May 18th
 

1652 ~ Rhode Island passed the first law in North America making slavery illegal.

1765 ~ Fire destroyed one quarter of Montreal, Quebec.

1850 ~ Birthday of Oliver Heaviside, Physicist.

1872 ~ Birthday of Bertrand Russell, Mathematician and Philosopher.

1883 ~ Birthday of Walter Gropius, Architect.

1896 ~ The United States Supreme Court ruled in “Plessy v. Ferguson” that "separate but equal" is constitutional.

1919 ~ Birthday of Dame Margot Fonteyn, Ballet dancer.

1937 ~ Birthday of Brooks Robinson, best Third Baseman ever.

1972 ~ Under project Smiling Buddha, India successfully detonated its first nuclear weapon becoming the sixth nation to do so.

1980 ~ Mount St. Helens erupted, killing 57 and causing US$ 3 billion in damage.

May 19th
 

1536 ~ Anne Boleyn, the second wife of Henry VIII beheaded for adultery.

1568 ~ Queen Elizabeth I of England had Mary Queen of Scots arrested.

1795 ~ Birthday of Johns Hopkins, Philanthropist.

1890 ~ Birthday of Ho Chi Minh, Vietnamese leader.

1897 ~ Oscar Wilde released from prison.

1925 ~ Birthday of Malcolm X, Civil Rights activist.

1925 ~ Birthday of Pol Pot, Khmer Rouge leader.

1942 ~ Birthday of Gary Kildall, Computer Programmer.

1971 ~ Mars 2 launched by the Soviet Union.

2001 ~ Zhonghua Sun put to death by People's Republic of China government officials because she refused to be sterilized.

May 20th
 

325 ~ First Council of Nicaea - first "Ecumenical Council" of the Christian Church.

1799 ~ Birthday of Honoré de Balzac, Author.

1806 ~ Birthday of John Stuart Mill, Philosopher.

1874 ~ Levi Strauss and Jacob Davis received a US patent for blue jeans with copper rivets.

1901 ~ Birthday of Max Euwe, world chess champion

1902 ~ Cuba gained independence from the United States.

1915 ~ Birthday of Moshe Dayan, General.

1927 ~ Charles Lindbergh took off on the world's first solo nonstop flight across the Atlantic Ocean.

1932 ~ Amelia Earhart took off on the world's first solo nonstop flight across the Atlantic Ocean by a female pilot.

1940 ~ The first prisoners arrived at a new concentration camp at Auschwitz.

May 21st
 

1471 ~ Birthday of Albrecht Dürer, Graphic Artist.

1844 ~ Birthday of Henri Rousseau, Artist.

1856 ~ Lawrence, Kansas captured and burned by pro-slavery forces.

1881 ~ The American Red Cross established by Clara Barton.

1898 ~ Birthday of Armand Hammer, physician, Entrepreneur

1945 ~ Humphrey Bogart married actress Lauren Bacall.

1916 ~ Birthday of Harold Robbins, Novelist.

1956 ~ Bikini Atoll nearly obliterated by the first airborne explosion of a hydrogen bomb.

1930 ~ Birthday of Malcolm Fraser, twenty-second Prime Minister of Australia.

1991 ~ Former Indian prime minister Rajiv Gandhi assassinated by a terrorist female suicide bomber near Madras.

May 23rd
 

1430 ~ Joan of Arc captured and later sold to the English.

1533 ~ The marriage of King Henry VIII to Catharine of Aragon declared null and void.

1707 ~ Birthday of Carolus Linnaeus, Botanist.

1848 ~ Birthday of Otto Lilienthal, Engineer.

1900 ~ Sergeant William Harvey Carney becomes the first African American to be awarded the Congressional Medal of Honor (awarded for heroism in the Battle of Fort Wagner during the American Civil War).

1921 ~ Birthday of James Blish, science fiction author.

1933 ~ Birthday of Joan Collins, Actress.

1934 ~ Bank robbers Bonnie and Clyde are ambushed and killed by Texas Rangers.

1951 ~ Birthday of Anatoly Karpov, chess world champion.

