- 618 Coronation of the Chinese governor Li Yuan as Emperor Gaozu of Tang, the new Emperor of China, initiating three centuries of the Tang Dynasty's rule over China
- 860 Rus Vikings attack Constantinople
Event of Interest
1155 Pope Adrian IV crowns Frederick I Barbarossa Roman-German Emperor
Frederick Barbarossa
- 1178 Five monks at Canterbury report something exploding on the moon shortly after sunset (only known observation)
- 1264 The Parliament of Ireland meets at Castledermot in County Kildare, the first definitively known meeting of this Irish legislature
- 1316 Peace of Fexhe: prince-bishop Adolf II of Mark and Luikse towns
Appointment of Interest
1541 Irish parliament selects Henry VIII of England as King of Ireland
Henry VIII
- 1574 Polish King Hendrik of Anjou secretly leaves Poland
- 1580 States of Utrecht forbid catholic worship
- 1583 Richard Martin of London takes out first life insurance policy, on William Gibbons; premium was £383
- 1629 Sea battle at Dungeness: Piet Heyn beat the Dunkirkers, commerce raiders in the service of the Spanish Monarchy
- 1639 Treaty of Berwick: Ends the First Bishops' War between England and Scotland
- 1643 Skirmish at Chalgrove Field: Prince Rupert parliamentary armies
Event of Interest
1682 William Penn founds Philadelphia, US
William Penn
- 1757 Battle at Kolin Bohemia: Austrian army beats Prussia
- 1767 Samuel Wallis, an English sea captain, sights Tahiti, considered the first European to reach the island
- 1778 British Redcoats evacuate Philadelphia
- 1779 French fleet occupies St Vincent
- 1812 War of 1812 begins as US declares war against Britain
Battle of Waterloo
1815 Battle of Waterloo; Napoleon and France defeated by British forces under Wellington and Prussian troops under Blucher
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Battle of Interest
1864 Battle of Petersburg: Ulysses S. Grant ends four days of assaults and begins a nine month siege
Ulysses S. Grant
- 1872 Woman's Suffrage Convention held at Merchantile Liberty Hall, Philadelphia, Pennsylvania
Event of Interest
1873 Susan B. Anthony fined $100 for voting for US President
Susan B. Anthony
- 1879 W. H. Richardson, an African-American inventor, patents the children's carriage (Patent no. 405599)
- 1887 The Reinsurance Treaty between Germany and Russia is signed
- 1892 Macadamia nuts 1st planted in Hawaii
- 1894 Premier Roseberry declares Uganda a British protectorate
- 1898 1st amusement pier opens in Atlantic City, New Jersey
- 1898 US Open Men's Golf, Myopia Hunt Club: Scotsman Fred Herd easily wins by 7 strokes from countryman Alex Smith; first 72-hole US Open
- 1898 US National Championship Women's Tennis, Philadelphia CC: Defending champion Juliette Atkinson beats Marion Jones 6-3, 5-7, 6-4, 2-6, 7-5 for her third US singles title
- 1900 Empress Douairiere orders I-Ho-Chuan (Boxers) to kill all foreigners
- 1900 General Luigi Pelloux resigns as premier of Italy
- 1908 Japanese immigration to Brazil begins when 781 people arrive in Santos aboard the Kasato-Maru ship
- 1909 Nannie Burroughs forms national training School for Women
Presidential Convention
1912 The Chicago national Republican Convention splits between President Taft and Theodore Roosevelt; after Taft is nominated, Roosevelt and progressive elements of the Party form the Progressive Party (also known as the 'Bull Moose Party')
Theodore Roosevelt
William Howard Taft
- 1915 US Open Men's Golf, Baltusrol GC: 4-time US Amateur champion Jerome Travers captures his only Open title, 1 stroke ahead of runner-up Tom McNamara
- 1916 Yanks score in every inning but 8th to beat Indians 19-3 in baseball
- 1924 Pope Pius XI's encyclical Maximam gravissimamque
