President Herbert Hoover signs the Smoot–Hawley Tariff Act into law.

1932 – Bonus Army: Around a thousand World War I veterans amass at the United States Capitol as the U.S. Senate considers a bill that would give them certain benefits.

1933 – Union Station massacre: In Kansas City, Missouri, four FBI agents and captured fugitive Frank Nash are gunned down by gangsters attempting to free Nash.

1939 – Last public guillotining in France: Eugen Weidmann, a convicted murderer, is guillotined in Versailles outside the Saint-Pierre prison.

1940 – World War II: RMS Lancastria is attacked and sunk by the Luftwaffe near Saint-Nazaire, France. At least 3,000 are killed in Britain's worst maritime disaster.

1940 – World War II: The British Army's 11th Hussars assault and take Fort Capuzzo in Libya, Africa from Italian forces.

1940 – The three Baltic states of Estonia, Latvia and Lithuania fall under the occupation of the Soviet Union.

1944 – Iceland declares independence from Denmark and becomes a republic.

1948 – A Douglas DC-6 carrying United Airlines Flight 624 crashes near Mount Carmel, Pennsylvania, killing all 43 people on board.

1953 – Cold War: East Germany Workers Uprising: In East Germany, the Soviet Union orders a division of troops into East Berlin to quell a rebellion.

1958 – The Ironworkers Memorial Second Narrows Crossing, in the process of being built to connect Vancouver and North Vancouver (Canada), collapses into the Burrard Inlet killing many of the ironworkers and injuring others.

1960 – The Nez Perce tribe is awarded $4 million for 7 million acres (28,000 km2) of land undervalued at four cents/acre in the 1863 treaty.

1963 – The United States Supreme Court rules 8–1 in Abington School District v. Schempp against requiring the reciting of Bible verses and the Lord's Prayer in public schools.

1963 – A day after South Vietnamese President Ngô Đình Diệm announced the Joint Communiqué to end the Buddhist crisis, a riot involving around 2,000 people breaks out. One person is killed.

1967 – Nuclear weapons testing: The People's Republic of China announces a successful test of its first thermonuclear weapon.

1972 – Watergate scandal: Five White House operatives are arrested for burgling the offices of the Democratic National Committee, in an attempt by some members of the Republican party to illegally wiretap the opposition.

1985 – Space Shuttle program: STS-51-G mission: Space Shuttle Discovery launches carrying Sultan bin Salman bin Abdulaziz Al Saud, the first Arab and first Muslim in space, as a payload specialist.

1987 – With the death of the last individual of the species, the dusky seaside sparrow becomes extinct.

1991 – Apartheid: The South African Parliament repeals the Population Registration Act which required racial classification of all South Africans at birth.

1992 – A "joint understanding" agreement on arms reduction is signed by U.S. President George Bush and Russian President Boris Yeltsin (this would be later codified in START II).

1994 – Following a televised low-speed highway chase, O. J. Simpson is arrested for the murders of his ex-wife, Nicole Brown Simpson, and her friend Ronald Goldman.

2015 – Nine people are killed in a mass shooting at Emanuel African Methodist Episcopal Church in Charleston, South Carolina.

2017 – A series of wildfires in central Portugal kill at least 64 people and injure 204 others.

June 19th

325 – The original Nicene Creed was adopted at the First Council of Nicaea.

1179 – The Norwegian Battle of Kalvskinnet outside Nidaros. Earl Erling Skakke is killed, and the battle changes the tide of the civil wars.

1269 – King Louis IX of France orders all Jews found in public without an identifying yellow badge to be fined ten livres of silver.

1306 – The Earl of Pembroke's army defeats Bruce's Scottish army at the Battle of Methven.

1586 – English colonists leave Roanoke Island, after failing to establish England's first permanent settlement in North America.

1800 – War of the Second Coalition Battle of Höchstädt results in a French victory over Austria.

1816 – Battle of Seven Oaks between North West Company and Hudson's Bay Company, near Winnipeg, Manitoba, Canada.

1821 – Decisive defeat of the Filiki Eteria by the Ottomans at Drăgășani (in Wallachia).

1846 – The first officially recorded, organized baseball game is played under Alexander Cartwright's rules on Hoboken, New Jersey's Elysian Fields with the New York Base Ball Club defeating the Knickerbockers 23–1. Cartwright umpired.