1995 ~ Official announcement of the Java programming language.

May 24th
 

1626 ~ Peter Minuit bought Manhattan.

1689 ~ The Act of Toleration passed the English Parliament protecting Protestants (Roman Catholics were intentionally excluded).

1743 ~ Birthday of Jean-Paul Marat, Revolutionary.

1819 ~ Birthday of Queen Victoria.

1844 ~ First electrical telegram sent by Samuel F. B. Morse from Baltimore, Maryland to Washington, D.C., saying "What hath God wrought?".

1870 ~ Birthday of Jan Christiaan Smuts, Statesman and soldier.

1893 ~ Birthday of Walter Baade, Astronomer.

1895 ~ Playwright Oscar Wilde convicted on a morals charge in London and is sentenced to prison.

1941 ~ Birthday of Bob Dylan.

1993 ~ Eritrea gains its independence from Ethiopia.

May 25th
 

1085 ~ Alfonso VI of Castile took Toledo, Spain back from the Moors.

1521 ~ The Diet of Worms ended with the Edict of Worms declaring Martin Luther an outlaw.

1803 ~ Birthday of Ralph Waldo Emerson, Essayist & Poet.

1889 ~ Birthday of Igor Sikorsky, developer of a working helicopter.

1892 ~ Birthday of Josip Broz Tito, President of Yugoslavia.

1925 ~ John T. Scopes was indicted for teaching Darwin's theory of evolution.

1929 ~ Birthday of Beverly Sills, Soprano.

1961 ~ President Kennedy announced his goal to initiate a project to put a "man on the moon" before the end of the decade.

1963 ~ In Addis Ababa, Ethiopia, the Organization of African Unity was established.

1973 ~ Mike Oldfield released “Tubular Bells”.

May 26th
 

1538 ~ Geneva evicted John Calvin.

1799 ~ Birthday of Aleksandr Pushkin, Author.

1805 ~ In Milan's cathedral, Napoleon I of France was crowned King of Italy.

1868 ~ The impeachment trial of President Andrew Johnson ended, with Johnson being found not guilty by one vote.

1878 ~ Birthday of Isadora Duncan, Dancer.

1886 ~ Birthday of Al Jolson.

1896 ~ Nicholas II became Tsar of Russia.

1907 ~ Birthday of John Wayne ("The Duke"), Actor.

1912 ~ Birthday of Jay Silverheels, Actor.

1972 ~ Willandra National Park was established in Australia.

May 27th
 

1703 ~ Tsar Peter the Great founded the city of Saint Petersburg.

1794 ~ Birthday of Cornelius Vanderbilt, Entrepreneur.

1907 ~ Birthday of Rachel Carson, Author.

1907 ~ A Bubonic plague outbreak began in San Francisco, California.

1911 ~ Birthday of Vincent Price, Actor.

1923 ~ Birthday of Henry Kissinger, American diplomat and recipient of the 1973 Nobel Prize for Peace.

1934 ~ Birthday of Harlan Ellison, science fiction Author.

1941 ~ German pocket battleship Bismarck was sunk in the North Atlantic killing 2,300.

1968 ~ George W. Bush enlisted in the Texas Air National Guard.

1972 ~ Presidents Leonid Brezhnev and Richard Nixon signed the SALT I agreements

May 28th
 

1371 ~ Birthday of John the Fearless, Duke of Burgundy.

1588 ~ The Spanish Armada, with 130 ships and 30,000 men, began to set sail from Lisbon.

1759 ~ Birthday of William Pitt the Younger, Prime Minister of Great Britain.

1892 ~ John Muir organized the Sierra Club.

1908 ~ Birthday of Ian Fleming, author of James Bond books.

1934 ~ The Dionne quintuplets are born to Olivia and Elzire Dionne, becoming the first quintuplets to survive infancy.

1925 ~ Birthday of Dietrich Fischer-Dieskau, baritone.

1936 ~ Alan Turing submitted “On Computable Numbers” for publishing. This is an article with considerably greater impact than "Computing Machinery and Intelligence", in which he proposed the famous “Turing Test”.

