June 1

The Defence at the Battle of the First of June, 1794

• 1794 – French Revolutionary Wars: A British fleet captured six ships of the line from the French in a battle off Ushant (pictured) that came to be known as the Glorious First of June.
• 1857 – The Revolution of the Ganhadores, the first general strike in Brazil, began in Salvador, Bahia.
• 1868 – The Navajo tribe and the U.S. government signed an agreement, allowing those interned at Fort Sumner to return to their ancestral lands.
• 1974 – In an informal article in a medical journal, Henry Heimlich introduced the concept of abdominal thrusts, commonly known as the Heimlich maneuver, to treat choking victims.
• 1988 – The Intermediate-Range Nuclear Forces Treaty was ratified, banning all American and Soviet land-based missiles with a range of 500 to 5,500 km (310 to 3,420 mi).

June 2: Festa della Repubblica in Italy (1946)

Elizabeth II on her coronation day

• 1805 – Napoleonic Wars: A Franco-Spanish fleet recaptured the British-held Diamond Rock, an uninhabited island at the entrance to the bay leading to Fort-de-France, Martinique.
• 1886 – The wedding of Grover Cleveland and Frances Folsom took place in the White House, the only time a U.S. president used that building for the ceremony.
• 1953 – Queen Elizabeth II (pictured) was crowned at Westminster Abbey in London.
• 1967 – Benno Ohnesorg, a German university student, was killed in West Berlin while protesting against the visit of Shah Mohammad Reza Pahlavi of Iran; the anarchist militant 2 June Movement was later named after the incident.
• 1983 – After an emergency landing due to an in-flight fire, 23 passengers aboard Air Canada Flight 797 were killed when a flashover occurred as the aircraft's doors opened.

June 3: Anniversary of Khomeini's Death in Iran (1989); Martyrs Day in Uganda

One of the last two great auks

• 1602 – Anglo-Spanish War: An English naval force defeated a Spanish-Portuguese fleet off Sesimbra, Portugal, and captured a carrack.
• 1844 – The last known pair of great auks (one pictured), the only modern species in the genus Pinguinus of flightless birds, were killed on Eldey, Iceland.
• 1968 – American radical feminist Valerie Solanas shot and wounded visual artist Andy Warhol and two others at Warhol's New York City studio, The Factory.
• 1973 – At the Paris Air Show, a Tupolev Tu-144 broke up in mid-air, killing all six members of its crew and eight bystanders on the ground.
• 1979 – Having invaded Uganda and deposed President Idi Amin, Tanzanian forces secured Uganda's western border, ending a seven-month war.

June 4: Trianon Treaty Day in Romania (1920)

Emily Davison

• 1561 – The spire of Old St Paul's Cathedral in London was destroyed by fire.
• 1913 – Emily Davison (pictured), an activist for women's suffrage in the United Kingdom, was fatally injured after being trampled by a horse owned by King George V at the Epsom Derby.
• 1916 – World War I: Russian forces began their successful Brusilov offensive against the Central Powers.
• 1979 – Jerry Rawlings came to power in Ghana as chairman of the Armed Forces Revolutionary Council.
• 1989 – The People's Liberation Army suppressed the Tiananmen Square protests in Beijing, leaving hundreds of people dead and wounded.

June 5: World Environment Day; King's Official Birthday in New Zealand (2023); Western Australia Day (2023)

Antonio Luna

• 1899 – Filipino general Antonio Luna (pictured) was assassinated in the midst of the Philippine–American War.
• 1968 – U.S. senator Robert F. Kennedy was fatally shot by Palestinian immigrant Sirhan Sirhan at the Ambassador Hotel in Los Angeles.
• 1976 – The Teton Dam in eastern Idaho, U.S., collapsed as its reservoir was being filled for the first time, resulting in the deaths of eleven people and 13,000 cattle, and causing up to $2 billion in damage.
• 2004 – Noël Mamère, mayor of the Bordeaux suburb of Bègles, conducted a marriage ceremony for two men, even though same-sex marriage in France had not yet been legalised.
• 2009 – After almost two months of civil disobedience, at least 31 people were killed in clashes between the National Police and indigenous people in Peru's Bagua Province.

