- 1325 Ibn Battuta begins his travels, leaving his home in Tangiers to travel to Mecca (gone 24 years)
- 1373 Anglo-Portuguese Treaty of Alliance (world's oldest extant) signed in London
- 1392 Assassination attempt on Olivier de Clisson, Constable of France, by Pierre de Craon fails
Event of Interest
1547 King Ferdinand of Austria subjects himself on Ottoman Sultan Suleiman the Magnificent
Suleiman the Magnificent
- 1611 John Fabricius dedicates earliest sunspot publication
- 1665 Battle of Lowestoft, off Suffolk, England: English fleet beats Dutch
- 1707 Hungary declares itself independent under Ferenc Rákóczi II (aka Francis II Rákóczi)
- 1721 England signs Treaty of Madrid
- 1727 Spain underwrites Preliminairy of Paris
- 1753 Austria, Great Britain & Modena sign secret military treaty
- 1774 Rhode Island becomes first colony to prohibit importation of slaves
- 1777 Leonard Norcross patents a submarine diving suit
Event of Interest
1777 Marquis de Lafayette lands in US
Marquis de Lafayette
- 1789 Mrs Alexander Hamilton serves ice cream for dessert to Washington
- 1798 Mission San Luis Rey de Francia founded in California
Event of Interest
1828 Simon Bolívar proclaimed dictator
Simón Bolívar
Event of Interest
1865 President Andrew Johnson proclaims reconstruction of confederate states
Andrew Johnson
- 1866 US House of representatives passes 14th Amendment (Civil rights)
- 1868 Oscar Dunn becomes first African American to be elected a Lieutenant Governor, of Louisiana
- 1871 Hurricane kills 300 in Labrador
- 1878 Congress of Berlin begins, determines the territories of the states in the Balkan peninsula following the Russo-Turkish War of 1877–78
- 1881 The USS Jeannette, under the command of George Washington De Long, sinks in the Arctic circle following 21 months of drifting after becoming trapped in the ice
- 1886 Fire destroys nearly 1,000 buildings in Vancouver, British Columbia
- 1888 US Congress creates Department of Labor
- 1889 2' of snow accumulates in Rawlins, Wyoming
- 1890 Eagle Avenue in the Bronx is cut out and named
- 1898 Yukon Territory of Canada established, Dawson chosen as capital
- 1900 In China, Baron von Kettler, the German minister to China, beats two young Boxers with his walking stick; when word of this circulates, rioting and arson spread throughout Peking during the night
- 1902 Prussian Upper house gives 350 million marks to Poland
- 1907 Lowest temperature ever in 48 US states for June, 2°F in Tamarack, California
- 1910 Pilot Charles Hamilton makes 1st 1-day round-trip from NY to Philadelphia
- 1910 William D Crum, a South Carolina physician, appointed US minister to Liberia
- 1912 NY Giant Christy Mathewson wins his 300th game
Event of Interest
1914 Eleftherios Venizelos announces that Greece intends to annex Chios and Mytilene, two large islands off the Turkish coast; Greece and Turkey have been heading towards conflict for months over claims to Aegean islands
Eleftherios Venizelos
- 1917 World War I: the deadliest German air raid on London during World War I is carried out by Gotha G bombers and results in 162 deaths, including 46 children with 432 injuries
No Babies Please!
1920 US Post Office says children cannot be sent by parcel post (after various instances)
Learn More
Event of Interest
1927 Ticker-tape parade welcomes Charles A Lindbergh to NYC
Charles Lindbergh
Event of Interest
1933 German Secret State Police (Gestapo - Geheime Staats Polizei) established by Hermann Goering
Hermann Goering
- 1935 Hammond scores his 100th hundred, 116 for Gloucs v Somerset
- 1936 2nd Belgian government of Van Zealand forms
- 1938 Jews injured & property destroyed in Przemyal, Poland
- 1940 Paris evacuates before German advance
- 1942 1st V-2 rocket launch, Peenemunde, Germany; reached 1.3 km
- 1942 Germany lands 4 saboteurs on Long Island
- 1942 US Office of Strategic Services (OSS) formed
- 1942 The United States opens its Office of War Information, with Elmer Davis as head
- 1944 German counter attack on Villers-Bocage, Normandy
- 1944 Nazi Germany begins V-1 (Fieseler Fi-103) flying bomb (doodle-bugs) attacks
- 1945 Orokoe peninsula Okinawa captured, with 6,000 dead
- 1946 1st transcontinental round-trip flight in 1-day, California-Maryland
- 1946 King Umberto II of Italy abdicates
- 1950 South African parliament accept "Groups Area Act"
- 1951 UN arm forces reach Pyongyang Korea
- 1952 Soviet fighters shoot Swedish Dakota down over East Sea, kills 8
- 1953 Alec Bedser takes 14-99 (7-55 & 7-44) v Australia
- 1954 Cornerstone of Albert Einstein College of Medicine laid in Bronx
- 1956 The last British troops leave the Suez Canal Zone in Egypt
- 1956 Parliamentary election: Dutch Democrats 50/KVP 49
- 1957 Mayflower II from Plymouth, England, reaches Plymouth, Massachusetts
- 1958 Frank Zappa graduates from Antelope Valley High School in Lancaster, California
- 1960 Prince Norodom Sihanoek becomes head of Cambodia
- 1962 Norway named ombudsman
- 1965 19th Tony Awards: "Subject Was Roses" & "Fiddler on the Roof" win
