- 253 St Lucius I begins his reign as Catholic Pope
- 524 Battle of Vézeronce, the Franks defeat the Burgundians
- 841 Battle at Fontenay: Louis & Charles beat their brother Lotharius I
- 1080 Wibbert of Ravenna chosen as anti-pope Clemens III
- 1096 1st Crusade slaughter Jews of Werelinghofen Germany
- 1139 Battle of Ourique: Afonso I defeats Moors
Event of Interest
1183 Peace of Konstanz signed between Hohenstaufen Emperor Frederick Barbarossa and Italian Lombard League
Frederick Barbarossa
- 1243 Sinibaldo dei Fieschi elected as Pope Innocentius IV
- 1298 Rindfleisch Persecutions, 250 Jews killed in Rothenburg, Germany
- 1483 The House of Lords and Commons declares King Edward V of England as illegitimate based on his parent's alleged bigamous marriage
- 1500 Pope Alexander VI accept Treaty of Granada
- 1580 Book of Concord, standards of Lutheran Church, 1st published
- 1606 Alkmaarse clergy asks "Great Dertelheyt"
- 1606 St Jansday is forbidden
- 1607 Mentally ill Emperor Rudolf II signs Treaty of Lieben, giving up Austria, Hungary and Moravia
- 1621 French government army occupies Fort St Jean d'Angély at La Rochelle
- 1630 Fork introduced to American dining by Governor Winthrop
- 1638 Lunar eclipse is 1st astronomical event recorded in the American Colonies
- 1646 Thomas Fairfax's New Model Army occupies Oxford
- 1658 Spanish garrison at Dunkirk surrenders to French and English
- 1672 1st recorded monthly Quaker meeting in US held, Sandwich, Massachusetts
- 1675 Battle at Rathenow: Brandenburgers beat Sweden
Event of Interest
1678 Venetian Elena Cornaro Piscopia is awarded a doctorate of philosophy, the 1st woman to receive a university doctoral degree or PhD
Elena Cornaro Piscopia
Constitution of the United States
1788 Virginia becomes 10th state to ratify US constitution
Learn More >>
- 1794 French troops occupy Charleroi
- 1798 US passes Alien Act allowing president to deport dangerous aliens
- 1834 Pope Gregory XVI's encyclical "Singulari nos" published
- 1835 1st building constructed at Yerba Buena (now San Francisco)
- 1861 Western Virginia campaign
- 1862 Battle of Oak Grove, Virginia (Orchard, Henrico, French's Field) (Kings's Schoolhouse) Day 1 of 7 Days
- 1863 US General George Meade replaces General Hooker to be more aggressive
- 1864 Horse tramway at the Hague, opens
- 1864 Battle of Petersburg: Union forces begin digging tunnels under Confederate lines
- 1867 1st barbed wire patented by Lucien B Smith of Ohio
- 1868 Florida, Alabama, Louisiana, Georgia, North Carolina and South Carolina readmitted to US
- 1868 US President Andrew Johnson passes a law that government workers would work 8 hr day
Victory in Battle
1876 Battle of the Little Bighorn: US 7th Cavalry under Brevet Major General George Armstrong Custer wiped out by Sioux and Cheyenne warriors led by Chiefs Crazy Horse and Sitting Bull in what has become famously known as "Custer's Last Stand"
Crazy Horse
George Armstrong Custer
Sitting Bull
Presidential Convention
1888 Republican Convention in Chicago nominates Benjamin Harrison
Benjamin Harrison
- 1894 American Railway Union under Eugene V Debs goes on strike
- 1894 Boer leader Paul Kruger meets the British High Commissioner, Sir Henry Loch, on Pretoria station in South Africa and accompanies him to his hotel to discuss the grievances of the Uitlanders (Foreigners)
- 1900 Russia mobilizes its army in eastern Siberia preparatory to acting against the Chinese, but also in an attempt to diminish the influence of Japan on the Asian mainland
- 1900 Dunhuang manuscripts, including the Diamond Sutra, world's oldest surviving dated book, discovered by Daoist monk Wang Yuanlu in the Mogao Caves, China
- 1905 Warsaw & Lodz revolt against Russian occupation
- 1910 US Mann Act passed (no women across state lines for immoral purposes)
- 1913 Dutch Parliamentary election (confess party looses majority)
- 1913 American Civil War veterans begin arriving at the Great Reunion of 1913
- 1916 Russian Tsar Nicolaas II fires minister of Foreign affairs Sasonov
- 1918 Baku-Turkish communist party forms