June 6: National Day of Sweden

Shivaji

• 1513 – War of the League of Cambrai: Milanese forces with Swiss mercenaries defeated the French in Novara, forcing them to withdraw from the Duchy of Milan and Italy.
• 1674 – Shivaji (pictured), who led a resistance to free the Maratha from the Bijapur Sultanate and the Mughal Empire, was crowned the first chhatrapati of the Maratha Empire.
• 1882 – The Shewan army defeated Gojjame forces at the Battle of Embabo, an event that contributed to the supremacy of Shewa within the Ethiopian Empire.
• 1971 – Hughes Airwest Flight 706 collided with a US Marine Corps jet near Duarte, California, killing 50 people.
• 1985 – The remains of Josef Mengele, a Nazi physician notorious for performing human experiments on Auschwitz inmates, were exhumed in Embu das Artes, Brazil.

June 7

Mosaic of Aelia Eudocia

• 421 – Roman emperor Theodosius II married Aelia Eudocia (pictured), who later helped to protect Greek pagans and Jews from persecution.
• 1832 – The Reform Act, which is widely credited with launching modern democracy in the United Kingdom, received royal assent.
• 1892 – Homer Plessy, a mixed-race man from New Orleans, was arrested for refusing to leave his seat in the "whites-only" car of a train; he lost the resulting court case, Plessy v. Ferguson.
• 1981 – The Israeli Air Force attacked a nuclear reactor under the assumption that it was about to start producing plutonium to further an Iraqi nuclear-weapons program.
• 1998 – White supremacists murdered James Byrd Jr., an African American, by chaining him behind a pickup truck and dragging him along an asphalt road in Jasper, Texas.

June 8

Laki, as of July 2012

• 1783 – Laki, a volcanic fissure in Iceland (pictured), began an eight-month eruption, triggering a major famine and causing widespread fluoride poisoning.
• 1950 – Thomas Blamey became the only Australian to attain the rank of field marshal.
• 1967 – The Israeli Air Force attacked the U.S. Navy intelligence ship USS Liberty in international waters, killing 34 people and wounding 171 others.
• 2007 – A major storm caused the bulk carrier Pasha Bulker to run aground in New South Wales, Australia.
• 2009 – Two American journalists, having been arrested for illegal entry into North Korea, were sentenced to twelve years hard labor before being pardoned two months later.

June 9

Meadow Stables racing colors

• 747 – Abu Muslim initiated an open revolt against Umayyad rule, eventually leading to the establishment of the Abbasid Caliphate under the Black Standard.
• 1863 – American Civil War: Union and Confederate forces fought the Battle of Brandy Station, the largest cavalry engagement to take place on American soil.
• 1928 – Australian aviator Charles Kingsford Smith and his crew landed the Southern Cross in Brisbane, completing the first transpacific flight.
• 1973 – The racehorse Secretariat, of Meadow Stables (racing colors pictured), won the Belmont Stakes by 31 lengths, achieving the first American Triple Crown victory in a quarter of a century.
• 1982 – Lebanon War: The Israeli Air Force carried out Operation Mole Cricket 19, successfully suppressing Syrian air defenses in the Beqaa Valley, Lebanon.

June 10: Dragon Boat Festival in China (2024)

John Diefenbaker

• 1624 – Thirty Years' War: France and the Dutch Republic concluded the Treaty of Compiègne, a mutual defence alliance.
• 1782 – King Rama I moved into the Grand Palace in Bangkok, which has remained the royal residence of Siam and Thailand since then.
• 1957 – Led by John Diefenbaker (pictured), the Progressive Conservative Party won a plurality of House of Commons seats in the Canadian federal election.
• 1968 – The Royal New Zealand Navy adopted a unique white ensign, to distinguish its vessels from those of the Royal Navy.
• 1991 – Eleven-year-old Jaycee Dugard was kidnapped in South Lake Tahoe, California; she remained a captive until 2009.

