- 455 King Gaiseric & the Vandals sack Rome - Rome looted for 14 days
- 575 Benedict I begins his reign as Catholic Pope
- 657 St Eugene I ends his reign as Catholic Pope
- 1615 First Récollet missionaries arrive at Quebec City, from Rouen, France
- 1619 England and the Netherlands sign treaty about trading in the Indies
Event of Interest
1625 Prince Frederick Henry sworn in as viceroy of Holland/Zealand
Frederick Henry
- 1633 Prince Frederick Henry conquers fort Rhine at Cologne
- 1676 Battle at Palermo: French beats Dutch and Spanish fleet
- 1697 August, Elector of Saxony becomes Catholic
- 1746 Russia and Austria sign agreements
- 1763 Pontiac's Rebellion: At what is now Mackinaw City, Michigan, Chippewas capture Fort Michilimackinac by diverting the garrison's attention with a game of lacrosse, then chasing a ball into the fort
Event of Interest
1771 "Armida", an operatic 'dramma per musica' by Antonio Salieri debuts at the Vienna Burgtheater
Antonio Salieri
- 1774 Intolerable Acts: Amendment to original Quartering Act enacted, allows governors in colonial America to house British soldiers in uninhabited houses, outhouses, barns, or other buildings if suitable quarters not provided
- 1780 Anti-Catholic demonstration attacks parliament in London
- 1797 1st ascent of "Great Mountain" (4,622') in Adirondack, NY (C Broadhead)
- 1834 5th national black convention meets (NYC)
- 1835 P T Barnum & his circus begin 1st tour of US
- 1848 The Slavic congress in Prague begins.
- 1851 1st US alcohol prohibition law enacted (Maine)
- 1855 The Portland Rum Riot occurs in Portland, Maine
- 1857 James Gibbs of Virginia, patents the chain-stitch single-thread sewing machine
- 1858 Donati Comet 1st seen named after its discoverer
Event of Interest
1862 Robert E Lee takes command of Confederate armies of North Virgina during US Civil War
Robert E. Lee
- 1862 Raid at Early's: Maryland towards Washington, D.C.
Event of Interest
1863 Harriet Tubman leads Union guerrillas into Maryland, freeing slaves
Harriet Tubman
- 1864 Battle of Cold Harbour, Day 2
- 1865 At Galveston, Kirby-Smith surrenders Trans-Mississippi Dept
- 1866 Renegade Irish Fenians surrender to US forces
- 1869 Cleveland's Forest City play their 1st game (vs Cincinnati Red Stockings)
- 1873 Construction begins on Clay St (San Francisco) for world's 1st cable railroad
- 1875 James Augustine Healey became 1st Black Catholic Bishop in US
Event of Interest
1875 Alexander Graham Bell makes first sound transmission
Alexander Graham Bell
- 1876 Hristo Botev, a Bulgarian poet and national revolutionary, is killed in Stara Planina
- 1881 Haarlem-Zandvoort Railway opens
- 1882 Pierre de Brazza festival welcomed in Paris
- 1883 1st night baseball under lights, Fort Wayne Indiana
- 1883 Chicago's "El" opens to traffic
- 1896 30th Belmont: Henry Griffin aboard Hastings wins in 2:24.5
Historic Invention
1896 Guglielmo Marconi applies to patent the radio, accepted 2 July 1897
Guglielmo Marconi
Appointment of Interest
1902 British naval officer David Beatty is appointed captain of the cruiser HMS Juno
David Beatty
- 1903 Netherlands Korfball League forms
- 1903 Pirates win a triple header from Dodgers
- 1904 Professor Schron finds microbe that causes photosynthesis
- 1908 33rd Preakness: Eddie Dugan riding Royal Tourist wins in 1:46.4
- 1909 43rd Belmont: Eddie Dugan riding Joe Madden wins in 2:21.6
- 1909 Alfred Deakin becomes Prime Minister of Australia for the third time
- 1910 1st roundtrip flight over English Channel (C S Rolls, England)
- 1910 Pygmies discovered in Dutch New Guinea
- 1913 1st strike settlement mediated by US Department of Labor - railroad clerks
- 1913 Demonstrations for general voting right in Netherlands
- 1914 Glenn Curtiss flies his Langley Aerodrome
- 1916 German troops under Lt Rackow take Fort Vaux
Event of Interest
1917 Canadian ace Billy Bishop undertakes a solo mission behind enemy lines, shooting down three aircrafts as they were about to take off and several more on the ground, for which he is awarded the Victoria Cross
Billy Bishop
Event of Interest
