1792: Kentucky became the 15th state.
1801: Brigham Young born in Whitingham, Vermont.
1813: Captain James Lawerence, mortally wounded commander of the US Frigate Chesapeake, uttered his famous line, "Don't give up the ship." This would later become the motto of the US Navy
June 02:
1924: Congress granted citizenship to all Indians.
June 03:
1621: The Dutch WestIndies Company received a charter for the New Netherlands (aka New York).
1804: Richard Cobden born. He is called the "Apostle of Free Trade" in England, for his opposition to the protectionist English Corn Laws. His efforts lead to their repeal in 1846.
1808: Jefferson Davis was born in Christian County Kentucky.
June 04:
1939: In what came to be known as the "Voyage of the Damned" the SS St. Louis was turned away from the Florida coast and forced back to Europe with over 930 Jewish refugees fleeing Nazi rule. Many of these refugees later died in Nazi concentration camps.
1940: The military evacuation at Dunkirk, France, ended.
1942: The Battle of Midway began.
1944: Allied forces liberated Rome.
1947: The House of Representatives voted for the Taft Hartley Act.
1985: The US Supreme Court found an Alabama law on prayer in school to be unconstitutional
1989: Many hundreds of people died as Chinese troops stormed Beijing to end the pro-democracy movement in China.
June 05:
1723: Adam Smith born in Kirkcaldy, Scotland.
1883: John Maynard Keynes born.
1884: General William T. Sherman, of Civil War fame, refused the Republican nomination for president by stating, "I will not accept if nominated and will not serve if elected."
1917: Registration began for the draft in WWII.
1933: The United States goes off the gold standard.
1947: Secretary of State George Marshall outlined a program of aid for Europe which became known as the Marshall Plan.
1967: The Six-Day war began.
1968: At 2:16 am (central daylight time) Senator Robert Kennedy was shot at the Ambassador Hotel in Los Angeles by Sirhan Sirhan.
June 06:
1875: Thomas Mann born.
1934: The Securities and Exchange Commission was established.
1942: The Japanese forces retreated during the Battle of Midway.
1944: D Day. Invasion at Normandy, France.
1978: California voters passed Proposition 13, calling for major cuts in property taxes.
June 07:
1654: Louis XIV was crowned King of France.
1769: Daniel Boone first began to explore what is now known as Kentucky.
1776: Richard Henry Lee proposed to the Continental Congress, meeting in Philadelphia, a resolution calling for a Declaration of Independence.
1873: The "Comstock Act" became law.
June 09:
1940: Norway surrendered to Nazi Germany.
1969: The US Senate confirmed Warren Burger to be the Chief Justice of the US Supreme Court, succeeding Earl Warren.
June 10:
1925: Nat Hentoff, lawyer, author and defender of the First Amendment, born.
1933: Lawyer F. Lee Bailey born.
1940: Italy declared war on France and Great Britain.
1942: The Gestapo massacred 173 male residents of Lidice, Czechoslovakia in retaliation for the killing of one Nazi official.
1967: The Six-Days war ended.
June 11:
1776: The Continental Congress formed a committee to draft a Declaration of Independence.
1859: A prospector laid claim to a silver deposit in Six Mile Canyon, Nevada. It later became known as the Comstock Lode.
1979: John Wayne died of cancer at age 72.
1776: Virginia's colonial legislature became the first in America to adopt a Bill of Rights
1967: The US Supreme Court struck down state laws prohibiting interracial marriages.
June 13:
1888: Congress created the Department of Labor
1898: The Yukon Territory of Canada was organized.
1944: Germany began launching flying bomb attacks against Britain.
1966: The US Supreme Court issued its opinion in Miranda v. Arizona.
1967: LBJ nominated Thurgood Marshall to the US Supreme Court.
1971: The New York Times began publishing the Pentagon Papers.
1983: The space probe Pioneer 10 became the first spacecraft to leave the solar system, eleven years after it was launched.
June 14:
1648: Margaret Jones of Charlestown, Mass, was indicted, found guilty and executed in the first US witch trial.
1775: the US Army was founded.
1777: The Continental Congress, meeting in Philadelphia, adopted the Stars and Stripes as the national flag.
1811: Hariet Beecher Stowe was born.
1940: German forces began their occupation of Paris.
1941: This was the first Flag Day.
1954: Dwight Eisenhower signed an order adding the words, "under God" to the Pledge of Allegiance.
1982: Argentine forces surrendered to the British on the Faulkland Islands.