June 11

Catherine of Aragon

• 806 – Arab–Byzantine wars: The Abbasid army departed Raqqa in northern Syria to begin an invasion of Byzantine-controlled Asia Minor.
• 1509 – Catherine of Aragon (pictured) married King Henry VIII of England, becoming the first of his six wives.
• 1923 – Kitosh, an African labourer, died after having been flogged by his British employer, in a case that eventually led to reform of the legal system of the Kenya Colony.
• 1963 – Vietnamese monk Thích Quảng Đức burned himself to death in Saigon to protest the persecution of Buddhists by Catholic South Vietnamese President Ngo Dinh Diem's administration.
• 2008 – Canadian prime minister Stephen Harper apologised to the First Nations for past governments' policies of forced assimilation.

June 12: First day of Shavuot (Judaism, 2024); Dia dos Namorados in Brazil; Loving Day in the United States (1967)

• 1775 – Thomas Gage, the governor of the Province of Massachusetts Bay, offered a general pardon to colonists who remained loyal to Britain.
• 1914 – As part of the Ottoman Empire's policies of ethnic cleansing, Turkish irregulars began a six-day massacre of the predominantly Greek town of Phocaea.
• 1921 – Soviet politician Vladimir Antonov-Ovseenko authorised the use of chemical weapons against a peasant rebellion in the Tambov Governorate.
• 1963 – The premiere was held in New York of the historical drama film Cleopatra, the most expensive film made to that point.
• 1987 – Cold War: During a speech at the Brandenburg Gate by the Berlin Wall, US president Ronald Reagan challenged Soviet leader Mikhail Gorbachev to "tear down this wall!" (speech featured).

June 13

• 1514 – Henry Grace à Dieu, the largest warship ever built at the time, was launched from Woolwich Dockyard, England.
• 1916 – World War I: The Battle of Mont Sorrel in the Ypres Salient came to an end as a Canadian assault led German forces to withdraw to their original lines.
• 2007 – Insurgents carried out a second bombing at the al-Askari Mosque, one of the holiest sites in Shia Islam.
• 2011 – A 6.0 M_w earthquake caused up to NZ$6 billion of additional damage to Christchurch, New Zealand, which was still recovering from an earthquake four months earlier.

June 14

Killing of Sudbury and Hales

• 1381 – During the Peasants' Revolt in England, rebels stormed the Tower of London, killing Simon Sudbury, Lord Chancellor, and Robert Hales, Lord High Treasurer (both pictured).
• 1646 – Franco-Spanish War: French and Spanish fleets fought the inconclusive Battle of Orbetello, with sailing vessels of both sides having to be towed into action by galleys due to light winds.
• 1846 – Settlers in Sonoma began rebelling against Mexico, later proclaiming the California Republic and raising a homemade flag with a bear and a star.
• 1940 – The Soviet Union issued an ultimatum to Lithuania demanding that the Red Army be allowed to enter the country and form a pro-Soviet government.
• 1949 – Albert II became the first monkey in space, reaching an altitude of 134 km (83 mi) in a V-2 rocket.

June 15

Bessie Coleman

• 1215 – King John of England and a group of rebel barons agreed on the text of Magna Carta, an influential charter of rights.
• 1520 – Pope Leo X issued the papal bull Exsurge Domine, censuring 41 propositions from Martin Luther's Ninety-five Theses and subsequent writings, and threatening him with excommunication unless he recanted.
• 1921 – Bessie Coleman (pictured) became the first Black person to earn an international pilot's license from the Fédération Aéronautique Internationale.
• 1995 – Western Greece was struck by an earthquake registering 6.4–6.5 M_w that killed 26 people.
• 2006 – US president George W. Bush designated 140,000 square miles (360,000 km²) around the Northwestern Hawaiian Islands as the Papahānaumokuākea Marine National Monument, now one of the world's largest protected areas.