- 1926 Theodor Lessing laid-off "because he is a Jew" in Hanover
World Record
1927 Paavo Nurmi runs world record 2000 m: 5:24.6
Paavo Nurmi
Event of Interest
1928 American aviator Amelia Earhart becomes the 1st woman to fly across the Atlantic Ocean landing at Burry Port, Wales
Amelia Earhart
Event of Interest
1940 General Charles de Gaulle on BBC tells French to defy Nazi occupiers
Charles de Gaulle
- 1940 German occupiers slaughter cattle, pigs and chickens
Victory in Battle
1940 Winston Churchill's "this was their finest hour" speech urging perseverance during Battle of Britain delivered to British House of Commons
Winston Churchill
- 1941 Turkey signs peace treaty with nazi-Germany
- 1942 Bernard W Robinson, becomes 1st African American ensign in US Navy
- 1942 Eric Nessler of France stays aloft in a glider for 38h21m
- 1943 SS Police in Amsterdam sentence for 12 resistance fighter to death (Jewish, communists, homosexuality) at the census bureau
- 1944 Farewell concert of Willem Mengelberg in Paris
- 1944 German submarine U-767 sunk by English Navy destroyers in the English Channel
- 1945 William Joyce (Lord Haw-Haw) charged with treason
- 1946 Dr. Ram Manohar Lohia, a Socialist calls for a Direct Action Day against the Portuguese in Goa. A road is named after this date in Panjim
- 1947 Cincinnati Red Ewell Blackwell no-hits Boston Braves, 6-0
- 1948 American Library Association adopts Library Bill of Rights
- 1948 National Security Council authorizes covert operations for 1st time
- 1948 Phillies pitching great Robin Roberts debut, loses 2-0 to Pirates
- 1948 UN Commission on Human Rights adopts the International Declaration of Human Rights
- 1949 "Along Fifth Avenue" closes at Broadhurst Theater NYC after 180 performances
- 1950 Cleveland Indians score 14 runs in 1st inning, beat A's 21-2
- 1951 Charles de Gaulle wins French parliamentary election
- 1951 In South Africa, the Suppression of Communism Act commences
- 1953 Egypt proclaimed a republic, General Neguib becomes president
- 1953 USAF C124 Globemaster crashes near Tokyo killing 129 servicemen
- 1953 Eugene Stephens is 1st to get 3 hits & Red Sox score 17 runs in 1 Inning (7th) Red Sox beat Detroit 23-3
- 1953 3rd Berlin International Film Festival: "The Wages of Fear" wins Golden Bear (audience vote)
- 1954 Pierre Mendès forms French government
- 1954 4th Berlin International Film Festival: "Hobson's Choice" wins Golden Bear (audience vote)
- 1955 "3 for Tonight" closes at Plymouth Theater NYC after 85 performances
- 1957 John Diefenbacker (C) takes office as Prime Minister of Canada
- 1959 1st telecast transmitted from England to US
- 1959 Governor of Louisiana Earl K. Long is committed to a state mental hospital; he responds by having the hospital's director fired and replaced with a crony who proceeds to proclaim him perfectly sane
- 1959 New York City premiere of the film version of Kathryn Hulme's "The Nun's Story"
- 1960 "Destry Rides Again" closes at Imperial Theater NYC after 472 performances
US Golf Open
1960 US Open Men's Golf, Cherry Hills CC: Arnold Palmer stages greatest comeback in tournament history; erases a 7-stroke final round deficit to win his only US Open title by 2 strokes ahead of Jack Nicklaus
Arnold Palmer
Jack Nicklaus
- 1960 Giants hire Tom Sheehan as baseball's oldest debuting manager (66)
- 1961 CBS radio cancels Gunsmoke
- 1961 KBMT TV channel 12 in Beaumont, TX (ABC) begins broadcasting
- 1963 3,000 blacks boycott Boston public school
- 1964 African Groundnut Council forms in Dakar
- 1967 US Open Men's Golf, Baltusrol GC: Jack Nicklaus shoots a final round 65 for a new tournament record 275, 4 strokes ahead of Arnold Palmer