1944 ~ Birthday of Rudy Giuliani, former mayor of New York City.

1964 ~ The Palestine Liberation Organization was formed.

May 29th
 

1453 ~ Constantinople fell to the Ottoman Turks, marking the end of Byzantium.

1630 ~ Birthday of King Charles II of England.

1733 ~ Right of Canadians to keep Indian slaves upheld at Quebec City.

1763 ~ Birthday of Patrick Henry, Patriot.

1874 ~ Birthday of G. K. Chesterton, Author.

1906 ~ Birthday of T.H. White, Author.

1913 ~ Igor Stravinsky's ballet score “The Rite of Spring” was premiered in Paris.

1917 ~ Birthday of John Fitzgerald Kennedy, U.S. President

1919 ~ Observation of shifted star positions during a solar eclipse confirmed Albert Einstein's theory of relativity.

1953 ~ Edmund Hillary and Tenzing Norgay became the first people to reach the summit of Mount Everest.

May 30th
 

1431 ~ Joan of Arc was burned at the stake.

1672 ~ Birthday of Peter the Great, Tsar of Russia.

1806 ~ Andrew Jackson killed a man in a duel after the man accused Jackson's wife of bigamy.

1908 ~ Birthday of Mel Blanc, voice for Barney Rubble, Bugs Bunny, Tweety Bird, and others.

1909 ~ Birthday of Benny Goodman, Clarinetist & Bandleader.

1922 ~ The Lincoln Memorial was dedicated.

1922 ~ Birthday of Hal Clement, science fiction writer.

1934 ~ Birthday of Aleksei Leonov, first person to walk in space.

1967 ~ The Nigerian state of Biafra seceded, sparking a civil war.

1982 ~ Cal Ripken, Jr. played the first of 2,632 consecutive Major League baseball games.

May 31st
 

1048 ~ Birthday of Omar Khayyam, Persian Poet, Astronomer & Philosopher

1678 ~ Lady Godiva processed through Coventry.

1819 ~ Birthday of Walt Whitman, Poet.

1902 ~ The last Afrikaner resistance forces signed a peace treaty with the British at Pretoria, ending the Second Boer War, and ensuring British control of South Africa.

1912 ~ Birthday of Alfred Deller, Early modern countertenor.

1916 ~ The Battle of Jutland, the first and the only full-scale battleship engagement during World War I

1938 ~ Birthday of John Prescott, Deputy Prime Minister of the United Kingdom.

1939 ~ Birthday of Terry Waite, humanitarian.

1974 ~ Syria and Israel signed a disengagement agreement to resolve the Yom Kippur War.

2003 ~ The final flight of an Air France Concorde.

June 1st
 

1495 ~ Friar John Cor recorded the first known batch of scotch whisky.

1780 ~ Birthday of Carl von Clausewitz, general.

1801 ~ Birthday of Brigham Young, Mormon church leader.

1829 ~ Captain James Stirling established the Swan River Colony in Western Australia.

1890 ~ The U.S. Census Bureau began using Herman Hollerith's tabulating machine to count census returns.

1926 ~ Birthday of Marilyn Monroe, Actress.

1928 ~ Birthday of Georgi Dobrovolski, Cosmonaut.

1938 ~ The first Superman comic was published.

1965 ~ Birthday of Nigel Short, British International Grand Master.

1980 ~ The Cable News Network began broadcasting.

June 2nd
 

455 ~ The Vandals entered Rome, and plundered the city for two weeks.

1615 ~ First Récollet missionaries arrived at Quebec City, from Rouen, France.

1740 ~ Birthday of Marquis de Sade, Author.

1840 ~ Birthday of Thomas Hardy, Poet & Novelist.

1857 ~ Birthday of Edward Elgar, Composer

1904 ~ Birthday of Johnny Weissmuller, Olympic Gold Medalist, Actor

1925 ~ Wally Pipp, first baseman of the New York Yankees, asked for a day off due to a headache. He was replaced in the lineup by Lou Gehrig, who also started the next 2,128 consecutive games.

1952 ~ Television broadcasting began in Canada, at Montreal, Quebec.

