On This Day

June 16, 2012

0455 - Rome was sacked by the Vandal army.

1487 - The War of the Roses ended with the Battle of Stoke.

1567 - Mary, Queen of Scots, was imprisoned in Lochleven Castle in Scotland.

1815 - Napoleon defeated the Prussians at the Battle of Ligny, Netherlands.

1858 - In a speech in Springfield, IL, U.S. Senate candidate Abraham Lincoln said the slavery issue had to be resolved. He declared, "A house divided against itself cannot stand."

1890 - The second Madison Square Gardens opened.

1883 - The New York Giants baseball team admitted all ladies for free to the ballpark. It was the first Ladies Day.

1897 - The U.S. government signed a treaty of annexation with Hawaii.

1903 - Ford Motor Company was incorporated.

1904 - The novel "Ulysses" by James Joyce took place. The main character of the book was Leopold Bloom.

1907 - The Russian czar dissolved the Duma in St. Petersburg.

1909 - Glenn Hammond Curtiss sold his first airplane, the "Gold Bug" to the New York Aeronautical Society for $5,000.

1922 - Henry Berliner accomplished the first helicopter flight at College Park, MD.

1925 - France accepted a German proposal for a security pact.

1932 - The ban on Nazi storm troopers was lifted by the von Papen government in Germany.

1940 - Marshal Henri-Philippe Petain became the prime minister of the Vichy government of occupied France.

1941 - U.S. President Franklin D. Roosevelt ordered the closure of all German consulates in the United States. The deadline was set as July 10.

1952 - "My Little Margie" debuted on CBS-TV.

1952 - "Anne Frank: Diary of a Young Girl" was published in the United States.

1952 - A Swedish rescue plane was shot down by Soviet fighters over Swedish territorial waters. The rescue plane was searching for a lost aircraft.

1955 - The U.S. House of Representatives voted to extend Selective Service until 1959.

1955 - Pope Pius XII excommunicated Argentine President Juan Peron. The ban was lifted eight years later.

1955 - Argentine naval officers launched an attack on President Juan Peron's headquarters. The revolt was suppressed by the army.

1961 - Rudolf Nureyev defected from the Soviet Union while in Paris, traveling with the Leningrad Kirov Ballet.

1963 - 26-year-old Valentina Tereshkova went into orbit aboard the Vostok 6 spacecraft for three days. She was the first female space traveler.

1971 - An El Greco sketch, "The Immaculate Conception," was recovered in New York City by the FBI. The work had been stolen 35 years earlier.

1972 - Ulrike Meinhof was captured by West German police in Hanover. She was co-founder of the Baader-Meinhof terrorist group and the Red Army Faction (Rote Armee Fraktion).

1975 - The Simonstown agreement on naval cooperation between Britain and South Africa ended. The agreement was formally ended by mutual agreement after 169 years.

1976 - In Soweto, thousands of school children revolted against the South African government's plan to enforce Afrikaans as the language for instruction in black schools.

1977 - Leonid Brezhnev was named the first Soviet president of the USSR. He was the first person to hold the post of president and Communist Party General Secretary. He replaced Nikolai Podgorny.

1978 - U.S. President Carter and Panamanian leader Omar Torrijos ratified the Panama Canal treaties.

1978 - The film adaptation of "Grease" premiered in New York City.

1979 - General Ignatius Kutu Acheampong was executed for corruption. He was the former military ruler of Ghana from 1972-1978.

1980 - The movie "The Blues Brothers" opened in Chicago, IL.

1981 - The "Chicago Tribune" purchased the Chicago Cubs baseball team from the P.K. Wrigley Chewing Gum Company for $20.5 million.

1983 - Yuri Andropov was elected chairman of the Presidium of the Supreme Soviet. The position was the equivalent of president.

1984 - Wilson Ferreira Aldunate was arrested upon his return from an eleven year exile. Aldunate had been a popular Uruguayan opposition leader.

1985 - Willie Banks broke the world record for the triple jump with a leap of 58 feet, 11-1/2 inches in the U.S.A. championships in Indianapolis, IN.

1992 - U.S. President George H.W. Bush welcomed Russian President Boris Yeltsin to a meeting in Washington, DC. The two agreed in principle to reduce strategic weapon arsenals by about two-thirds by the year 2003.

1993 - The U.S. Postal Service released a set of seven stamps that featured Bill Haley, Buddy Holly, Clyde McPhatter, Otis Redding, Ritchie Valens, Dinah Washington and Elvis Presley.

