Events
451
– Battle of Chalons: Flavius Aetius' battles
Attila the Hun. After the battle, which
was inconclusive, Attila retreats, causing
the Romans to interpret it as a victory.
1214 – The University of Oxford receives
its charter.
1605 – After only three months as tsar,
16-year-old Feodor II of Russia is assassinated.
1631 – The sack of Baltimore: the Irish
village of Baltimore is attacked by Algerian
pirates.
1652 – Tarhoncu Ahmet Paşa is appointed
grand vezir of the Ottoman Empire.
1685 – Monmouth Rebellion: James Scott,
1st Duke of Monmouth declares himself King
of England at Bridgwater.
1756 – A British garrison is imprisoned
in the Black Hole of Calcutta.
1782 – The U.S. Congress adopts the Great
Seal of the United States.
1787 – Oliver Ellsworth moves at the Federal
Convention to call the government the United
States.
1789 – Deputies of the French Third Estate
take the Tennis Court Oath.
1819 – The U.S. vessel SS Savannah arrives
at Liverpool, England, United Kingdom. She
is the first steam-propelled vessel to cross
the Atlantic, although most of the journey
is made under sail.
1837 – Queen Victoria succeeds to the British
throne.
1840 – Samuel Morse receives the patent
for the telegraph.
1862 – Barbu Catargiu, the Prime Minister
of Romania, is assassinated.
1863 – American Civil War: West Virginia
is admitted as the 35th U.S. state.
1877 – Alexander Graham Bell installs the
world's first commercial telephone service
in Hamilton, Ontario, Canada.
1887 – Victoria Terminus, the busiest railway
station in India, opens in Bombay.
1893 – Lizzie Borden is acquitted of the
murders of her father and stepmother.
1895 – The Kiel Canal, crossing the base
of the Jutland peninsula and the busiest
artificial waterway in the world, is officially
opened.
1900 – Boxer Rebellion: The Imperial Chinese
Army begins a 55-day siege of the Legation
Quarter in Beijing, China.
1919 – 150 die at the Teatro Yaguez fire,
Mayagüez, Puerto Rico.
1921 – Workers of Buckingham and Carnatic
Mills in the city of Chennai, India, begin
a four-month strike.
1942 – The Holocaust: Kazimierz Piechowski
and three others, dressed as members of
the SS-Totenkopfverbände, steal an SS staff
car and escape from the Auschwitz concentration
camp.
1943 – The Detroit Race Riot breaks out
and continues for three more days.
1944 – World War II: The Battle of the Philippine
Sea concludes with a decisive U.S. naval
victory. The lopsided naval air battle is
also known as the "Great Marianas Turkey
Shoot".
1944 – Continuation war: the Soviet Union
demands an unconditional surrender from
Finland during the beginning of partially
successful Vyborg–Petrozavodsk Offensive.
The Finnish government refuses.
1948 – Toast of the Town, later The Ed Sullivan
Show, makes its television debut.
1956 – A Venezuelan Super-Constellation
crashes in the Atlantic Ocean off Asbury
Park, New Jersey, killing 74 people.
1959 – A rare June hurricane strikes Canada's
Gulf of St. Lawrence killing 35.
1960 – The Mali Federation gains independence
from France (it later splits into Mali and
Senegal).
1963 – The so-called "red telephone"
is established between the Soviet Union
and the United States following the Cuban
Missile Crisis.
1972 – Watergate scandal: An 18½-minute
gap appears in the tape recording of the
conversations between U.S. President Richard
Nixon and his advisers regarding the recent
arrests of his operatives while breaking
into the Watergate complex.
1973 – Ezeiza massacre in Buenos Aires,
Argentina. Snipers fire upon left-wing Peronists.
At least 13 are killed and more than 300
are injured.
1979 – ABC News correspondent Bill Stewart
is shot dead by a Nicaraguan soldier under
the regime of Anastasio Somoza Debayle.
The murder is caught on tape and sparks
an international outcry against the regime.
1982 – The Argentine base (Corbeta Uruguay)
on Southern Thule surrenders to Royal Marine
commandos in the final action of the Falklands
War.
1990 – Asteroid Eureka is discovered.
1991 – The German Bundestag votes to move
the capital from Bonn back to Berlin.
2003 – The WikiMedia Foundation is founded
in St. Petersburg, Florida.
2009 – During the Iranian election protests,
the death of Neda Agha-Soltan is captured
on video and spreads virally on the Internet,
making it "probably the most widely
witnessed death in human history".
Holidays
and observances
Christian
Feast Day:
Adalbert, Archbishop of Magdeburg
Florentina
Margareta Ebner (Beatified)
Pope Silverius
June 20 (Eastern Orthodox liturgics)
Day of the National Flag (Argentina)
Earliest date for the summer solstice, and
its related observance:
Earliest day on which Day of the Finnish
Flag can fall, while June 26 is the latest;
celebrated on Saturday of Midsummer's Day
(Finland)
Litha / Midsummer celebrations in the northern
hemisphere, Yule in the southern hemisphere.
(Neopagan Wheel of the Year)
Martyrs' Day (Eritrea)
West Virginia Day (West Virginia)
World Refugee Day (International)
For details, contact Datacentre
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