1850 – Princess Louise of the Netherlands marries Crown Prince Karl of Sweden–Norway.

1862 – The U.S. Congress prohibits slavery in United States territories, nullifying Dred Scott v. Sandford.

1865 – Over two years after the Emancipation Proclamation, slaves in Galveston, Texas, United States, are finally informed of their freedom. The anniversary is still officially celebrated in Texas and 41 other contiguous states as Juneteenth.

1867 – Maximilian I of the Second Mexican Empire is executed by a firing squad in Querétaro, Querétaro.

1875 – The Herzegovinian rebellion against the Ottoman Empire begins.

1903 – Benito Mussolini, then a radical Socialist, arrested by Bern police for advocating a violent general strike.

1910 – The first Father's Day is celebrated in Spokane, Washington.

1913 – Natives Land Act, 1913 in South Africa implemented.

1915 – USS Arizona (BB-39) is launched.

1934 – The Communications Act of 1934 establishes the United States' Federal Communications Commission (FCC).

1943 – The Philadelphia Eagles and Pittsburgh Steelers in the NFL merge for one season due to player shortages caused by World War II.

1944 – World War II: First day of the Battle of the Philippine Sea.

1949 – The first ever NASCAR race was held at Charlotte Motor Speedway.

1953 – Cold War: Julius and Ethel Rosenberg are executed at Sing Sing, in New York.

1961 – Kuwait declares independence from the United Kingdom.

1964 – The Civil Rights Act of 1964 is approved after surviving an 83-day filibuster in the United States Senate.

1965 – Nguyễn Cao Kỳ becomes Prime Minister of South Vietnam at the head of a military junta; General Nguyễn Văn Thiệu becomes the figurehead chief of state.

1978 – Garfield, holder of the Guinness World Record for the world's most widely syndicated comic strip, makes its debut.

1985 – Members of the Revolutionary Party of Central American Workers, dressed as Salvadoran soldiers, attack the Zona Rosa area of San Salvador.

1987 – Basque separatist group ETA commits one of its most violent attacks, in which a bomb is set off in a supermarket, Hipercor, killing 21 and injuring 45.

1988 – Pope John Paul II canonizes 117 Vietnamese Martyrs.

1990 – The current international law defending indigenous peoples, Indigenous and Tribal Peoples Convention, 1989, is ratified for the first time by Norway.

1990 – The Communist Party of the Russian Soviet Federative Socialist Republic is founded in Moscow.

1991 – The Soviet occupation of Hungary ends.

2007 – The al-Khilani Mosque bombing in Baghdad leaves 78 people dead and another 218 injured.

2009 – Mass riots involving over 10,000 people and 10,000 police officers break out in Shishou, China, over the dubious circumstances surrounding the death of a local chef.

2009 – War in North-West Pakistan: The Pakistani Armed Forces open Operation Rah-e-Nijat against the Taliban and other Islamist rebels in the South Waziristan area of the Federally Administered Tribal Areas.

2012 – WikiLeaks founder Julian Assange requested asylum in London's Ecuadorian Embassy for fear of extradition to the US after publication of previously classified documents including footage of civilian killings by the US army.

2018 – The 10,000,000th United States Patent is issued.

June 21st

533 – A Byzantine expeditionary fleet under Belisarius sails from Constantinople to attack the Vandals in Africa, via Greece and Sicily (approximate date).

1307 – Külüg Khan is enthroned as Khagan of the Mongols and Wuzong of the Yuan.

1529 – French forces are driven out of northern Italy by Spain at the Battle of Landriano during the War of the League of Cognac.

1582 – Sengoku period: Oda Nobunaga, the most powerful of the Japanese daimyōs, was forced to commit suicide by his own general Akechi Mitsuhide.

1621 – Execution of 27 Czech noblemen on the Old Town Square in Prague as a consequence of the Battle of White Mountain.

1734 – In Montreal in New France, a slave known by the French name of Marie-Joseph Angélique is put to death, having been convicted of setting the fire that destroyed much of the city.

1749 – Halifax, Nova Scotia, is founded.

1768 – James Otis, Jr. offends the King and Parliament in a speech to the Massachusetts General Court.