1996 - Russian voters had their first independent presidential election. Boris Yeltsin was the winner after a run-off.

1996 - "Batman Forever" opened in the U.S.

1999 - The U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals said that a 1992 federal music piracy law does not prohibit a palm-sized device that can download high-quality digital music files from the Internet and play them at home.

2000 - U.S. federal regulators approved the merger of Bell Atlantic and GTE Corp. The merger created the nation's largest local phone company.

2000 - U.S. Secretary of Energy Bill Richardson reported that an employee at the Los Alamos National Laboratory in New Mexico had discovered that two computer hard drives were missing.

2008 - California began issuing marriage licenses to same-sex couples.

June 17, 2012

0362 - Emperor Julian issued an edict banning Christians from teaching in Syria.

1579 - Sir Francis Drake claimed San Francisco Bay for England. (California)

1775 - The British took Bunker Hill outside of Boston.

1789 - The Third Estate in France declared itself a national assembly, and began to frame a constitution.

1799 - Napoleon Bonaparte incorporated Italy into his empire.

1837 - Charles Goodyear received his first patent. The patent was for a process that made rubber easier to work with.

1848 - Austrian General Alfred Windischgratz crushed a Czech uprising in Prague.

1854 - The Red Turban revolt broke out in Guangdong, China.

1856 - The Republican Party opened its first national convention in Philadelphia.

1861 - U.S. President Abraham Lincoln witnessed Dr. Thaddeus Lowe demonstrate the use of a hydrogen balloon.

1872 - George M. Hoover began selling whiskey in Dodge City, Kansas. The town had been dry up until this point.

1876 - General George Crook’s command was attacked and defeated on the Rosebud River by 1,500 Sioux and Cheyenne under the leadership of Crazy Horse.

1879 - Thomas Edison received an honorary degree of Doctor of Philosophy from the trustees of Rutgers College in New Brunswick, NJ.

1885 - The Statue of Liberty arrived in New York City aboard the French ship Isere. (New York)

1912 - The German Zeppelin SZ 111 burned in its hanger in Friedrichshafen.

1913 - U.S. Marines set sail from San Diego to protect American interests in Mexico.

1917 - The Russian Duma met in a secret session in Petrograd and voted for an immediate Russian offensive against the German Army.

1924 - The Fascist militia marched into Rome.

1926 - Spain threatened to quit the League of Nations if Germany was allowed to join.

1928 - Amelia Earhart began the flight that made her the first woman to successfully fly across the Atlantic Ocean.

1930 - The Smoot-Hawley Tariff Bill became law. It placed the highest tariff on imports to the U.S.

1931 - British authorities in China arrested Indochinese Communist leader Ho Chi Minh.

1932 - The U.S. Senate defeated the bonus bill as 10,000 veterans massed around the Capitol.

1940 - The Soviet Union occupied Lithuania, Latvia, and Estonia.

1940 - France asked Germany for terms of surrender in World War II.

1941 - WNBT-TV in New York City, NY, was granted the first construction permit to operate a commercial TV station in the U.S.

1942 - Yank, a weekly magazine for the U.S. armed services, began publication. The term "G.I. Joe" was first used in a comic strip by Dave Breger.

1942 - "Suspense" debuted on CBS Radio.

1944 - French troops landed on the island of Elba in the Mediterranean.

1944 - The republic of Iceland was established.

1950 - Dr. Richard H. Lawler performed the first kidney transplant in a 45-minute operation in Chicago, IL.

1953 - Soviet tanks fought thousands of Berlin workers that were rioting against the East German government.

1963 - The U.S. Supreme Court banned the required reading of the Lord's prayer and Bible in public schools.

1965 - Twenty-seven B-52’s hit Viet Cong outposts but lost two planes in South Vietnam.

1969 - Boris Spasky became chess champion of the world after checkmating former champion Tigran Petrosian in Moscow.

1970 - North Vietnamese troops cut the last operating rail line in Cambodia.

1982 - Former U.S. President Richard M. Nixon was interviewed by Diane Sawyer on "The CBS Morning News."

1985 - Judy Norton-Taylor was photographed for "Playboy" magazine.

1991 - The Parliament of South Africa repealed the Population Registration Act. The act had required that all South Africans for classified by race at birth.

June 18, 2012

1155 - Frederick I Barbarossa was crowned emperor of Rome.

1429 - French forces defeated the English at the battle of Patay. The English had been retreating after the siege of Orleans.

1621 - The first duel in America took place in the Plymouth Colony in Massachusetts.