1953 ~ Coronation of Queen Elizabeth II, the first to be televised.

1990 ~ Death of Rex Harrison, Actor.

June 3rd
 

1098 ~ The Crusaders took Antioch.

1808 ~ Birthday of Jefferson Davis, President of the Confederate States of America.

1875 ~ Death of Georges Bizet, Composer.

1888 ~ The poem “Casey at the Bat”, by Ernest Lawrence Thayer, was published.

1899 ~ Death of Johann Strauss Jr., Composer.

1918 ~ Birthday of Lili St. Cyr, Ecdysiast.

1930 ~ Birthday of Marion Zimmer Bradley, Science Fiction Author.

1937 ~ The Duke of Windsor married Wallis Simpson.

1944 ~ Charles de Gaulle became Prime Minister of France.

1989 ~ The government of China sent troops to force protesters out of Tiananmen Square.

June 4th
 

780 BC ~ The earliest solar eclipse was recorded in China.

1738 ~ Birthday of King George III of Great Britain.

1792 ~ Captain George Vancouver claimed Puget Sound for Great Britain.

1878 ~ The Ottoman Empire ceded Cyprus to the United Kingdom.

1928 ~ Birthday of Dr. Ruth Westheimer, Sex Therapist & Author.

1929 ~ Birthday of John Drew Barrymore, Actor.

1940 ~ German forces entered Paris.

1944 ~ Birthday of Michelle Phillips, Actress & Singer.

1965 ~ Birthday of Mick Doohan, Australian motorcycle racer.

1989 ~ Solidarity's victory in the first partly free parliamentary elections in post-war Poland sparked off a succession of peaceful anti-communist revolutions in Eastern Europe.

June 5th
 

1718 ~ Birthday of Thomas Chippendale, Furniture Maker.

1723 ~ Birthday of Adam Smith, Economist.

1752 ~ Benjamin Franklin showed that lightning is electricity (kite + key + lightning)

1833 ~ Ada Lovelace met Charles Babbage.

1883 ~ Birthday of John Maynard Keynes, Economist.

1887 ~ Birthday of Pancho Villa, Revolutionary.

1939 ~ Birthday of Joe Clark, sixteenth Prime Minister of Canada.

1944 ~ Allied soldiers entered Rome. It was the first capital of an Axis nation to fall.

1977 ~ The Apple II personal computer went on sale.

1995 ~ Bose-Einstein condensate first created.

June 6th
 

1622 ~ Birthday of Claude-Jean Allouez, Jesuit missionary and explorer.

1683 ~ Oxford University’s Ashmolean Museum opened as the world's first university museum.

1756 ~ Birthday of John Trumbull, Painter.

1844 ~ The Young Men's Christian Association (YMCA) was founded in London.

1903 ~ Birthday of Aram Khachaturian, Composer.

1933 ~ The first drive-in theater opened, in Camden, New Jersey.

1935 ~ The Birthday of the current and 14th Dalai Lama, Tenzin Gyatso.

1944 ~ Operation Overlord commenced with the landing of 155,000 Allied troops on the beaches of Normandy in France.

1956 ~ The Birthday of Björn Borg, tennis player.

1984 ~ Indian Armed Forces attacked the Golden Temple in Amritsar, following an order from Indira Gandhi.

June 7th
 

1491 ~ Birthday of Jacques Cartier, Explorer.

1594 ~ Spain and Portugal signed the Treaty of Tordesillas which divides the New World between the two countries.

1848 ~ Birthday of Paul Gauguin, Painter

1929 ~ Vatican City became a sovereign state.

1942 ~ The Battle of Midway ended in a decisive American victory.

1944 ~ Nazi SS troops executed 23 Canadian prisoners of war in Normandy.

1954 ~ Death of Alan Turing, mathematician, computer scientist.

1981 ~ The Israeli Air Force destroyed Iraq's Osiraq nuclear reactor.

1981 ~ Anna Kournikova, tennis player and inspiration for computer virus.


Today is the first day of the Vestalia (penus vestae) in honor of Vesta as observed by the Roman Empire.