- 1967 Houston Don Wilson no-hits Atlanta Braves, 2-0
- 1967 Monterey International Pop Festival rocks Southern California
- 1968 Supreme Court bans racial discrimination in sale and rental of housing
- 1969 A report published by the International Commission of Jurists on the British government's policy in Northern Ireland is critical of both the British government and the Northern Ireland government
Film Release
1969 "The Wild Bunch", directed by Sam Peckinpah and starring William Holden and Ernest Borgnine, is released
Ernest Borgnine
William Holden
Election of Interest
1970 Edward Heath's Conservative Party win the General Election in UK, replacing the Labour Party
Edward Heath
- 1971 Social Democratic and Labour Party and Nationalist Members of Parliament refuse to attend the state opening of Stormont (North Ireland Parliament)
- 1972 US Open Men's Golf, Pebble Beach GL: Jack Nicklaus captures his 3rd Open title, 3 strokes ahead of Bruce Crampton of Australia
- 1972 BEA Trident crashes after takeoff from Heathrow killing 118
- 1972 US Supreme Court, 5-3, confirms lower court rulings in Curt Flood case, upholding baseball's exemption from antitrust laws
- 1972 3 members of the British Army are killed by an Irish Republican Army (IRA) bomb in a derelict house near Lurgan, County Down
- 1972 UEFA European Championship Final, Heysel Stadium, Brussels, Belgium: Gerd Müller scores a brace as West Germany beats Soviet Union, 3-0
Meeting of Interest
1973 Soviet General Secretary Leonid Brezhnev visits the US and President Nixon
Leonid Brezhnev
- 1973 NCAA makes urine testing mandatory for participants
- 1974 Gaston Thorn forms Luxembourg government
- 1975 Fred Lynn gets 10 RBIs in a single Red Sox game in a 15-1 victory over the Tigers
- 1975 Gary Gilmour takes 6-14 in Cricket World Cup semi v England
- 1975 NBC News & Information Service (24 hr news) premieres on radio
- 1976 A Joseph William Turner watercolor auctioned for £340,000
- 1976 St Louis Cards Lou Brock & Hector Cruz hit inside-the-park HRs
- 1976 Bowie Kuhn voids A's sales, totaling $35 million, of Joe Rudi & Rollie Fingers to Red Sox, & Vida Blue to Yankees
Event of Interest
1977 Billy Martin & Reggie Jackson get into a dug out altercation
Reggie Jackson
Event of Interest
1977 Sex Pistols johnny rotten & Paul Cook, beaten and robbed by London pub
John Lydon
- 1977 Space Shuttle test model "Enterprise" carries a crew aloft for 1st time, it was fixed to a modified Boeing 747
- 1978 US Open Men's Golf, Cherry Hills CC: Andy North holds on for a 1-stroke victory over runners-up Dave Stockton and J. C. Snead to claim the first of his 2 US Open titles
- 1978 Victor de la Torre wins Peru election
- 1979 Billy Martin becomes Yankee manager (2nd time), replacing Bob Lemon
- 1979 Sri Lanka beat India by 47 runs in Cricket World Cup upset
- 1979 US President Carter and Soviet leader Leonid Brezhnev sign SALT II treaty limiting nuclear weapons
- 1980 Dutch 2nd Chamber joins oil boycott of South Africa
- 1980 Mrs Shakuntala Devi mentally multiplies 2 13-digit #s in 28 sec
- 1981 Kimberley Ann Smith, of NC, 17, crowned America's Junior Miss
- 1981 Supreme Court Justice Potter Stewart retires (replaced by Sandra Day O'Connor, 1st woman on US Supreme Court)
- 1981 Test cricket debut of Terry Alderman, v England at Trent Bridge
- 1981 Vaccine to prevent hoof & mouth disease announced
- 1981 The AIDS epidemic is formally recognized by medical professionals in San Francisco, California
- 1982 ABC's All Talk radio network expands to 22 stations
- 1982 Voting Rights Act of 1965 extended by Senate by 85-8 vote