1667 - The Dutch fleet sailed up the Thames toward London.

1778 - Britain evacuated Philadelphia during the U.S. Revolutionary War.

1812 - The War of 1812 began as the U.S. declared war against Great Britain. The conflict began over trade restrictions.

1815 - At the Battle of Waterloo Napoleon was defeated by an international army under the Duke of Wellington. Napoleon abdicated on June 22.

1817 - London's Waterloo Bridge opened. The bridge, designed by John Rennie, was built over the River Thames.

1861 - The first American fly-casting tournament was held in Utica, NY.

1873 - Susan B. Anthony was fined $100 for attempting to vote for a U.S. President.

1898 - Atlantic City, NJ, opened its Steel Pier.

1915 - During World War I, the second battle of Artois ended.

1918 - Allied forces on the Western Front began their largest counter-attack against the German army.

1925 - The first degree in landscape architecture was granted by Harvard University.

1927 - The U.S. Post Office offered a special 10-cent postage stamp for sale. The stamp was of Charles Lindbergh’s "Spirit of St. Louis."

1928 - Amelia Earhart became the first woman to fly across the Atlantic Ocean as she completed a flight from Newfoundland to Wales.

1936 - Charles ‘Lucky’ Luciano was found guilty on 62 counts of compulsory prostitution.

1936 - The first bicycle traffic court was established in Racine, WI.

1939 - The CBS radio network aired "Ellery Queen" for the first time.

1942 - The U.S. Navy commissioned its first black officer, Harvard University medical student Bernard Whitfield Robinson.

1948 - The United Nations Commission on Human Rights adopted its International Declaration of Human Rights.

1951 - General Vo Nguyen Giap ended his Red River Campaign against the French in Indochina.

1953 - Seventeen major league baseball records were tied or broken in a game between the Boston Red Sox and the Detroit Tigers.

1953 - Egypt was proclaimed to be a republic with General Neguib as its first president.

1959 - A Federal Court annulled the Arkansas law allowing school closings to prevent integration.

1959 - The first telecast received from England was broadcast in the U.S. over NBC-TV.

1961 - "Gunsmoke" was broadcast for the last time on CBS radio.

1966 - Samuel Nabrit became the first African American to serve on the Atomic Energy Commission.

1975 - Fred Lynn of the Boston Red Sox hit three home runs, a triple and a single in a game against the Detroit Tigers.

1979 - In Vienna, U.S. President Jimmy Carter and Leonid Brezhnev signed the Strategic Arms Limitation Treaty (SALT) 2.

1982 - The U.S. Senate approved the renewal of the 1965 Voting Rights Act for an additional twenty-five years.

1983 - Dr. Sally Ride became the first American woman in space aboard the space shuttle Challenger.

1998 - The Walt Disney Co. purchased a 43% stake in the Web search engine company Infoseek Corp.

1998 - Nine commemorative U.S. postage stamps were reissued. The stamps were considered to be classically beautiful examples of stamp engraving.

1998 - "The Boston Globe" asked Patricia Smith to resign after she admitted to inventing people and quotes in four of her recent columns.

1999 - Walt Disney's "Tarzan" opened.

2000 - In Algiers, Algeria, the foreign ministers of Ethiopia and Eritrea signed a preliminary cease-fire accord and agreed to work toward a permanent settlement of their two-year border war.

2009 - NASA launched the Lunar Reconnaissance Orbiter/LCROSS probes to the Moon. It was the first American lunar mission since Lunar Prospector in 1998.

2009 - Greenland assumed control over its law enforcement, judicial affairs, and natural resources from the Kingdom of Denmark. Greenlandic became the official language.

June 19, 2012

0240 BC - Eratosthenes estimated the circumference of the Earth using two sticks.

1586 - English colonists sailed away from Roanoke Island, NC, after failing to establish England's first permanent settlement in America.

1778 - U.S. General George Washington's troops finally left Valley Forge after a winter of training.

1821 - The Ottomans defeated the Greeks at the Battle of Dragasani.

1846 - The New York Knickerbocker Club played the New York Club in the first baseball game at the Elysian Field, Hoboken, NJ. It was the first organized baseball game.

1862 - U.S. President Abraham Lincoln outlined his Emancipation Proclamation, which outlawed slavery in U.S. territories.

1864 - The USS Kearsarge sank the CSS Alabama off of Cherbourg, France.

1865 - The emancipation of slaves was proclaimed in Texas.

1867 - In New York, the Belmont Stakes was run for the first time.