June 8th
 

452 ~ Attila the Hun invaded Italy.

1625 ~ Birthday of Giovanni Cassini, Scientist.

1776 ~ American invaders driven back at Trois-Rivières, Quebec.

1810 ~ Birthday of Robert Schumann, Composer.

1866 ~ The Canadian Parliament met for the first time in Ottawa.

1867 ~ Birthday of Frank Lloyd Wright, Architect.

1887 ~ Herman Hollerith received a patent for his punch card calculator.

1910 ~ Birthday of John W. Campbell Jr., Science Fiction Writer, Publisher, Editor.

1916 ~ Birthday of Francis Crick, scientist, Nobel laureate.

1949 ~ Nineteen Eighty-Four by George Orwell was published.

2004 ~ First transit of Venus since 1882; the next one will occur on June 6, 2012.

June 9th
 

1534 ~ Jacques Cartier became the first European to discover the St. Lawrence River.

1672 ~ Birthday of Peter the Great, Tsar of Russia.

1775 ~ Guy Carleton prepared to face an American invasion at Quebec.

1810 ~ Birthday of Otto Nicolai, Composer.

1891 ~ Birthday of Cole Porter, Composer and Lyricist.

1916 ~ Birthday of Les Paul, Guitarist.

1934 ~ Donald Duck’s first appearance.

1940 ~ World War II: Norway surrendered to Germany.

1942 ~ World War II: The American Philippine Department surrendered to Japan.

1997 ~ The British lease on the New Territories in Hong Kong expired.

June 10th
 

1688 ~ Birthday of James Francis Edward Stuart, "The Old Pretender".

1692 ~ Salem witch trials: Bridget Bishop was hanged as a witch.

1829 ~ First boat race between Oxford and Cambridge.

1835 ~ Birthday of Rebecca Felton, first woman US Senator.

1898 ~ Spanish-American War: American Marines landed in Cuba.

1901 ~ Birthday of Frederick Loewe, Composer.

1915 ~ Birthday of Saul Bellow, author, recipient of the Nobel Prize in Literature.

1921 ~ Birthday of Prince Philip, Duke of Edinburgh.

1935 ~ Alcoholics Anonymous was founded in New York City.

1990 ~ Nelson Mandela is released from prison.

June 11th
 

1509 ~ Marriage of King Henry VIII of England and Katherine of Aragon.

1572 ~ Birthday of Ben Jonson, Dramatist.

1770 ~ Captain James Cook ran aground on the Great Barrier Reef.

1776 ~ Birthday of John Constable, Painter.

1864 ~ Birthday of Richard Strauss, Composer & Conductor.

1901 ~ New Zealand annexed the Cook Islands.

1910 ~ Birthday of Jacques Cousteau, Explorer.

1963 ~ The University of Alabama was desegregated as Governor George Wallace stepped aside.

1979 ~ Death of John Wayne, Actor & Icon.

2004 ~ Cassini-Huygens makes its closest flyby of Phoebe.

June 12th
 

1897 ~ Birthday of Anthony Eden, British Prime Minister.

1929 ~ Birthday of Anne Frank, Nazi victim.

1931 ~ Al Capone indicted for violating United States Prohibition laws.

1941 ~ Birthday of Chick Corea, musician.

1942 ~ Anne Frank received a diary for her thirteenth birthday.

1963 ~ ”Cleopatra” starring Elizabeth Taylor, Rex Harrison and Richard Burton premiered.

1975 ~ Indian Prime Minister Indira Gandhi found guilty of corrupt election practices in 1971.

1987 ~ Ronald Reagan publicly challenged Mikhail Gorbachev to tear down the Berlin Wall.

1991 ~ NAFTA talks opened in Toronto, Ontario.

2003 ~ Death of Gregory Peck, Actor.

June 13th
 

1774 ~ Rhode Island became the first American colony to outlaw the importation of slaves.

1811 ~ Birthday of Harriet Beecher Stowe, Author.

1865 ~ Birthday of William Butler Yeats, poet and dramatist, recipient of the Nobel Prize in literature.

1892 ~ Birthday of Basil Rathbone, Actor.

