June 2021 in History

Events in History

Jun 1 Malaysia begins a full two-week lockdown as COVID-19 cases surge with record 9,020 news cases recorded May 29
Jun 1 Prehistoric carvings, between 4,000 and 5,000 years old depicting deer, found in Scotland for the first time at Kilmartin Glen, Argyll

Event of Interest

Jun 1 US President Joe Biden visits Tulsa, Oklahoma, marking 100 year anniversary of racial massacre in the Greenwood neighborhood

Jun 1 US President Joe Biden's administration suspends oil and gas leases in Alaska's Arctic National Wildlife Refuge, reversing Donald Trump's decision
Jun 3 NASA administrator Bill Nelson announces two new missions to study ‘Lost Habitable’ world of Venus in 2028 and 2030 [1]
Jun 3 NASA launches 128 baby squid and 5,000 microscopic animals, to study effects of spaceflight, to the International Space Station aboard Space X's Falcon 9 rocket [1]
Jun 4 Nepalese Prime Minister KP Sharma Oli makes a desperate plea for vaccines amid his country's devastating COVID-19 second wave, reporting nearly 9,000 daily cases late May
Jun 5 At least 160 killed by suspected Islamist extremists in Solhan, Burkina Faso amid a deepening security crisis in the region [1]

Event of Interest

Jun 5 Turkish President Recep Tayyip Erdogan promises to save the country's shores from a build-up of 'sea snot' (marine mucilage) due to pollution and climate change

President of Turkey Recep Tayyip Erdoğan

Jun 6 Four members of a London, Ontario, family killed when they are struck by a truck in an anti-Muslim attack
Jun 7 Auckland named world's most livable city (due to success with COVID) and Damascus named the worst by The Economist Intelligence Unit
Jun 7 Multicellular organisms (bdelloid rotifer) frozen for 24,000 years in Siberia to return to life after Russian scientists have them thawed [1]
Jun 7 Two passenger trains collide in Pakistan, killing at least 40 people in Sindh province
Jun 7 UN International Labor Director says global impact of the pandemic four times worse than 2008 Economic Crisis, pushed 100 million workers into poverty [1]

Event of Interest

Jun 7 US Vice President Kamala Harris visiting Guatemala on her first foreign trip announces task forces on corruption and human trafficking

Jun 8 National Geographic announces it is officially recognizing the South Ocean as the world's fifth ocean
Jun 9 One of the worst ever plagues of mice in New South Wales, Australia, prompts local government to commit $100 million in support to farmers [1] [2]
Jun 9 Record price for a coin sold at auction as 1933 'Double Eagle' gold coin sells for $18.9 million in New York
Jun 9 US President Joe Biden begins his first foreign trip, arriving in the UK to attend a G7 summit

Event of Interest

Jun 10 Emma Coronel Aispuro, wife of drug lord El Chapo, pleads guilty to helping run his criminal operations and aiding his 2015 prison escape

Jun 10 European Space Agency announces new Venus mission, the probe EnVision to study Venus' tesserae (its continent-like terrains) [1]
Jun 10 UN says famine is affecting 350,000 people in Tigray, Ethiopia, the worst starvation calamity in the world right now
Jun 10 Zahid Quraish confirmed as America's first Muslim federal judge for the District of New Jersey by the US Senate

Event of Interest

Jun 11 Pulitzer Prizes awarded to Katori Hall for drama, The New York Times for pandemic coverage and special citation for Darnella Frazier for recording the murder of George Floyd

Jun 11 US lobsterman survives being swallowed by a humpback whale off the coast of Provincetown, Massachusetts
Jun 13 G7 summits ends in Cornwall, England, with leaders promising one billion vaccine doses for poorer nations

Event of Interest

Jun 13 Israel's Knesset votes in a new coalition government with Naftali Bennett as Prime Minister, ousting Benjamin Netanyahu after a record 12 years

Event of Interest

Jun 13 US President Joe Biden has tea with Queen Elizabeth II at Windsor Castle

Jun 14 Heatwave event begins across western US and Canadian states with Denver at 101 degrees and Helena 105 degrees
Jun 15 North Korean leader Kim Jong Un warns of possible food shortages and COVID-19 restrictions while addressing national conference

COVID-19 Pandemic

Jun 15 NY Governor Andrew Cuomo announces a "return to life as we know it" lifting all COVID-19 restrictions after the state passes 70% vaccinated with one dose

Jun 15 US death toll from COVID-19 tops 600,000 (Johns Hopkins), with 65% of adults vaccinated with at least one dose
Jun 16 Summit between US President Joe Biden and Russian President Vladimir Putin in Geneva, Switzerland, over issues including cyberattacks and human rights
Jun 17 China launches its Shenzhou-12 spacecraft with three astronauts arriving at its new space station Tiangong six and a half hours later
Jun 17 US President Joe Biden signs into law the Juneteenth National Independence Day Act making June 19th a federal holiday commemorating emancipation
Jun 18 Jurist and conservative Ebrahim Raisi elected President of Iran on a low turn out
Jun 18 Record 82 million people now forcibly displaced, or over 1% of world's population, according to UN refugee agency [1]
Jun 20 Brazil's COVID-19 death toll passes 500,000, the second highest in the world
Jun 20 China announces it has administered 1 billion doses of the COVID-19 vaccine
Jun 21 Colombia's COVID-19 recorded death toll passes 100,000, the tenth country in the world to do so
Jun 21 Swedish government of Prime Minister Stefan Lofven toppled after a no confidence vote for the first time in Swedish history