1903 - The young school teacher, Benito Mussolini, was placed under investigation by police in Bern, Switzerland.

1910 - The first Father's Day was celebrated in Spokane, Washington.

1911 - In Pennsylvania, the first motion-picture censorship board was established.

1912 - The U.S. government established the 8-hour work day.

1917 - During World War I, King George V ordered the British royal family to dispense with German titles and surnames. On July 17, 1917, the family took the name "Windsor".

1933 - France granted Leon Trotsky political asylum.

1934 - The U.S. National Archives and Records Administration was established.

1934 - The U.S. Congress established the Federal Communications Commission (FCC). The commission was to regulate radio and TV broadcasting (later).

1937 - The town of Bilbao, Spain, fell to the Nationalist forces.

1939 - In Atlanta, GA, legislation was enacted that disallowed pinball machines in the city.

1942 - Norma Jeane Mortenson (Marilyn Monroe) and her 21-year-old neighbor Jimmy Dougherty were married. They were divorced in June of 1946.

1942 - British Prime Minister Winston Churchill arrived in Washington, DC, to discuss the invasion of North Africa with U.S. President Roosevelt.

1943 - Henry Kissinger became a naturalized United States citizen.

1943 - The National Football League approved the merger of the Philadelphia Eagles and the Pittsburgh Steelers.

1944 - The U.S. won the battle of the Philippine Sea against the Imperial Japanese fleet.

1951 - U.S. President Harry S. Truman signed the Universal Military Training and Service Act, which extended Selective Service until July 1, 1955 and lowered the draft age to 18.

1952 - "I’ve Got a Secret" debuted on CBS-TV.

1958 - In Washington, DC, nine entertainers refused to answer a congressional committee's questions on communism.

1961 - Kuwait regained complete independence from Britain.

1961 - The U.S. Supreme Court struck down a provision in Maryland's constitution that required state officeholders to profess a belief in God.

1964 - The Civil Rights Act of 1964 was approved after surviving an 83-day filibuster in the U.S. Senate.

1965 - Air Marshall Nguyen Cao Ky became South Vietnam's youngest premier at age 34.

1968 - 50,000 people marched on Washington, DC. to support the Poor People's Campaign.

1973 - The Case-Church Amendment prevented further U.S. involvement in Southeast Asia.

1973 - Pete Rose (Cincinnati Reds) got his 2,000th career hit.

1973 - The stage production of "The Rocky Horror Picture Show" opened in London.

1973 - Gordie Howe left the NHL to join his sons Mark and Marty in the WHA (World Hockey League).

1976 - During three days of violence, black student protestors were massacred in Soweto, South Africa.

1978 - Garfield was in newspapers around the U.S. for the first time.

1981 - "Superman II" set the all-time, one-day record for theater box-office receipts when it took in $5.5 million.

1981 - The European Space Agency sent two satellites into orbit from Kourou, French Guiana.

1983 - Lixian-nian was chosen to be China's first president since 1969.

1986 - University of Maryland basketball star Len Bias died of a cocaine-induced seizure.

1987 - The U.S. Supreme Court struck down the Louisiana law that required that schools teach creationism.

1989 - The movie "Batman" premiered.

1997 - William Hague became the youngest leader of Britain's Conservative party in nearly 200 years.

1998 - Gateway was fined more than $400,000 for illegally shipping personal computers to 16 countries subject to U.S. export controls.

1998 - A study released said that smoking more than doubles risks of developing dementia and Alzheimer's.

1998 - Switzerland's three largest banks offered $600 million to settle claims they'd stolen the assets of Holocaust victims during World War II. Jewish leaders called the offer insultingly low.

1999 - Stephen King was struck from behind by a mini-van while walking along a road in Maine.

1999 - The Dallas Stars won their first NHL Stanley Cup by defeating the Buffalo Sabres in the third overtime of game six.

2000 - The U.S. Supreme Court ruled that a group prayer led by students at public-school football games violated the 1st Amendment's principle that called for the separation of church and state.

June 20, 2012

0451 - Roman and Barbarian warriors brought Attila's army to a halt at the Catalaunian Plains in eastern France.

1397 - The Union of Kalmar united Denmark, Sweden, and Norway under one monarch.

1756 - In India, 150 British soldiers were imprisoned in a cell that became known as the "Black Hole of Calcutta."

1782 - The U.S. Congress approved the Great Seal of the United States.

1791 - King Louis XVI of France was captured while attempting to flee the country in the so-called Flight to Varennes.