June 16:

Valentina Tereshkova

• 1407 – Ming forces conquered Đại Ngu in modern-day northern Vietnam, capturing Hồ dynasty emperor Hồ Quý Ly and bringing the country under Chinese rule.
• 1632 – The Plymouth Company granted a land patent to Thomas Purchase, who became the first permanent European settler of Pejepscot, Maine.
• 1936 – A Junkers Ju 52 aircraft of Norwegian Air Lines crashed into a mountainside near Hyllestad, Norway, killing all seven people on board.
• 1963 – Aboard Vostok 6, Soviet cosmonaut Valentina Tereshkova (pictured) became the first woman in space.
• 2016 – Jo Cox, a British Member of Parliament, was murdered in her constituency.

June 17: King's Official Birthday in the United Kingdom (2023)

Mumtaz Mahal

• 653 – Pope Martin I was arrested in the Lateran Palace, Rome, and taken to Constantinople.
• 1631 – Mumtaz Mahal (pictured), wife of the Mughal emperor Shah Jahan, died in childbirth; Jahan spent the next seventeen years constructing her mausoleum, the Taj Mahal.
• 1913 – In Detroit, autoworkers for car manufacturer Studebaker went on strike in the American auto industry's first major strike action.
• 1963 – Riots broke out in Saigon one day after the signing of the Joint Communiqué, an attempt to resolve the Buddhist crisis in South Vietnam.
• 2017 – Wildfires erupted across central Portugal, eventually causing the deaths of 66 people.

June 18: Autistic Pride Day

Li Yuan

• 618 – Sui–Tang transition: Chinese governor Li Yuan (pictured) declared himself emperor, establishing the Tang dynasty.
• 860 – Rus' forces sailed into the Bosporus in a fleet of about 200 vessels and started pillaging the suburbs of Constantinople.
• 1858 – Charles Darwin received a manuscript by fellow naturalist Alfred Russel Wallace on natural selection, which encouraged him to publish his own theory of evolution.
• 1953 – A Douglas C-124 Globemaster II aircraft crashed just after takeoff from Tachikawa, Japan, killing all 129 people on board.
• 1983 – Iranian teenager Mona Mahmudnizhad and nine other women were hanged in Shiraz because of their membership in the Baháʼí Faith.

June 19: Juneteenth in the United States (1865)

Ethel and Julius Rosenberg

• 1718 – An earthquake on the Tibetan Plateau led to the deaths of more than 73,000 people.
• 1838 – The Jesuits' Maryland province contracted to sell 272 slaves to buyers in Louisiana in one of the largest slave sales in American history.
• 1953 – Americans Julius and Ethel Rosenberg (pictured) were executed as spies for passing nuclear weapons secrets to the Soviet Union.
• 1965 – Nguyễn Cao Kỳ, the commander of the South Vietnam Air Force, was appointed prime minister at the head of a military regime.
• 1987 – Basque separatist group ETA detonated a car bomb at the Hipercor shopping centre in Barcelona, killing 21 people and injuring 45 others.

June 20: World Refugee Day

Obverse of the Great Seal of the United States

• 1782 – The Congress of the Confederation adopted the Great Seal of the United States (obverse pictured), used to authenticate documents issued by the U.S. federal government.
• 1900 – Boxer Rebellion: The Imperial Chinese Army began a 55-day siege of the Legation Quarter in Peking.
• 1943 – World War II: The Royal Air Force began Operation Bellicose, a four-day shuttle-bombing mission that included raids on Germany and Italy and a refuelling and rearming stop in Algeria.
• 1975 – Steven Spielberg's film Jaws was released; it became a summer blockbuster and the first film to earn $100 million in U.S. theatrical rentals.
• 2019 – Iranian aircraft shot down an American drone over the Strait of Hormuz amid heightened tensions between the two countries.