- 1919 1st advanced monoplane airliner flight (Junkers F13)
- 1919 Revolt of Spartacus in Hamburg
- 1920 League of Nations places Internationall Court of Justice in Hague
- 1921 Charlie McCartney scores 300 in 205 mins Aust v Notts
- 1925 Military putsch under General Theodorus Pangulos in Greece
- 1928 NY Giant Fred Lindstrom ties record of 9 hits in a doubleheader
Event of Interest
1929 US President Herbert Hoover authorizes building of Boulder Dam (Hoover Dam)
Herbert Hoover
- 1934 Hedley Verity takes 15 wickets v Australia (7-61 & 8-43)
- 1937 Cub Augie Galan becomes 1st player to switch hit HRs in a game
- 1938 Federal minimum wage law guarantees workers 25 cents per hour (rising to 40 cents by 1945) and a maximum 44 hour working week
- 1941 -26] Soviet counter attack at Rovno
Franklin D. Roosevelt
- 1941 Fair Employment Practices Commission established
- 1941 Finland declares war on Soviet Union
- 1941 Germans invade Dubno Poland, giving permission to Ukrainians to do whatever they want to 12,000 Jews living there
- 1941 Finland enters WW2 against the USSR following a massive airstrike the previous day
Event of Interest
1941 James F. Byrnes is admitted to the US Supreme Court
James F. Byrnes
- 1942 British RAF stages a 1,000 bomb raid on Bremen Germany (WWII)
Event of Interest
1942 British premier Winston Churchill travels from US to London
Winston Churchill
Event of Interest
1942 Major General Dwight Eisenhower appointed commander of US forces in Europe
Dwight D. Eisenhower
- 1943 Crematorium 3 at Birkenau is finished
- 1943 Racial unrest in Detroit
- 1943 Arthur Seyss-Inquart, Reichskommissar in the Netherlands, orders mass arrests of Dutch physicians
- 1944 British assault at Caen, Normandy
- 1945 Allied landing at Ternate Molukkas
- 1945 Imperial General Headquarters in Tokyo announce fall of Okinawa
Historic Publication
1947 1st version of Anne Frank's diary "Het Achterhuis" published in The Netherlands
Anne Frank
Event of Interest
1948 Harry Truman signs Displaced Persons Bill (205,000 Europeans to US)
Harry Truman
- 1949 Presidential election in Syria (some women allowed to vote)
- 1950 Israeli airline El Al begins service
- 1950 Johnny Pramesa (Reds) and Hank Thompson (Giants) hit inside the park HRs
- 1950 North Korea invades South Korea, beginning the Korean War
- 1952 Dutch social democratic party wins 2nd-Parliamentary election
- 1953 1st passenger to fly commercially around the world < 100 hours
- 1953 86°F in Anchorage, Alaska
Event of Interest
1955 Notre Dame du Haut chapel designed by Le Corbusier is consecrated in Ronchamp, France
Le Corbusier
- 1956 46 die in collision of the SS Andrea Doria and the MS Stockholm off the coast of Nantucket
- 1960 Earthquake in NE Belgium
- 1960 Madagascar gains independence from France
- 1960 Somaliland is granted independence by British government
- 1961 Iraq announces that Kuwait is a part of Iraq (Kuwait disagrees)
- 1962 İnönü government forms in Turkey
- 1962 Mozambique Liberation Front (FRELIMO) forms
- 1962 Supreme Court rules NY school prayer unconstitutional
- 1963 JFK speaks at Pauls Church in Frankfurt
- 1963 South Africa worker's union leader Curnick Ndlovu arrested
- 1963 Curnick Ndlovu, South African Trade Unionist and African National Congress Leader, is arrested
- 1964 Prince A Taylor becomes first African American methodist bishop (NJ)
- 1965 Gyula Kallai succeeds Janos Kádár as premier of Hungary
- 1966 Kosmos 122, 1st Soviet weather satellite, launched
- 1973 John Dean begins testifying before Senate Watergate Committee
- 1973 Russian communist party leader Brezhnev visits France
- 1973 Udo Beyer of East Germany puts the shot a record 20.47 m
- 1975 After a prolonged liberation struggle against Portuguese colonial rulers, Mozambique becomes independent as People Republic of Mozambique
- 1976 The Soweto Uprising in South Africa leaves 174 blacks and two whites dead following 10 days of rioting
- 1976 "The Omen" premieres in the US
- 1977 Roy C Sullivan of Virginia is struck by lightning for 7th time!