1793 - Eli Whitney applied for a cotton gin patent. He received the patent on March 14. The cotton gin initiated the American mass-production concept.

1837 - Queen Victoria ascended the British throne following the death of her uncle, King William IV.

1863 - West Virginia became the 35th state to join the U.S.

1863 - The National Bank of Philadelphia in Philadelphia, PA, became the first bank to receive a charter from the U.S. Congress.

1898 - The U.S. Navy seized the island of Guam enroute to the Phillipines to fight the Spanish.

1910 - Mexican President Porfirio Diaz proclaimed martial law and arrested hundreds.

1910 - Fanny Brice debuted in the New York production of the "Ziegfeld Follies".

1923 - France announced it would seize the Rhineland to assist Germany in paying its war debts.

1941 - The U.S. Army Air Force was established, replacing the Army Air Corps.

1943 - Race-related rioting erupted in Detroit. Federal troops were sent in two days later to end the violence that left more than 30 dead.

1947 - Benjamin "Bugsy" Siegel was murdered in Beverly Hills, CA, at the order of mob associates angered over the soaring costs of his project, the Flamingo resort in Las Vegas, NV.

1948 - "Toast of the Town" debuted on CBS-TV. The show was hosted by Ed Sullivan.

1950 - Willie Mays graduated from high school and immediately signed with the New York Giants.

1955 - The AFL and CIO agreed to combine names and a merge into a single group.

1963 - The United States and Soviet Union signed an agreement to set up a hot line communication link between the two countries.

1966 - The U.S. Open golf tournament was broadcast in color for the first time.

1967 - Muhammad Ali was convicted in Houston of violating Selective Service laws by refusing to be drafted. The U.S. Supreme Court later overturned the conviction.

1977 - The Trans-Alaska Pipeline began operation.

1979 - ABC News correspondent Bill Stewart was shot to death in Managua, Nicaragua, by a member of President Anastasio Somoza's national guard.

1983 - The U.S. Supreme Court ruled that employers must treat male and female workers equally in providing health benefits for their spouses.

1997 - The tobacco industry agreed to a massive settlement in exchange for major relief from mounting lawsuits and legal bills.

2001 - Barry Bonds (San Francisco Giants) hit his 38th home run of the season. The home run broke the major league baseball record for homers before the midseason All-Star break.

2002 - The U.S. Supreme Court ruled that the execution of mentally retarded murderers was unconstitutionally cruel. The vote was 6 in favor and 3 against.

June 21, 2012

1404 - Owain Glyndwr established a Welsh Parliament at Machynlleth and was crowned Prince of Wales.

1788 - The U.S. Constitution went into effect when New Hampshire became the ninth state to ratify it.

1834 - Cyrus McCormick patented the first practical mechanical reaper for farming. His invention allowed farmers to more than double their crop size.

1859 - Andrew Lanergan received the first rocket patent.

1913 - Georgia Broadwick became the first woman to jump from an airplane.

1937 - In Paris, Leon Blum's Popular Front Cabinet resigned.

1938 - In Washington, U.S. President Roosevelt signed the $3.75 billion Emergency Relief Appropriation Act.

1939 - Lou Gehrig quit baseball due to illness.

1940 - Richard M. Nixon and Thelma Catherine ‘Pat’ Ryan were married.

1941 - German troops entered Russia on a front from the Arctic to Black Sea.

1942 - Ben Hogan recorded the lowest score (to that time) in a major golf tournament. Hogan shot a 271 for 72 holes in Chicago, IL.

1945 - Pan Am announced an 88-hour round-the-world flight at a cost of $700.

1954 - The American Cancer Society reported significantly higher death rates among cigarette smokers than among non-smokers.

1954 - NBC radio presented the final broadcast of "The Railroad Hour."

1954 - Australian John Landy ran the mile in 3:58. He was the second person to achieve the feat.

1958 - In Arkansas, a federal judge let Little Rock delay school integration.

1958 - Linus Pauling and Detlev Bronke, both Americans, were elected to the Soviet Academy of Science.

1960 - In Zurich, German, Armin Hary ran 100-meters in a record 10.0 seconds.

1963 - In St. Louis, Bob Hayes set a record when he ran the 100-yard dash in 0:09.1.

1963 - France announced that they were withdrawing from the North Atlantic NATO fleet.

1970 - Tony Jacklin became the second British golfer in 50 years to win the U.S. Open golf tournament.

1973 - The U.S. Supreme Court ruled that states may ban materials found to be obscene according to local standards.

