- 1276 While taking exile in Fuzhou, southern China, from advancing Mongol invaders, remnants of the Song Dynasty court hold coronation ceremony for young prince Zhao Shi, making him Emperor Duanzong of Song
- 1381 Richard II in England meets leaders of Peasants' Revolt on Blackheath. The Tower of London is stormed by rebels who enter without resistance
- 1565 Catharina de Medici and Duke of Alva discuss Calvinism
- 1597 At 4:30 AM Willem Barents leaves Novaya Zemlya for Netherlands
- 1615 Jacques Le Maire sail to Zuidland/Terra Australis
- 1623 1st breach-of-promise lawsuit: Rev Gerville Pooley, Virginia files against Cicely Jordan, he loses
- 1634 Russia and Poland sign Peace treaty of Polianov
- 1642 1st compulsory education law in America passed by Massachusetts
Victory in Battle
1645 Battle of Naseby, Leicestershire: "New Model Army" under Oliver Cromwell & Thomas Fairfax beat royalists forces of English King Charles I
Oliver Cromwell
Charles I
Event of Interest
1775 US Army first forms as the Continental Army to fight American Revolutionary War
Nathanael Greene
Event of Interest
1777 US Continental Congress adopts the Stars & Stripes flag, designed by Francis Hopkinson, replacing the Grand Union flag
Francis Hopkinson
Event of Interest
1789 Captain William Bligh and his loyal men cast off from HMS Bounty reach Timor, after sailing 5,800 km in a 6-metre launch
William Bligh
Napoléon Bonaparte
- 1800 Battle of Marengo (Alessandria): Bonaparte vs Austria
- 1807 Emperor Napoleon I's French Grande Armee defeats the Russian Army at the Battle of Friedland in Prussia (modern Russian Kaliningrad Oblast) ending War of the Fourth Coalition
- 1821 Badi VII, king of Sennar, surrenders his throne and realm to Ismail Pasha, general of the Ottoman Empire, bringing the 300 year old Sudanese kingdom to an end
Event of Interest
1822 Charles Babbage proposes a "difference engine" in a paper to the Royal Astronomical Society entitled "Note on the application of machinery to the computation of astronomical and mathematical tables"
Charles Babbage
- 1834 Hardhat diving suit patented by Leonard Norcross, Dixfield, Maine
- 1834 Sandpaper patented by Isaac Fischer Jr, Springfield, Vermont
- 1839 First Henley Regatta held (it became the Henley Royal Regatta in 1851)
- 1841 1st Canadian parliament opens in Kingston, Ontario
- 1846 Belgian Liberal Party forms
- 1846 California (Bear Flag) Republic proclaimed in Sonoma, declaring independence from Mexico
Historic Invention
1847 Robert Bunsen invents the Bunsen burner
Robert Bunsen
- 1850 Third great fire of early San Francisco, starts in a bakery chimney
Event of Interest
1861 Harpers Ferry evacuated by rebels in face of General George McClellan's advance
George McClellan
- 1863 Battle of 2nd Winchester, Virginia
- 1864 US Union warship USS Kearsarge appears off Cherbourg
- 1872 Trade unions are legalised in Canada.