- 1965 Vietnam War: Battle of Dong Xoai ends in a Viet Cong victory
- 1966 US Supreme Court's Miranda decision; suspects must be informed of rights
Event of Interest
1967 Thurgood Marshall nominated as 1st African American Supreme Court justice
Thurgood Marshall
- 1971 "The New York Times" begins publishing excerpts from the Pentagon Papers, classified documents on the long history of the U.S. in Vietnam
- 1971 In defiance of a government ban, members of the Orange Order march through the mainly Catholic town of Dungiven, County Londonderry, causing a riot
- 1972 The Irish Republican Army invites British Secretary of State for Northern Ireland Willie Whitelaw to 'Free Derry'; Whitelaw rejects offer and reaffirms his policy to not "let part of the United Kingdom ... default from the rule of law"
- 1974 Henry Aaron addresses House of Representatives
- 1974 IMF establishes its "oil facility", a special fund for loans to nations whose balance of payments have been severely affected by high oil prices
- 1976 Inge Helten runs female European record 100m (11.04)
Event of Interest
1977 Convicted Martin Luther King assassin James Earl Ray recaptured
James Earl Ray
Event of Interest
1980 UN Security Council calls for South Africa to free Nelson Mandela
Nelson Mandela
- 1981 39 Unification church couples wed in Germany
Event of Interest
1981 Teenager fires 6 blank rounds at Queen Elizabeth II
Elizabeth II
Event of Interest
1981 Tom Snyder interviews Charles Manson on "Tomorrow"
Charles Manson
Event of Interest
1986 US President Reagan criticizes South African state of emergency
Ronald Reagan
Event of Interest
1990 Nelson and Winnie Mandela welcomed in NYC
Winnie Mandela
- 1990 Washington, D.C. mayor Marion Barry announces he will not seek a 4th term
- 1993 Akbar Hashemi Rafsanjani re-elected President of Iran
- 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 Montana Freemen surrender after an 81-day standoff with FBI agents
Event of Interest
1997 Jurors in Oklahoma City bombing trial sentence Timothy McVeigh to death
Timothy McVeigh
Summit of Interest
2000 South Korean President Kim Dae Jung meets leader of North Korea Kim Jong-il, for the beginning of the first ever inter-Korea summit, in the northern capital of Pyongyang
Kim Jong-il
- 2002 The United States of America withdraws from the Anti-Ballistic Missile Treaty
- 2006 The US Senate issues a formal resolution apologizing for failure to create anti-lynching legislation
- 2007 The Al Askari Mosque in Samarra is bombed reportedly by Iraqi Baathists, destroying the mosque's two ten-story minarets
Event of Interest
2007 First large scale exhibition of Mexican artist Frida Kahlo's work in Mexico opens at Palacio de Bellas Artes on the 100th anniversary of her birth
Frida Kahlo
- 2010 64th Tony Awards: Memphis & Red win
- 2011 Christchurch, New Zealand is hit by another strong earthquake measuring magnitude 6.3
- 2012 A series of bombings across Iraq kill 93 and wound 300 people
- 2015 Floods in Tbilisi, Georgia, kill 12 people and free animals from the city's zoo, including bears and hippos, to roam the city
- 2015 Philae, 1st spacecraft to land on a comet in European Space Agency’s Rosetta mission re-awakes after 7 months
Event of Interest
2017 US Attorney General Jeff Sessions testifies before Senate Intelligence Committee, denies secretly meeting Russians
Jeff Sessions
- 2017 Otto Warmbier returns to the US in an unresponsive state after being held in Norther Korean jail for 17 months,
- 2018 Antarctica is melting at an accelerating rate - 200 billion tonnes a year, 3 trillion tonnes in 25 years, in report published in "Nature" journal
- 2018 Volkswagen fined €1 billion (£880m) by German prosecutors over diesel emissions scandal
- 2018 Raccoon climbs 23 story office building in St Paul, Minnesota, becoming an internet sensation
Event of Interest
2019 President Donald Trump announces Sarah Sanders will be leaving her position as White House Press Secretary
Donald Trump
Event of Interest
2019 US Secretary of State Mike Pompeo says Iran is responsible for recent attacks on oil tankers in the Gulf of Oman
Mike Pompeo
Event of Interest
2019 Recently deposed Sudan President Omar al-Bashir is charged with corruption in Sudan
Omar al-Bashir
- 2019 Kenyan MP Rashid Kassim arrested for slapping female MP Fatuma Gedi, following a walk out of parliament by female MPs after claiming male MPs joked "its slapping day"
- 2019 Archaeologists announce Scottish crannogs (fortified settlements on artificial islands in lochs) far older than first thought, radiocarbon dated to 3640-3360 BC, older than Stonehenge
Event of Interest
2021 Israel's Knesset votes in a new coalition government with Naftali Bennett as Prime Minister, ousting Benjamin Netanyahu after a record 12 years
Benjamin Netanyahu
- 2021 US President Joe Biden has tea with Queen Elizabeth II at Windsor Castle
- 2021 G7 summits ends in Cornwall, England, with leaders promising one billion vaccine doses for poorer nations