1924 President Calvin Coolidge signs the Indian Citizenship Act, declaring all Native Americans to be American citizens
Calvin Coolidge
Event of Interest
1925 NY Yankee Lou Gehrig begins his 2,130 consecutive game streak
Lou Gehrig
Franklin D. Roosevelt
- 1935 French Championships Men's Tennis: Englishman Fred Perry wins his only French title, beating Gottfried von Cramm of Germany 6-3, 3-6, 6-1, 6-3
- 1935 40th Women's French Championships: Hilde Krahwinkel Sperling beats Simonne Mathieu (6-2, 6-1)
- 1936 General Anastasio Somoza García takes over as dictator of Nicaragua
- 1940 Heavy German bombing on Dunkirk beach
Event of Interest
1942 Red Sox star Ted Williams enlists as a US Navy aviator
Ted Williams
Event of Interest
1944 Generals Eisenhower & Montgomery dine in Portsmouth
Dwight D. Eisenhower
- 1944 Herzogenbusch concentration camp near Vught, Netherlands, is disbanded by Allied forces, one of two SS-run camps outside Germany
- 1946 Italian plebiscite chooses republic over monarchy (National Day)
- 1947 "Louisiana Lady" opens at Century Theater NYC for 4 performances
- 1947 Hungarian premier Ferenc Nagy resigns
- 1950 St Louis Browns pitcher Harry Dorish swipes home vs Washington Senators
- 1951 Pope Pius XII publishes encyclical Evangelii praecones
- 1952 650,000 metal workers go on strike in US
- 1952 Maurice Olley of General Motors begins designing the Corvette
Event of Interest
1953 Coronation of Queen Elizabeth II in Westminster Abbey, London, England
Elizabeth II
Event of Interest
1957 US TV interviews Nikita Khrushchev
Nikita Khrushchev
Baseball Record
1958 Yankees pitcher Whitey Ford fans 6 in a row to tie an AL record
Whitey Ford
Event of Interest
1959 Allen Ginsberg writes his poem "Lysergic Acid", San Francisco
Allen Ginsberg
- 1960 Broadway theaters close (labor dispute between owners & Actors Equity)
Tennis Open
1962 French Championships Men's Tennis: In an all-Australian final Rod Laver beats Roy Emerson 3-6, 2-6, 6-3, 9-7, 6-2; 2nd leg of Laver's 1st Grand Slam
Rod Laver
Roy Emerson
- 1962 French Championships Women's Tennis: In an all-Australian final Margaret Smith beats doubles partner Lesley Turner 6-3, 3-6, 7-5
#1 in the Charts
1962 Ray Charles' cover "I Just Can't Stop Loving You" from his influential crossover album "Modern Sounds in Country and Western Music" hits #1 on Billboard
Ray Charles
- 1964 "Folies Bergère" opens at Broadway Theater NYC for 191 performances
- 1964 Lal Bahadur Sjastri elected premier of India
- 1964 Rolling Stones 1st US concert tour debuts in Lynn, Massachusetts
- 1965 2nd of 2 cyclones in less than a month kills 35,000 (Ganges River, India)
- 1966 US Surveyor 1 lands in Oceanus Procellarum; 1st lunar soft-landing
- 1967 Race riots in Roxbury suburb of Boston
- 1968 Canadians must get government permission to export silver
- 1968 WBLG (now WTVQ) TV channel 62 in Lexington, KY (ABC) 1st broadcast
- 1969 Australian aircraft carrier HMAS Melbourne slices US destroyer USS Frank E Evans in half, killing 74 (South Vietnam)
- 1971 15th European Cup: Ajax beats Panathinaikos 2-0 at London
- 1972 Two British soldiers die in an IRA land mine attack near Rosslea, County Fermanagh
- 1973 "Nash at Nine" closes at Helen Hayes Theater NYC after 21 performances
- 1973 French Open Women's Tennis: Margaret Court of Australia beats American teenager Chris Evert 6-7, 7-6, 6-4 for her 5th and last French singles crown
- 1974 Mali adopts constitution
- 1974 Malta's constitution goes into effect
- 1975 First recorded snowfall in London in June
- 1975 James A Healy, 1st black Roman Catholic bishop, consecrated (Maine)
- 1975 VP Rockefeller finds no pattern of illegal activities at CIA
- 1976 East Timor People's Assembly accepts annexation by Indonesia
- 1977 New Jersey allows casino gambling in Atlantic City
Papal Visit
1979 John Paul II becomes 1st pope to visit a Communist country (Poland)
John Paul II
- 1979 NASA launches space vehicle S-198
Event of Interest
1979 Los Angeles Mayor Tom Bradley signs first homosexual rights bill
Tom Bradley
- 1980 "Your Arm's Too Short to Box..." opens at Ambassador NYC for 149 performances