- 1876 1st player to hit for cycle (George Hall, Philadelphia Athletics)
- 1876 California Street Cable Car Railroad Co gets its franchise
- 1898 France signs Niger Convention
- 1900 The Reichstag approves a second law that allows the expansion of the German navy
- 1900 Having been annexed to the USA on 12 August 1898, Hawaii is constituted as an organised territory
- 1904 Dutch troops occupy Kuto Reh, Sumatra, killing all inhabitants
- 1904 At the battle of Telissu, the Japanese rout the Russians and inflict heavy casualties
- 1906 Pogrom against Jews in Bialystok, Polish Russia
- 1907 Government of Transvaal sends home 50,000 Chinese day workers
- 1907 Norway adopts female suffrage for middle class women only in parliamentary elections
- 1908 Fourth German Navy Bill is passed authorising the financing of the building of another four major warships
Event of Interest
1913 The South African Government pass the Immigration Act, which restricts the entry and free movement of Asians; it leads to widespread agitation and rioting by resident Indians, led by Gandhi
Mahatma Gandhi
Presidential Convention
1916 Democratic Convention convenes in St Louis; Woodrow Wilson campaigns on the slogan "he kept out of the war"
Woodrow Wilson
- 1916 Representatives of eight Allied nations hold an economic conference in Paris at which they discuss ways to cripple their enemies economic power during and after the war
- 1917 1st German air attack on England, 100+ killed in East London
- 1917 General Pershing and his HQ staff arrived in Paris during WW I
- 1919 1st nonstop air crossing of Atlantic (Alcock & Brown) leaves Newfoundland
Event of Interest
1922 US President Warren G. Harding is 1st US President to use radio, dedicates the Francis Scott Key memorial in Baltimore
Warren G. Harding
- 1924 WOKO-AM radio begins transmitting from Albany NY
Presidential Convention
1928 Republican National Convention, meeting in Kansas City, nominates Herbert Hoover for President
Herbert Hoover
Event of Interest
1931 Reinhard Heydrich's first meeting with Heinrich Himmler
Reinhard Heydrich
Heinrich Himmler
- 1932 German government of von Papen forms
Event of Interest
1934 Adolf Hitler and Benito Mussolini meet in Vienna
Adolf Hitler
- 1934 Max Baer KO's Primo Carnera in 11 for HW box champ in Long Island City
- 1934 WOQ-AM in Kansas City Missouri goes off the air
- 1935 Chaco War between Bolivia & Paraguay ends
- 1936 Oranienburg Concentration Camp opens in Germany
- 1938 Chlorophyll patented by Benjamin Grushkin
- 1938 Dorothy Lathrop wins 1st Caldecott Medal (kid books author)
- 1940 German forces enter Paris during WWII
- 1940 Auschwitz concentration camp opens in Nazi controlled Poland with Polish POWs (approx. 3 million would die within its walls)
- 1940 German U-47 sinks airship Balmoral
Event of Interest
1941 Ground broken for Boeing Plant II (ex-AFLC Plant 13) Wichita Kansas
William Boeing
Event of Interest
1942 Anne Frank begins her diary
Anne Frank
Event of Interest
1944 General Charles de Gaulle lands at Courselles France
Charles de Gaulle
Event of Interest
1953 Eisenhower condemns McCarthy's book burning proposal
Dwight D. Eisenhower
- 1953 Military coup by General Gustavo Rojas Pinilla in Colombia
- 1953 Yanks sweep Indians 6-2, 3-0 before 74,708 win streak at 18 straight
- 1954 President Eisenhower signs order adding words "under God" to the Pledge
- 1955 Chile becomes a signatory to the Buenos Aires copyright treaty
- 1957 42.0 cm rain falls on East St Louis, Illinois (state record)
- 1957 Edouard Carpentier beats Lou Thesz to become NWA wrestling champion
- 1958 British parachutists lands on Cyprus
- 1961 106°F, hottest temperature in San Francisco
- 1962 Albert DeSalvo, better known as the Boston Strangler, murders Anna Slesers, his first victim
- 1962 The European Space Research Organisation is established in Paris - later becoming the European Space Agency
- 1963 Valery Bykovsky in Vostok 5 orbits earth 81 times in 5 days
- 1966 Dutch police beat construction workers, 60 injured
- 1967 Mariner 5 Launch (Venus Flyby)
- 1967 USSR launches Kosmos 166 for observation of Sun from Earth orbit
Event of Interest
1967 California Governor Ronald Reagan signs the Therapeutic Abortion Act, legalizing abortions in the state under certain circumstances, the second state after Colorado to do so
Ronald Reagan
- 1968 Off duty Dutch military permitted to wear regular clothing
- 1968 "In-A-Gadda-Da-Vida" 2nd studio album by Iron Butterfly is released
- 1972 Tropical storm (later hurricane) Agnes forms over Yucatán Peninsula
- 1972 Members of the NI Social Democratic and Labour Party hold a meeting with representatives of the Irish Republican Army in Derry; the IRA representatives outline their conditions for talks with the British Government