1897 ~ Birthday of Paavo Nurmi, Runner.

1970 ~ "The Long and Winding Road" became the Beatles' last #1 song.

1983 ~ Pioneer 10 became the first manmade object to leave the solar system.

1995 ~ French president Jacques Chirac announced the resumption of nuclear tests in Polynesia.


I close this evening with a quote from “The Second Coming”, penned by Mr. Yeats in 1921, about our own times:

Things fall apart; the centre cannot hold;
Mere anarchy is loosed upon the world,
The blood-dimmed tide is loosed, and everywhere
The ceremony of innocence is drowned;
The best lack all conviction, while the worst
Are full of passionate intensity.

Poets are indeed the antennae of civilizations!

June 14th
 

1671 ~ Birthday of Tomaso Albinoni, Composer.

1775 ~ The United States Army was established.

1864 ~ Birthday of Alois Alzheimer, Physician.

1872 ~ Trade unions legalized in Canada.

1909 ~ Birthday of Burl Ives, Musician & Actor.

1919 ~ Alcock and Brown departed St. John's, Newfoundland on the first nonstop transatlantic flight.

1928 ~ Birthday of Ernesto (Che) Guevara, Revolutionary

1940 ~ World War II: The Wehrmacht occupied Paris.

1946 ~ Birthday of Donald Trump, business tycoon

1982 ~ War between United Kingdom and Argentina over the Falkland Islands ends.

June 15th
 

1094 ~ Valencia fell to El Cid.

1330 ~ Birthday of Edward the Black Prince, Prince of Wales.

1843 ~ Birthday of Edvard Grieg, Composer.

1909 ~ Representatives from England, Australia and South Africa met at Lords and form the Imperial Cricket Conference.

1911 ~ Tabulating Computing Recording Corporation (IBM) was incorporated.

1914 ~ Birthday of Yuri Andropov, General Secretary of the Communist Party of the Soviet Union.

1919 ~ Alcock and Brown completed first nonstop transatlantic flight at Clifden, County Galway, Ireland.

1943 ~ Birthday of Xaviera Hollander, Prostitute, Author.

1956 ~ John Lennon and Paul McCartney met for the first time.

1995 ~ Death of John Atanasoff, computer pioneer

June 16th
 

1487 ~ Battle of Stoke Field, the last battle of the Wars of the Roses.

1755 ~ French and Indian War: French surrendered Fort Beauséjour to the British, leading to the expulsion of the Acadians.

1806 ~ Birthday of Edward Davy, Physician, Chemist & Inventor.

1829 ~ Birthday of Geronimo, Apache Warrior & Leader.

1884 ~ The first roller coaster in the United States began operation at Coney Island, New York.

1890 ~ Birthday of Stan Laurel, Actor & Comedian.

1963 ~ Valentina Tereshkova became the first woman in space.

1902 ~ Birthday of Barbara McClintock, Geneticist.

1912 ~ Birthday of Enoch Powell, British Politician.

1977 ~ Leonid Brezhnev became president of the USSR.

June 17th
 

1597 ~ Sir Francis Drake claimed a land he called ‘Nova Albion’ (modern California) for England.

1703 ~ Birthday of John Wesley, theologian, founder of Methodists.

1775 ~ American Revolutionary War: Battle of Bunker Hill - The British forces took Bunker Hill outside of Boston.

1818 ~ Birthday of Charles Gounod, Composer.

1882 ~ Birthday of Igor Stravinsky, Composer.

1885 ~ The Statue of Liberty arrived in New York Harbor.

1900 ~ Birthday of Martin Bormann, Nazi official.

1917 ~ Birthday of Dean Martin, Singer & Actor.

1944 ~ Iceland became independent from Denmark and formed a republic.

1953 ~ Workers Uprising: The Soviet Union ordered a division of troops into East Berlin to quell a rebellion.

June 18th
 

1778 ~ American Revolutionary War: British troops abandoned Philadelphia, Pennsylvania.

1815 ~ Napoleonic Wars: Battle of Waterloo led to Napoleon Bonaparte abdicating the throne of France for a second time.