- 1983 "Pump Boys & Dinettes" closes at Princess Theater NYC after 573 performances
Event of Interest
1983 7th Shuttle Mission-Challenger 2 launches Sally Ride as 1st US woman in space
Sally Ride
- 1983 IRA's Joseph Doherty arrested in NYC
- 1984 US Open Men's Golf, Winged Foot GC: Fuzzy Zoeller beats Greg Norman of Australia by 8 strokes in a Monday 18-hole playoff to win his first Open title
- 1986 De Havilland Twin Otter & Bell 206 helicopter collide, kills 25
- 1986 Don Sutton becomes 19th pitcher to win 300 games
- 1986 Heike Friedrich swims female world record 200m freestyle (1:57.55)
- 1986 Papua New Guinea score 9-455 in 60 overs v Gibraltar, ICC Trophy
- 1986 US House of Representatives approves Bill to impose stricter sanctions on Apartheid South Africa
- 1987 Charles Glass, ABC journalist, kidnapped in Lebanon
- 1988 Jeff Hamilton, hits 8,000th Dodger home run
- 1989 "Starmites" closes at Criter Ctr SR Theater NYC after 60 performances
- 1989 US Open Men's Golf, Oak Hill CC: Curtis Strange wins by 3 from Scott Simpson for first back-to-back Open titles since Ben Hogan 1950-51
- 1989 Comet Churyunov-Gerasimenko at perihelion
- 1990 1st sudden death US Open Golf Championship is won by Hale Irwin
Event of Interest
1991 Boris Yeltsin, President of Russia, arrives in US
Boris Yeltsin
Music Single
1991 "(Everything I Do) I Do It for You" single released by Bryan Adams (Billboard Song of the Year 1991)
Bryan Adams
Event of Interest
1993 Expo's Dennis Martínez is 92nd to win 200 games
Dennis Martínez
- 1993 Toru Takemitsu's "Archipelago" premieres in Aldeburgh England
- 1994 Aleksander Popov swims world record 100m free style (48.21 sec)
- 1994 Gay Games open in NYC
- 1995 US Open Men's Golf, Shinnecock Hills GC: Corey Pavin wins his only major championship, 2 strokes ahead of runner-up Greg Norman of Australia
Event of Interest
1995 Memorial service for Elizabeth Montgomery is held at the Canon Theatre in Beverly Hills
Elizabeth Montgomery
Event of Interest
1995 All Black Jonah Lomu scores the try of the Rugby World Cup, running over Mike Catt in New Zealand's 45-29 defeat of England
Jonah Lomu
- 1995 FIFA Women's World Cup Final, Råsunda Stadium, Stockholm, Sweden: Hege Riise & Marianne Pettersen score within 3 minutes of each other to give Norway a 2-0 win over Germany
Event of Interest
1996 Ted Kaczynski, suspected of being the Unabomber, is indicted on ten criminal counts
Ted Kaczynski
Film Premier
1999 Hindi film "Hum Dil De Chuke Sanam" premieres directed by Sanjay Leela Bhansali, starring Salman Khan, Ajay Devgn and Aishwarya Rai
Aishwarya Rai
Salman Khan
- 2000 100th US Open Men's Golf, Pebble Beach GL: Tiger Woods wins his first US Open by a major championship record-setting 15 strokes over Ernie Els and Miguel Ángel Jiménez
- 2001 Protests occur in Manipur over the extension of the ceasefire between Naga insurgents and the government of India
- 2001 US Open Men's Golf, Southern Hills CC: Retief Goosen of South Africa wins first of 2 US Open titles in an 18-hole Monday playoff, 2 strokes ahead of runner-up Mark Brooks
Film Premier
2001 "The Fast and the Furious" film directed by Rob Cohen starring Paul Walker, Vin Diesel and Michelle Rodriguez premieres
Paul Walker
Vin Diesel
Event of Interest
2003 Google launches AdSense, a program that enables website publishers to serve ads targeted to the specific content of their individual web pages, many of which like On This Day (then HistoryOrb.com) go on to start their own publishing businesses
Susan Wojcicki
Event of Interest
2005 David Tennant's first appearance as the Tenth Doctor in BBC "Doctor Who" episode "The Parting of the Ways"
David Tennant