- 1973 46th National Spelling Bee: Barrie Trinkle wins spelling vouchsafe
Event of Interest
1973 US President Richard Nixon administration imposes 60-day economy-wide price freeze, superseding Special Rule No. 1 for oil companies
Richard Nixon
- 1975 Janis Ian releases "At Seventeen"
- 1975 USSR launches Venera 10 for Venus landing
- 1976 "Gong Show" premieres on TV (syndication)
- 1976 12th Mayor's Trophy Game Yanks beat Mets 8-4
- 1978 Down 9-7 in 10th with 2 outs, Yanks Paul Blair hits a 3 run HR
- 1978 Sierra Leone adopts constitution
- 1979 Rock group "Little Feat" disbands
Argentine Soldiers Surrender in the Falklands
1982 Argentina surrenders to Great Britain, ending the 74-day Falklands Islands conflict
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- 1983 5 killed in a fire at a Ramada Inn in Fort Worth, Tx
- 1984 Southern Baptist convention decide on no women clergy members
- 1985 Lebanese Shiite Muslim extremists hijacked TWA Flight 847
- 1987 4th full-duration test firing of redesigned SRB motor
- 1988 Woman sues Chuck Berry for $5,000,000, alleges he hit her
- 1989 Groundbreaking begins in Minnesota on world's largest mall
- 1989 Ronald Reagan is knighted by Queen Elizabeth II (honorary knighthood)
- 1989 Zsa Zsa Gabor arrested for slapping Beverly Hills motorcycle patrolman
- 1990 NL announces plans to expand from 12 to 14 teams for 1993 season
- 1990 Supreme Court rules police check for drunk drivers constitutional
- 1991 Leroy Burrell of USA sets 100m record (9.90) in NYC
- 1991 Space Shuttle STS 40 (Columbia 12) lands
- 1992 Mona Van Duyn is named 1st female US poet laureate
- 1992 Ozzie Smith breaks Roy McMillan's NL mark by taking part in his 1,305th career double play
- 1993 Japanese space probe Sakigake passes Earth
- 1993 Tansu Ciller appointed 1st female premier of Turkey
Event of Interest
1993 Ruth Bader Ginsburg is nominated to the United States Supreme Court by President Bill Clinton
Ruth Bader Ginsburg
Bill Clinton
- 1996 Karl Krikken out handled the ball for Derbyshire v Indians
- 2001 China, Russia, Kazakhstan, Kyrgyzstan, Tajikistan and Uzbekistan form the Shanghai Cooperation Organisation.
- 2012 An explosion at an Indian steel plant kills 11 people and severely injures 16
- 2012 The world's first stem-cell assisted vein transplant is undertaken by Swedish doctors on a 10 year old girl
Election of Interest
2013 Hassan Rouhani is elected President of Iran
Hassan Rouhani
- 2013 Massive flooding occurs in northern India killing up to 10,000 people
Event of Interest
2013 The US government charges NSA leaker Edward Snowden with violating the Espionage Act and theft of government property
Edward Snowden
- 2014 49 people are killed after a Ukrainian Ilyushin Il-76 airlifter is shot down
- 2014 Alexander Stubb becomes Prime Minister of Finland
- 2016 First mammal made extinct by human-induced climate change announced - the Bramble Cay melomys from Torres Strait
- 2017 Leo Varadkar formally elected Irish Prime Minister (taoiseach) in Dáil ceremony in Dublin - youngest Irish Prime Minster at 38 and 1st openly gay
- 2017 US Senate approves new sanctions against Russia as punishment for meddling in the 2016 election
- 2017 US Library of Congress names Tracey K. Smith as Poet Laureate
- 2017 Fire in Grenfell Tower block in London, England kills 79 and injures 37
- 2018 US Justice Department concludes James Comey was "insubordinate" in his handling of Hilliary Clinton investigation in 2016
- 2018 Malaysia's national debt reassessed at $250 billion, up from previous estimate $170 billion, 80% of gross domestic product
- 2018 US government confirms 1500 boys being held separated from their parents in Casa Padre, shelter facility for illegal immigrants in a former Walmart in Brownsville, Texas
- 2019 Swiss women hold a national strike over the country's slow pace towards equality
June in History
![A Beautiful Day in Moscow]()
A Beautiful Day in Moscow
Often depicted as grey and formal, the comrades of Soviet Russia let their hair down and held their first beauty pageant, changing the life of one schoolgirl.
June 12, 1988![Anne Frank – A Light of Inspiration in the Nazi Darkness]()
Anne Frank – A Light of Inspiration in the Nazi Darkness
Anne Frank received her famous diary on this day – a beacon of hope and love from a young girl in a world beset by cruelty, horror and death.
June 12, 1942![Cricket's T20 is Born. Howzat!?]()
Cricket's T20 is Born. Howzat!?
Cricketing enthusiasts are fearful for the future of Test matches. The seeds of doubt were sewn on this day when the furiously fast T20 format was introduced.
June 13, 2003![Lomu – The Unstoppable Gentle Giant]()
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