- 1978 First use of the rainbow flag, symbol of gay pride, made by Gilbert Baker at a march in San Francisco
- 1979 Failed attack on NATO commander Alexander Haig Jr. in Obourg, Belgium by German terrorist Rolf Klemens Wagner, a former member of the Red Army Faction
- 1981 Supreme Court upholds male-only draft registration, constitutional
- 1981 Microsoft is restructured to become an incorporated business in its home state of Washington
- 1982 Porn star John Holmes acquitted on murder charges
- 1982 San Francisco holds its 1st County Fair
- 1982 US Secretary of State Alexander Haig Jr resigns, replaced by George P. Schultz
- 1982 Greece abolishes headshaving of recruits in the military
Event of Interest
1982 South African President P. W. Botha issues a new Proclamation again placing Ingwavuma under government control
P. W. Botha
- 1984 Lydia Garrett, 24, crowned 17th Miss Black America
- 1984 STS 41-D launch attempt scrubbed because of computer problem
- 1985 Fireworks factory near Hallett, Oklahoma, explodes killing 21
- 1985 Thurman v City of Torrington decides in favor of Tracey Thurman, 1st woman to sue a police department for violating her civil rights (not protecting against abusive husband)
- 1986 Former Belgium premier Vanden Boeynants sentenced for fraud
Event of Interest
1987 Pope John Paul II receives Austrian President Kurt Waldheim
John Paul II
- 1988 104°F highest temperature ever recorded in Cleveland in June
- 1988 Iceland's President Vigdis Finnbogadóttir elected (90+%)
- 1988 Kristen Logan, 17, of Mississippi, crowned America's Junior Miss
- 1989 1st US postmark dedicated to Lesbian & Gay Pride (Stonewall, NYC)
- 1989 Mets' defense does not record a single assist in a 5-1 win over Phils
- 1990 120°F in Phoenix Arizona
- 1990 Supreme Court rules family members cannot end lives of comatose relatives unless those relatives previously made their wishes known
- 1990 Anti-government riots break out in Lusaka, Zambia
Meeting of Interest
1990 African National Congress leader Nelson Mandela meets with President George H. W. Bush at the White House
Nelson Mandela
George H. W. Bush
Franjo Tuđman
- 1991 Japan lifts its call for voluntary restraint on expanding trade with South Africa
- 1991 Six persons are killed and eighteen injured when gunmen open fire on a crowded commuter train in Soweto, South Africa
- 1992 Alexanders Department store closes all 11 stores
- 1992 STS 50 launches (Columbia)
- 1993 Parliamentary election in Morocco
Event of Interest
1993 Kim Campbell becomes the 19th Prime Minister of Canada (although she would remain in office for less than five months)
Kim Campbell
- 1994 105°F (40.5°C) at Albuquerque New Mexico
- 1994 111°F (43.9°C) at El Paso Texas
- 1994 Gay Games close in NYC
- 1994 Japanese premier Tsutomu Hata resigns
- 1995 Rockies' Andres Galarraga is 4th to HR in 3 consecutive innings
- 1996 The Khobar Towers bombing in Saudi Arabia kills 19 U.S. servicemen
- 1997 Christies auctions off Princess Di's clothing for $5.5 million
- 1997 Galileo, 2nd Callisto Flyby (Orbit 9)
- 1997 Intelsat 802 Ariane 4 Launch, Successful
- 1997 Progress M-34 Collides with and damages Mir Space Station
Historic Publication
1997 Danielle Steel’s romantic novel “Special Delivery” is published
Danielle Steel
- 1998 In Clinton v. City of New York, the United States Supreme Court decides that the Line Item Veto Act of 1996 is unconstitutional
- 1999 In his first state of the nation address, South African President Thabo Mbeki promises to tackle rampaging crime; the nation's murder rate is the third highest in the world and more than 49,000 cases of rape were reported in 1998
- 2007 Flooding in parts of Lincolnshire and Yorkshire in the United Kingdom including Louth, Horncastle and worst affected, Hull
- 2008 Atlantis Plastics shooting, An employee shot and killed five people after an argument, which ended in the gunman's suicide in Henderson, Kentucky
- 2009 Colombia enters into recession after witnessing 0.7% contraction in the last quarter of 2008 and 0.6% in the following quarter
- 2012 33 Syrian army officers defect to Turkey
- 2013 37 people are killed after a gold mine collapses in the Central African Republic
- 2014 The US Supreme Court rules that police cannot examine the digital contents of a cell phone without a court order
Event of Interest
2015 Obamacare subsidies in The Affordable Care Act preserved by US Supreme Court Ruling in King v Burwell 6-3
Barack Obama
Event of Interest
2018 Californian Governor Jerry Brown declares State of Emergency for wildfire spread over 8,200 acres in Lake County
Jerry Brown
- 2018 Motorcycle maker Harley-Davidson announces it plans to move some production abroad in response to EU retaliatory tariffs
June in History
![How the Qwerty Keyboard was Born]()
How the Qwerty Keyboard was Born
A typewriter patent was granted on this day to the man who would go on to produce and inflict on us all the ubiquitous Qwerty keyboard.
June 23, 1868![The Fatal Dance Manias of Medieval Europe]()
The Fatal Dance Manias of Medieval Europe
The strange social phenomena of Medieval Europe where people began dancing and simply couldn't stop
June 24, 1374![Kennedy's Clarion Call for Freedom]()
Kennedy's Clarion Call for Freedom
Former US President John F. Kennedy was renowned for his oratory – typified by his electrifying "Ich bin ein Berliner" speech delivered on this day.
June 26, 1963![Scrabble Creator Stuck for Words]()
Scrabble Creator Stuck for Words
The inventor of a new word game just could not think what to call it. Then a bright friend came up with the name – no points for guessing – Scrabble.
June 28, 1971