1873 ~ Susan B. Anthony was fined $100 for attempting to vote in the 1872 presidential election.

1928 ~ Aviator Amelia Earhart became the first woman to fly in an aircraft across the Atlantic Ocean.

1940 ~ Appeal of June 18 by Charles de Gaulle.

1942 ~ Birthday of Sir Paul McCartney, Singer & Guitarist for The Beatles.

1964 ~ Birthday of Uday Hussein, son of Saddam Hussein.

1983 ~ Sally Ride became the first American woman in space.

June 19th
 

1306 ~ Forces of Earl of Pembroke defeat Bruce's Scottish rebels at the Battle of Methven.

1623 ~ Birthday of Blaise Pascal, Mathematician.

1865 ~ Over two years after the Emancipation Proclamation, slaves in Galveston, Texas are finally informed of their freedom. June 19th is unofficially celebrated as Juneteenth in the United States.

1882 ~ Birthday of William F. Halsey Jr., American admiral.

1896 ~ Birthday of Wallis Warfield, Duchess of Windsor.

1945 ~ Birthday of Aung San Suu Kyi, politician and recipient of the Nobel Peace Prize

1947 ~ Birthday of Salman Rushdie, Author.

1953 ~ Executions of Julius & Ethel Rosenberg, convicted spies.

1976 ~ King Carl XVI Gustaf of Sweden married Silvia Sommerlath.

1978 ~ First appearance of the comic strip “Garfield”.

June 22nd
 

166 BC ~ The Third Macedonian War ended with the Battle of Pydna, when the Romans under Lucius Aemilius Paullus defeated and captured the Macedonian King Perseus.

1757 ~ Birthday of George Vancouver, Navigator & Naval Surveyor.

1837 ~ Birthday of Paul Morphy, Chess Phenomenon.

1846 ~ The saxophone was patented by Adolphe Sax.

1856 ~ Birthday of H. Rider Haggard, Author.

1906 ~ Birthday of Billy Wilder, Director.

1941 ~ In one of - if not THE - turning points of World War II, in Operation Barbarossa, the Wehrmacht invaded the Soviet Union.

1944 ~ Three years to the day of the start of Operation Barbarossa, the Soviet Union's Operation Bagration began against Army Group Centre.

1976 ~ The Canadian House of Commons abolished capital punishment.

2002 ~ Death of Ann Landers, Columnist.

June 23rd
 

1534 ~ Birthday of Oda Nobunaga, Japanese warlord.

1757 ~ Indian Mutiny: Battle of Plassey - 3000 British troops defeated a 50,000 strong Indian army.

1894 ~ Birthday of Alfred Kinsey, Sexologist.

1894 ~ Birthday of Edward VIII of the United Kingdom, Duke of Windsor.

1894 ~ International Olympic Committee was founded at the initiative of Baron Pierre de Coubertin.

1912 ~ Birthday of Alan Turing, Mathematician.

1969 ~ Warren E. Burger was sworn in as chief justice of the US Supreme Court by retiring chief justice Earl Warren.

1927 ~ Birthday of Bob Fosse, Choreographer.

1989 ~ The movie “Batman” was released in the United States.

1993 ~ Lorena Bobbitt cut off the penis of her husband John Wayne Bobbitt.

June 24th
 

1314 ~ Scotland regained its independence at the Battle of Bannockburn, when forces led by Robert the Bruce beat Edward II of England.

1519 ~ Death of Lucrezia Borgia, Duchess of Ferrara.

1692 ~ Kingston, Jamaica founded.

1842 ~ Birthday of Ambrose Bierce, Author

1901 ~ First exhibition of Pablo Picasso's work opens.

1915 ~ Birthday of Fred Hoyle, Cosmologist & Science Fiction Author.

1918 ~ First airmail service in Canada from Montreal to Toronto.

1948 ~ Start of the Berlin Blockade. The Soviet Union made overland travel between the West with West Berlin impossible.



Holidays and observances:
Feast day of St. John the Baptist
Discovery Day in Newfoundland and Labrador (celebrating the 1497 discovery by John Cabot)

June 25th
 

1767 ~ Death of Georg Philipp Telemann, Composer.