June 21: Fête de la Musique; International Day of Yoga; National Indigenous Peoples Day in Canada; Xiazhi in China (2024)

Charles Davis Lucas

• 1575 – French Wars of Religion: Catholic forces defeated an armed group of Huguenots attempting to capture Besançon, from which they had previously been expelled.
• 1854 – Crimean War: During the Battle of Bomarsund, Irish sailor Charles Davis Lucas (pictured) threw an artillery shell off his ship before it exploded, earning him the first Victoria Cross.
• 1890 – Rudyard Kipling's poem Mandalay was published.
• 1921 – Irish War of Independence: Most of the village of Knockcroghery in County Roscommon was burned by British forces.
• 1957 – Ellen Fairclough became the first woman to be appointed to the cabinet of Canada.

June 22

HMS Leopard (right) fires on USS Chesapeake

• 1593 – Habsburg troops defeated a larger Ottoman force at the Battle of Sisak in the Kingdom of Croatia, triggering the Long Turkish War.
• 1807 – The British warship HMS Leopard pursued and attacked the American frigate USS Chesapeake (pictured) in the belief that the crew of the latter included deserters from the Royal Navy.
• 1941 – World War II: German minister of foreign affairs Joachim von Ribbentrop presented a declaration of war to the Soviet ambassador Vladimir Dekanozov in Berlin.
• 1979 – Former British Liberal Party leader Jeremy Thorpe was acquitted of conspiracy to murder Norman Scott, who had accused Thorpe of having a relationship with him.
• 2022 – An earthquake registering 6.2 M_w caused the deaths of at least 1,000 people in Afghanistan and Pakistan.

June 23: Grand Duke's Official Birthday in Luxembourg

Gamal Abdel Nasser

• 1266 – War of Saint Sabas: In an action off Trapani, Sicily, a Venetian fleet captured all 27 opposing Genoese vessels.
• 1956 – In a nationwide referendum, Gamal Abdel Nasser (pictured) was elected President of Egypt, a post he held until his death in 1970.
• 1991 – The first installment of the video-game series Sonic the Hedgehog was released.
• 1992 – Croatian War of Independence: The Battle of the Miljevci Plateau ended after a failed counterattack by forces of the Republic of Serbian Krajina against the Croatian Army who had captured the plateau.
• 2016 – Citizens of the United Kingdom voted in favour of leaving the European Union.

June 24

Jiang Zemin

• 1374 – An outbreak of dancing mania, in which crowds of people danced themselves to exhaustion, began in Aachen (in present-day Germany) before spreading to other parts of Europe.
• 1939 – The first of the Thai cultural mandates was issued, officially changing the country's name from Siam to Thailand.
• 1943 – Amid racial tensions, U.S. Army military police shot and killed a black serviceman after a confrontation at a pub in Bamber Bridge, England.
• 1989 – Following the 1989 Tiananmen Square massacre the 13th Central Committee of the Chinese Communist Party appointed Jiang Zemin (pictured) as general secretary in place of Zhao Ziyang.
• 2010 – John Isner defeated Nicolas Mahut at the Wimbledon Championships, concluding the longest match in tennis history, which lasted 11 hours and 5 minutes over three days.

June 25

1978 rainbow flag

• 1658 – Anglo-Spanish War: The largest battle ever fought on Jamaica, the three-day Battle of Rio Nuevo, began.
• 1944 – World War II: U.S. Navy and Royal Navy ships bombarded Cherbourg, France, to support U.S. Army units engaged in the Battle of Cherbourg.
• 1950 – The United Nations Security Council passed Resolution 82 condemning the North Korean invasion of South Korea.
• 1978 – The rainbow flag (original version pictured) representing gay pride was first flown at the San Francisco Gay Freedom Day parade.
• 2022 – Russian invasion of Ukraine: Russian forces captured the city of Sievierodonetsk, Ukraine, after six weeks of fighting.