1788 – New Hampshire becomes the ninth state to ratify the Constitution of the United States.

1791 – King Louis XVI of France and his immediate family begin the Flight to Varennes during the French Revolution.

1798 – Irish Rebellion of 1798: The British Army defeats Irish rebels at the Battle of Vinegar Hill.

1813 – Peninsular War: Wellington defeats Joseph Bonaparte at the Battle of Vitoria.

1824 – Greek War of Independence: Egyptian forces capture Psara in the Aegean Sea.

1826 – Maniots defeat Egyptians under Ibrahim Pasha in the Battle of Vergas.

1848 – In the Wallachian Revolution, Ion Heliade Rădulescu and Christian Tell issue the Proclamation of Islaz and create a new republican government.

1864 – American Civil War: The Battle of Jerusalem Plank Road begins.

1898 – The United States captures Guam from Spain.

1900 – Boxer Rebellion. China formally declares war on the United States, Britain, Germany, France and Japan, as an edict issued from the Empress Dowager Cixi.

1915 – The U.S. Supreme Court hands down its decision in Guinn v. United States 238 US 347 1915, striking down Oklahoma grandfather clause legislation which had the effect of denying the right to vote to blacks.

1919 – The Royal Canadian Mounted Police fire a volley into a crowd of unemployed war veterans, killing two, during the Winnipeg general strike.

1919 – Admiral Ludwig von Reuter scuttles the German fleet at Scapa Flow, Orkney. The nine sailors killed are the last casualties of World War I.

1929 – An agreement brokered by U.S. Ambassador Dwight Whitney Morrow ends the Cristero War in Mexico.

1930 – One-year conscription comes into force in France.

1940 – World War II: Italy begins an unsuccessful invasion of France.

1942 – World War II: Tobruk falls to Italian and German forces.

1942 – World War II: A Japanese submarine surfaces near the Columbia River in Oregon, firing 17 shells at Fort Stevens in one of only a handful of attacks by Japan against the United States mainland.

1945 – World War II: The Battle of Okinawa ends when the organized resistance of Imperial Japanese Army forces collapses in the Mabuni area on the southern tip of the main island.

1952 – The Philippine School of Commerce, through a republic act, is converted to Philippine College of Commerce, later to be the Polytechnic University of the Philippines.

1957 – Ellen Fairclough is sworn in as Canada's first female Cabinet Minister.

1963 – Cardinal Giovanni Battista Montini is elected as Pope Paul VI.

1964 – Three civil rights workers, Andrew Goodman, James Chaney and Mickey Schwerner, are murdered in Neshoba County, Mississippi, United States, by members of the Ku Klux Klan.

1970 – Penn Central declares Section 77 bankruptcy, largest ever US corporate bankruptcy up to this date.

1973 – In handing down the decision in Miller v. California 413 US 15, the Supreme Court of the United States establishes the Miller test for obscenity in U.S. law.

1978 – The original production of Tim Rice and Andrew Lloyd Webber's musical, Evita, based on the life of Eva Perón, opened at the Prince Edward Theatre, London.

1982 – John Hinckley is found not guilty by reason of insanity for the attempted assassination of U.S. President Ronald Reagan.

1989 – The U.S. Supreme Court ruled in Texas v. Johnson that American flag-burning was a form of political protest protected by the First Amendment.

2000 – Section 28 (of the Local Government Act 1988), outlawing the 'promotion' of homosexuality in the United Kingdom, is repealed in Scotland with a 99 to 17 vote.

2001 – A federal grand jury in Alexandria, Virginia, indicts 13 Saudis and a Lebanese in the 1996 bombing of the Khobar Towers in Saudi Arabia that killed 19 American servicemen.

2004 – SpaceShipOne becomes the first privately funded spaceplane to achieve spaceflight.

2005 – Edgar Ray Killen, who had previously been unsuccessfully tried for the murders of James Chaney, Andrew Goodman, and Mickey Schwerner, is convicted of manslaughter 41 years afterwards (the case had been reopened in 2004).

2006 – Pluto's newly discovered moons are officially named Nix and Hydra.

2009 – Greenland assumes self-rule.

2012 – A boat carrying more than 200 migrants capsized in the Indian Ocean between the Indonesian island of Java and Christmas Island, killing 17 people and leaving 70 others missing.