2000: Peter McWilliams dies, choking to death on his own vomit. McWilliams, author of Ain't Nobody's Business If You Do, was awaiting sentencing after being convicted of growing medical marijuana, which he used for nausea connected with the prescribed medical treatment he was undergoing. The marijuana was legal under California law, but not under Federal law. The Federal judge had forbidden McWilliams to use marijuana for any reason, including treatment of the nausea that came to kill him.
June 15:
1215: King John signed the Magna Carta an Runnymeade.
1775: The Second Continental Congress appointed George Washington head of the Continental Army.
1836: Arkansas became the 25th state.
1864: Secretary of War Edwin Stanton signed an order designating a site in Arlington Virginia as a military cemetery.
June 16:
1858: Abraham Lincoln, during a speech for the US Senate race, declared, "A house divided against itself cannot stand."
1889: Nelson Doubleday was born.
June 17:
1775: The Battle of Bunker Hill took place near Boston.
1856: The first Republican convention began in Philadelphia.
1885: The Statute of Liberty arrived in New York aboard the French ship Isere.
1930: President Hoover signed the Smoot-Hawley Tariff Act (which some credit with contributing to the Great Depression
1940: France asked Germany for surrender terms.
1972: The Watergate burglars were arrested.
June 18:
1812: The US declared war against Britain.
1815: Napoleon met his Waterloo as British and Prussian troops defeated him in Belgium.
1940: Winston Chruchill, Prime Minister of Britain, urged his countrymen to comport themselves in a manner that would cause future generations to declare, "This was their finest hour."
1948: The United Nations Commission on Human Rights adopted its International Declaration of Human Rights.
June 19:
1862: Slavery was outlawed in the US Territories.
1865: Major General Gordon Granger landed at Galveston and issued a general order declaring that slaves in Texas were free.
1953: Julius and Ethel Rosenberg executed at Sing Sing for passing atomic secrets to the USSR.
1964: The first topless bar in the US opened in San Francisco.
June 20:
1756: In India a group of British soldiers was captured and placed in a tiny cell later known as the Black Hole of Calcutta. Most died.
1782: Congress approved the Great Seal of the US
1963: The US and the USSR signed an agreement to set up a Hot Line.
June 21:
1788: The US Constitution went into effect as New Hampshire became the ninth state to ratify it.
1945: Japanese forces on Okinawa surrendered to the United States.
1958: The US airlift to Berlin began.
June 22:
1633: Officials of the Catholic Church forced Galileo to sign a document renouncing his belief that the earth moves around the sun. Galileo's whispered comment, after signing was, "Still it does so move."
1868: Arkansas was re-admitted to the Union.
1940: France was forced to sign an armistice with Hitler after 8 days of fighting.
1941: Germany invaded the Soviet Union.
1970: President Nixon signed a bill lowering the voting age to 18.
June 23:
1972: President Nixon and White House Chief of Staff H.R. Haldeman agreed on a plan to use the CIA to abstruct the FBI's Watergate investigation. The later revelation of the secret tape of this meeting resulted in Nixon's resignation in 1974.
June 24:
June 25:
1876: Lt. Col. Goerge Armstrong Custer and the 7th Cavalry were wiped out by Sioux and Cheyenne Indians at Little Big Horn, in present Montana.
1903: George Orwell born.
1942: The British Air Force undertook a thousand-bomb raid on Bremen, Germany.
1950: North Korea invaded South Korea.
1962: US Supreme Court rules school-sponsored prayer in shcool is unconstitutional.
June 26:
1917: The first troops of the American Expeditionary Force arrived in France.
1945: United Nations Charter signed by 50 countries in San Francisco.
June 27:
1950: President Truman ordered the Air Force and Navy into the Korean conflict, after the UN Security Council asked for help.
June 28:
1712: Jacques Rousseau was born.
1838: Britain's Queen Victoria was crowned in Westminster Abbey.
1894: Labor Day was established as a holiday for federal employees on the first Monday in September.
1914: Austrian Archduke Francis Ferdinand and his wife, Sofia, were assisinated in present-day Sarajevo, (formerly in Yugoslavia) by a Serbian revolutionary--triggering WWI.
1919: Treaty of Versailles signed, ending WWI.
1936: First national minimum wage law enacted.
1950: North Korean forces captured Seoul, South Korea.
June 29:
1767: British Parliament imposed import duties on glass, lead, paint, paper and tea shipped to America. Colonists bitterly opposed the Acts, which were repealed in 1770.
1776: Patrick Henry became governor of Virginia.
1801: Frederic Bastiat born.
June 30:
1834: The Indian Territory was created by Congress.
1906: Pure Food & Drug Act & Meat Inspection Act became law.
1971: 26th Amendment to the US Constitution (lowering voting age to 18) became law as Ohio became the 38th state to ratify it.
Last revised January 12, 2003
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