Event of Interest
1981 Barbara Walters famously asks Katharine Hepburn “If you were a tree, what kind of tree would you be?”
Katharine Hepburn
Barbara Walters
- 1982 "Blues in the Night" opens at Rialto Theater NYC for 53 performances
- 1983 1980 movie "Attack of the Killer Tomatoes" released in Germany
- 1983 Toilet catches fire on Air Canada's DC-9, 23 die at Cincinnati
- 1984 "Welcome To Fun Zone" hosted by Dr Demento airs on NBC-TV
- 1984 Actress Jill Ireland has a radical mastectomy
- 1984 Flight readiness firing of Discovery's main engines
Golf Major
1985 LPGA Championship, Jack Nicklaus GC: Nancy Lopez wins by 8 shots from fellow American Alice Miller
Nancy Lopez
- 1985 39th Tony Awards: Biloxi Blues & Big River win
- 1985 Andreas Papandreou's PASOK-party wins election in Greece
- 1985 RJ Reynolds Company proposed a merger with Nabisco
- 1986 NYC transit system issues a new brass with steel bullseye token
- 1986 Regular TV coverage of US Senate sessions begins
- 1987 Mariners draft Ken Griffey Jr #1
- 1988 61st National Spell Bee: Rageshree Ramachandran wins spelling elegiacal
- 1988 Consumer Reports calls for a ban on the Suzuki Samurai automobile
Film Premier
1989 "Dead Poets Society" film starring Robin Williams premieres
Robin Williams
Goddess of Democracy
1989 10,000 Chinese soldiers are blocked by 100,000 citizens in Tiananmen Square, Beijing, protecting students demonstrating for democracy
More >>
- 1990 "Turtle Power" by Partners In Kryme hits #13
- 1990 Seattle's Randy Johnson, no-hits Tigers, 2-0
- 1991 45th Tony Awards: "Lost in Yonkers" & "Will Rogers Follies" win
- 1991 4th Children's Miracle Network Telethon
- 1991 Rosie Jones wins LPGA Rochester Golf International
- 1991 Seppo Raty of Finland improves his world javelin record to 318' 1"
- 1991 Three Andrettis finished 1-2-3 in the Miller 200 at Wisconsin
Event of Interest
1992 Former NFL NY Giant Coach Bill Parcells undergoes open heart surgery
Bill Parcells
Event of Interest
1994 Indonesian censors ban Steven Spielberg's "Schindler's List"
Steven Spielberg
Janusz Kamiński
- 1994 Sharon Stone files $12m lawsuit against her jeweler
- 1995 John Valentin hits 3 HRs
- 1996 50th Tony Awards: Master Class & Rent win
- 1996 US Open Women's Golf, Pine Needles GC: Annika Sörenstam retains her title by 6 shots from Kris Tschetter
- 1996 9th Children's Miracle Network Telethon
- 1997 Albert Belle's Chicago White Sox tying 27-game hitting streak ends
- 1997 Liberals beat Conservatives in France
- 1997 Timothy McVeigh found guilty of 1995 Oklahoma City bombing, killing 168
- 1998 The CIH computer virus is discovered in Taiwan
- 1999 The Bhutan Broadcasting Service brings television transmissions to the Kingdom for the first time
- 2002 56th Tony Awards: "Thoroughly Modern Millie", "The Goat", or Who is Sylvia?" win
- 2002 Crime drama "The Wire" created by David Simon and starring Idris Elba and Dominic West debuts on HBO
- 2003 Europe launches its first voyage to another planet, Mars. The European Space Agency's Mars Express probe launches from the Baikonur space centre in Kazakhstan.
Event of Interest
2004 Ken Jennings begins his 74-game winning streak on the syndicated game show Jeopardy!
Ken Jennings
- 2009 Switzerland officially enters the global recession
- 2014 The unity government is sworn into power in Palestine; it agrees to the following: recognition of Israel, compliance to diplomatic agreements, renunciation of violence
- 2014 Former Liberation Front guerilla fighter Salvador Sánchez Cerén, 69, is sworn in as president in El Salvador
- 2014 Telangana with Hyderabad as it's capital becomes India's 29th state after it is separated from Andhra Pradesh
- 2015 US Congress passes new legislation to reform National Security Agency procedures, restricting gathering of phone records
- 2015 FIFA President Sepp Blatter announces his resignation, 5 days after his re-election, amid FIFA's involvement in a bribery scandal
- 2015 100 volunters in Bhutan set a world record for tree planting - 49,672 in 1 hour
- 2017 "Wonder Woman" directed by Patty Jenkins released, earns over $100 million in North American in its opening weekend - domestic record for a female director
- 2018 Socialist Pedro Sánchez is sworn in as Spanish Prime Minister
June in History
Testing Time for Drivers
Deaths caused by accidents on UK roads fell by 1,000 within a year of the official driving test being introduced. But was the half-hour test enough?
June 1, 1935
The King is Dead; Long Live the Queen
Princess Elizabeth was in Africa when her father died and she became Queen. Her coronation, on this day in history, could be described as a magnificent washout.
June 2, 1953
The Fire and Fury of Jonathan Martin
Jonathan Martin was a religious extremist who described the clergy as 'vipers from hell' and tried to burn down one of England’s most treasured cathedrals.
June 3, 1838
Dunkirk: Military Retreat They Called a Miracle
Trapped on beaches and a sitting target for German fighter planes and bombers, 330,000 Allied troops looked doomed. Then came the "miracle" of Dunkirk.
June 4, 1940