1788 ~ Virginia ratified the United States Constitution and is admitted as the 10th state of the United States.

1867 ~ The Battle of Little Big Horn and the death of Colonel George Custer.

1894 ~ Birthday of Hermann Oberth, Physicist and one of the founding fathers of rocketry and astronautics.

1900 ~ Birthday of Louis Mountbatten, 1st Earl Mountbatten of Burma.

1901 ~ Death of E.T.A. Hoffmann, Composer.

1903 ~ Birthday of George Orwell (Eric Arthur Blair), Author.

1950 ~ The beginning of the Korean War.

1991 ~ Croatia and Slovenia declared their independence from Yugoslavia.

1997 ~ Death of Jacques-Yves Cousteau, Explorer, Scientist.

June 26th
 

1483 ~ Richard III became King of England.

1541 ~ Death of Francisco Pizarro, Spanish conquistador & conqueror of the Inca Empire.

1819 ~ The bicycle was patented.

1824 ~ Birthday of Lord Kelvin, physicist, inventor of the Kelvin temperature scale.

1898 ~ Birthday of Willy Messerschmitt, Aircraft Designer.

1912 ~ Birthday of Jay Silverheels, Actor.

1933 ~ Birthday of Claudio Abbado, Conductor.

1945 ~ The charter of the United Nations was signed.

1963 ~ John F. Kennedy spoke the famous words "Ich bin ein Berliner".

1964 ~ The Beatles released the album “A Hard Day's Night”.

June 27th
 

1149 ~ Death of Raymond of Poitiers, Prince of Antioch, in the battle of Inab.

1759 ~ General James Wolfe started a siege of Quebec.

1838 ~ Birthday of Paul von Mauser, weapon designer. “…When I can tell at sight a Mauser rifle from a javelin”, I Am The Very Model of a Modern Major-General ,The Pirates of Penzance, 1880, Gilbert & Sullivan

1880 ~ Birthday of Helen Keller, Spokeswoman for the deaf and blind.

1905 ~ Mutiny on the battleship Potemkin.

1930 ~ Birthday of Ross Perot, Billionaire and Politician.

1950 ~ US President Truman sent troops to fight in the Korean War.

1967 ~ World's first ATM installed in Enfield, London.

1977 ~ France granted independence to Djibouti.

2001 ~ Death of Jack Lemmon, Actor.

June 28th
 

1389 ~ Ottoman forces defeated the Serbian army in Kosovo, opening the way for the Ottoman conquest of Southeastern Europe.

1491 ~ Birthday of Henry VIII, king of England.

1712 ~ Birthday of Jean-Jacques Rousseau, Philosopher.

1838 ~ Queen Victoria crowned.

1902 ~ Birthday of Richard Rodgers, Composer.

1914 ~ Franz Ferdinand, Archduke of Austria and his wife Sophia were assassinated by a Serbian nationalist, the proximate cause of World War I.

1926 ~ Birthday of Mel Brooks, Filmmaker.

1948 ~ Birthday of Clarence Thomas, Associate Justice of the US Supreme Court.

1950 ~ Seoul captured by troops from North Korea.

2004 ~ 2004 Canadian election.

June 29th
 

1786 ~ Alexander Macdonnell and over five hundred Highlanders left Scotland to settle in Ontario, Canada.

1850 ~ Coal discovered on Vancouver Island.

1861 ~ Birthday of Dr. William Mayo, surgeon and founder of the Mayo Clinic.

1895 ~ Doukhobors burned their weapons as a protest against conscription by the Tsarist Russian government.

1900 ~ Birthday of Antoine de Saint-Exupery, Pilot and Writer.

1910 ~ Birthday of Frank Loesser, Composer and Lyricist.

1963 ~ Birthday of Anne-Sophie Mutter, Violinist.

1974 ~ Isabel Peron sworn in as President of the Argentine Republic.

1995 ~ The US Space Shuttle delivered a relief crew of two cosmonauts to the Russian Mir space station.

2003 ~ Death of Katharine Hepburn, Actress.