Event of Interest

Jun 22 Spain's Prime Minister Pedro Sanchez pardons nine Catalan politicians and activists for the 2017 illegal secession referendum

President of Catalonia Carles Puigdemont

Jun 22 Unesco says Australia's Great Barrier Reef should be put on list of World Heritage Sites that are "in danger"
Jun 23 Rembrandt's masterpiece "The Night Watch" seen in its entirety for first time in 300 years after AI used to fill in pieces trimmed at the Rijksmuseum, Amsterdam
Jun 23 US Supreme Court rules in favor of teen kicked off cheerleading team after profane social media post, saying school violated her free speech [1]
Jun 24 Residential tower Champlain Towers South collapses at 1.30am in Surfside, Miami Beach, with 156 people missing (98 bodies eventually recovered)
Jun 24 Second discovery of the remains of 761 people, mainly indigenous children announced at former Marieval Indian Residential School in Saskatchewan
Jun 25 Former US police officer Derek Chauvin sentenced to 22 years and six months for the murder of George Floyd in Minneapolis
Jun 25 New species of ancient human announced after finding of massive fossilized skull - Homo longi "Dragon Man" from North East China [1]
Jun 25 New type of ancient human announced "Nesher Ramla Homo" lived 140,000-120,000 years ago, a possible ancestor of Neanderthals, uncovered in Ramla, Israel [1]

COVID-19 Pandemic

Jun 25 WHO head Tedros Adhanom Ghebreyesus confirms the COVID-19 Delta variant is the most transmissible to date, now present in 85 countries and spreading rapidly [1]

Jun 26 British Health Minister Matt Hancock resigns after photos of him kissing an aide (and not social distancing) emerge
Jun 26 South Africa announces 14-day lockdown to counter a third COVID-19 wave of infections fueled by the Delta variant, with only 2.5 million vaccines administrated [1]
Jun 26 Sydney goes into a two-week lockdown amid a Delta variant COVID-19 outbreak and low levels of vaccination
Jun 27 Boat sinks off Tunisia, drowning 43 migrants with 84 rescued by Tunisian navy [1]
Jun 27 Heat dome envelops the Pacific Northwest with Portland posting highest temperature since records began of 112 F (broken the next day)
Jun 27 Hottest temperature ever recorded in Canada at 46.6 C (116 F) in Lytton, British Columbia (breaks record 2 days later with 49.6 C)
Jun 28 AirCar, prototype flying car capable of flying 1,000km (600 miles), at height of 8,200ft (2,500m), completes 35 min test flight between Nitra and Bratislava airports in Slovakia
Jun 28 Mexico's Supreme Court decriminalizes marijuana use by adults
Jun 28 Tigray Defense Forces retake Tigray's regional capital of Mekelle in Ethiopia's Tigray War. The Ethiopian government declares a unilateral ceasefire to save face but neither side sticks to it. [1]
Jun 28 US Supreme Court declines to hear school's appeal in transgender bathroom case made by Gavin Grimm in Virginia, upholding an earlier decision it was discriminatory

Event of Interest

Jun 29 Former South African President Jacob Zuma sentenced to 15 months in prison on contempt of court charges

Jun 29 Lytton, British Columbia, records Canada's highest-ever temperature of 49.6C (121.3F), before being destroyed by a wildfire the next day
Jun 29 World's first known plague victim identified in the remains of a 5,000-year-old hunter-gatherer in Latvia [1]
Jun 30 Bangladesh begins a one-week lockdown enforced by the army as COVID-19 cases soar due to the Delta variant
Jun 30 Extreme heat wave caused at least 100 deaths in British Columbia according to state Coroners' Office [1]
Jun 30 World's oldest man is 112-year-old Emilio "Don Millo" Flores Márquez (born 8 August 1908) from Puerto Rico according to Guinness World Records [1]

Birthdays in History

Jun 4 Lilibet Diana Mountbatten-Windsor, daughter of the Duke and Duchess of Sussex, born in Santa Barbara, California

Deaths in History

Jun 3 F. Lee Bailey, American criminal defense attorney (Sam Shepard; Boston Strangler; Patty Hearst; OJ Simpson), dies at 87
Jun 9 Gottfried Böhm, German architect (1986 Pritzker Prize), dies at 101 [1]
Jun 13 Ziona Chana, Indian head of a Christian sect and 'world's largest family' (38 wives, 89 children), dies at 76 [1]
Jun 14 Enrique Bolaños, President of Nicaragua (2002-07), dies at 93
Jun 17 Kenneth Kaunda, 1st President of Zambia (1964-91), dies at 97
Jun 19 Champ, Biden family pet and First Dog, dies at The White House at 13
Jun 24 Benigno Aquino III, 15th President of the Philippines (Liberal Party: 2010-16), dies of diabetes related kidney failure at 61
Jun 24 Sonny Callahan [Herbert Leon Callahan], American politician (Rep-R-Alabama 1985-2003), dies at 88
Jun 26 Mike Gravel, American politician (US Senator (D) - Alaska, 1969-81), and peace activist (Pentagon Papers), dies at 91
Jun 27 Noel Furlong, Irish businessman and poker player (World Series of Poker main event 1999), dies at 83
Jun 29 Carlos Vilar, Argentine sailor (Snipe World Championships gold 1948, 51), dies from COVID-19 at 91
Jun 29 Donald Rumsfeld, American politician (US Congress, 1963-69; Nixon Whitehouse, 1969-74; Secretary of Defense, 1975-77 & 2001-06), dies at 88