- 2006 The first Kazakh space satellite, KazSat is launched
- 2006 US Open Men's Golf, Winged Foot GC: Geoff Ogilvy of Australia makes clutch pars on the final 2 holes to win by 1, as runners-up Jim Furyk, Colin Montgomerie and Phil Mickelson all fail to par the 72nd hole
- 2012 15 people are killed and 40 injured in a suicide attack in Baquba, Iraq
- 2012 2nd Critics' Choice Television Awards: Community wins Best Comedy Series, Homeland wins Best Drama Series
- 2013 31 people are killed and 60 are injured by two suicide bombings in al-Qahira, Baghdad
- 2013 27 people are killed and 30 are injured by a suicide bomb in Sher Garh, Pakistan
- 2013 Russia passes a law banning foreign same-sex couples from adopting children
Event of Interest
2014 Ian McKellen is awarded an honorary degree by Cambridge University, becoming a Doctor of Letters
Ian McKellen
Event of Interest
2014 King Juan Carlos I of Spain abdicates the Spanish throne to make way for his son Felipe VI
Juan Carlos I
Felipe VI
Event of Interest
2015 Pope Francis blames human selfishness for global warming in his encyclical, named "Laudato Si (Be Praised), On the Care of Our Common Home"
Pope Francis
Election of Interest
2017 French President Emmanuel Macron's party La République en Marche and allies win a majority in 2nd round French legislative elections
Emmanuel Macron
- 2017 Pakistan defeat India to win cricket's Champions Trophy at the Oval in London by 180 runs, Fakhar Zaman scores 114 runs
- 2017 US Open Men's Golf, Erin Hills GC: Brooks Koepka wins his first major title by 4 strokes from Brian Harman and Hideki Matsuyama
- 2017 Rare magnitude-four earthquake causes a tsunami to hit Nuugaatsiaq in northwestern Greenland
Event of Interest
2018 President Trump orders US military to set up sixth branch of the military - a space force
Donald Trump
- 2018 Ferry sinks on Lake Toba in Sumatra, Indonesia, with 193 suspected dead
- 2019 Chennai, India's 6th largest city with 4 million people runs out of water as its reservoirs dry up
- 2019 China has been forcefully harvesting organs from marginalized groups in prison camps on a significant scale according to International Tribunal in London
- 2019 US President Donald Trump announces his campaign for reelection
- 2019 Hong Kong leader Carrie Lam apologizes for introducing the extradition law, announcing its suspension after massive protests in the city
- 2019 Sex-changing Australian bush tomato study published in journal "PhytoKeys" detailing how Solanum Plastisexum can change from male to female to hermaphrodite
- 2019 Two 14 year-old boys become the youngest in Irish history to be convicted of murder when found guilty of the murder and sexual assaultof 14 year-old girl in Dublin
- 2019 England cricket captain Eoin Morgan smashes a ODI world record 17 sixes against Afghanistan in his side's 150-run World Cup victory at Old Trafford; Morgan, 148 from 71 balls
June in History
Lomu – The Unstoppable Gentle Giant
Jonah Lomu was a phenomenon in Rugby Union – a man-mountain who inspired fear and respect in equal measure among his opponents.
June 18, 1995'Ship in Distress' Sails Into History Books
What was claimed to be the first trans-Atlantic crossing by a steam ship – even if sails helped – was completed on this day and is still celebrated
June 19, 1819'Gorgeous Gussie' Shocks Wimbledon
There is a strict dress code at Wimbledon and, as Gussie Moran discovered on this day in tennis history, tennis players break it at their peril.
June 20, 1949Misery of The King's Executioner
He may have caused civil war but the execution of King Charles I shocked many Englishmen and caused untold anguish for the man who took the royal life.
June 20, 1649