June 26

Alexander V

• 1409 – The Council of Pisa elected Peter of Candia as Pope Alexander V (pictured), becoming the third simultaneous claimant of the title of leader of the Roman Catholic Church.
• 1889 – Bangui, the capital and largest city of the present-day Central African Republic, was founded in French Congo.
• 1906 – The 1906 French Grand Prix, the first Grand Prix motor racing competition, began near Le Mans.
• 1945 – At a conference in San Francisco, delegates from 50 nations signed a charter establishing the United Nations.
• 2013 – The U.S. Supreme Court granted federal recognition to same-sex marriage when it overturned the Defense of Marriage Act.

June 27: Day of Arafah (Islam, 2023)

Jacobo Árbenz

• 1571 – Queen Elizabeth I issued a royal charter establishing Jesus College, the first Protestant college at the University of Oxford.
• 1800 – War of the Second Coalition: French forces won a victory at the Battle of Neuburg, ending Austrian control over the River Danube.
• 1869 – The military phase of the Meiji Restoration in Japan was completed with an imperial victory in the Boshin War.
• 1954 – Jacobo Árbenz (pictured) resigned as President of Guatemala following a CIA-led coup against his administration.
• 2008 – Robert Mugabe was re-elected as President of Zimbabwe with an overwhelming majority after his opponent Morgan Tsvangirai withdrew, citing violence against his party's supporters.

June 28: First day of Eid al-Adha (Islam, 2023); Vidovdan in Serbia

Fragments of the Nakhla meteorite

• 1461 – Edward IV was crowned King of England at Westminster Abbey.
• 1776 – American Revolutionary War: The militia of the Province of South Carolina repelled a British attack on Charleston.
• 1911 – The Nakhla meteorite (fragments pictured), the first meteorite to suggest signs of aqueous processes on Mars, fell to Earth in Abu Hummus, Egypt.
• 1950 – Korean War: South Korean forces began the Bodo League massacre, summarily executing tens of thousands of suspected North Korean sympathizers.
• 2016 – Gunmen attacked Istanbul's Atatürk Airport, killing 45 people and injuring more than 230 others.

June 29: Feast of Saints Peter and Paul (Western Christianity)

Woldegk tornado

• 1613 – The original Globe Theatre in London burned to the ground after a cannon employed for special effects misfired during a performance of Henry VIII and ignited the roof.
• 1764 – One of the strongest tornadoes in history (pictured) struck Woldegk (in present-day northeastern Germany), killing one person.
• 1864 – A passenger train fell through an open swing bridge into the Richelieu River near present-day Mont-Saint-Hilaire, Quebec, killing as many as 99 people and injuring 100 others in Canada's worst railway accident.
• 1913 – More than 50,000 Union and Confederate veterans gathered at the Gettysburg Battlefield, the largest combined reunion of American Civil War veterans ever held.
• 2003 – An overloaded balcony collapsed in Chicago, United States, killing 13 people and injuring 57 others.

June 30

Coronation of Pope Paul VI

• 1559 – During a jousting match, King Henry II of France was mortally wounded when fragments of Gabriel Montgomery's lance pierced his eye.
• 1598 – Anglo-Spanish War: After a 15-day siege Spanish troops in San Juan, modern-day Puerto-Rico, surrendered to an English force under Sir George Clifford.
• 1859 – French acrobat Charles Blondin crossed Niagara Gorge, making him one of the world's most famous tightrope walkers.
• 1963 – The coronation of Pope Paul VI (pictured) took place, the last such ceremony before its abandonment by later popes.
• 2009 – Yemenia Flight 626 crashed into the Indian Ocean near the Comoros, killing 152 people, with French schoolgirl Bahia Bakari the sole survivor.