1974 - The U.S. Supreme Court decided that pregnant teachers could no longer be forced to take long leaves of absence.

1981 - "Raiders of the Lost Ark" opened.

1985 - Scientists announced that skeletal remains exhumed in Brazil were those of Nazi war criminal Josef Mengele.

1989 - The U.S. Supreme Court ruled that burning the American flag as a form of political protest was protected by the First Amendment.

2001 - Former Haitian Army colonel Carl Dorelien taken into custody in Port St. Lucie. Dorelien had been in exile since 1994 when he was sentenced to life in prison for his role in a 1994 massacre.

2003 - The fifth Harry Potter book, "Harry Potter and the Order of the Phoenix," was published by J.K. Rowling. Amazon.com shipped out more than one million copies on this day making the day the largest distribution day of a single item in e-commerce history. The book set sales records around the world with an estimated 5 million copies were sold on the first day.

2004 - SpaceShipOne, designed by Burt Rutan and piloted by Mike Melvill, reached 328,491 feet above Earth in a 90 minute flight. The height is about 400 feet above the distance scientists consider to be the boundary of space.

June 22, 2012

1558 - The French took the French town of Thioville from the English.

1611 - English explorer Henry Hudson, his son and several other people were set adrift in present-day Hudson Bay by mutineers.

1772 - Slavery was outlawed in England.

1807 - British seamen board the USS Chesapeake, a provocation leading to the War of 1812.

1815 - Napoleon Bonaparte abdicated a second time.

1832 - J.I. Howe patented the pin machine.

1868 - Arkansas was re-admitted to the Union.

1870 - The U.S. Congress created the Department of Justice.

1874 - Dr. Andrew Taylor Still began the first known practice of osteopathy.

1909 - The first transcontinental auto race ended in Seattle, WA.

1911 - King George V of England was crowned.

1915 - Austro-German forces occupied Lemberg on the Eastern Front as the Russians retreat.

1925 - France and Spain agreed to join forces against Abd el Krim in Morocco.

1933 - Germany became a one political party country when Hitler banned parties other than the Nazis.

1939 - The first U.S. water-ski tournament was held at Jones Beach, on Long Island, New York.

1940 - France and Germany signed an armistice at Compiegne, on terms dictated by the Nazis.

1941 - Under the codename Barbarossa, Germany invaded the Soviet Union.

1942 - A Japanese submarine shelled Fort Stevens at the mouth of the Columbia River.

1942 - In France, Pierre Laval declared "I wish for a German victory".

1942 - V-Mail, or Victory-Mail, was sent for the first time.

1944 - U.S. President Franklin Roosevelt signed the "GI Bill of Rights" to provide broad benefits for veterans of the war.

1945 - During World War II, the battle for Okinawa officially ended after 81 days.

1946 - Jet airplanes were used to transport mail for the first time.

1956 - The battle for Algiers began as three buildings in Casbah were blown up.

1959 - Eddie Lubanski rolled 24 consecutive strikes in a bowling tournament in Miami, FL.

1964 - The U.S. Supreme Court voted that Henry Miller’s book, "Tropic of Cancer", could not be banned.

1970 - U.S. President Richard Nixon signed 26th amendment, lowering the voting age to 18.

1973 - Skylab astronauts splashed down safely in the Pacific after a record 28 days in space.

1978 - James W. Christy and Robert S. Harrington discovered the only known moon of Pluto. The moon is named Charon.

1980 - The Soviet Union announced a partial withdrawal of its forces from Afghanistan.

1989 - The government of Angola and the anti-Communist rebels of the UNITA movement agreed to a formal truce in their 14-year-old civil war.

1992 - The U.S. Supreme Court unanimously ruled that hate-crime laws that ban cross-burning and similar expressions of racial bias violated free-speech rights.

1998 - The U.S. Supreme Court ruled that evidence illegally obtained by authorities could be used at revocation hearings for a convicted criminal's parole.

1998 - The 75th National Marbles Tournament began in Wildwood, NJ.

1999 - The U.S. Supreme Court ruled that persons with remediable handicaps cannot claim discrimination in employment under the Americans with Disability Act.

June 24, 2012

1314 - Scottish forces led by Robert the Bruce won over Edward II of England at the Battle of Bannockburn in Scotland.

1340 - The English fleet defeated the French fleet at Sluys, off the Flemish coast.

1497 - Italian explorer John Cabot, sailing in the service of England, landed in North America on what is now Newfoundland.

1509 - Henry VIII was crowned King of England.

1664 - New Jersey, named after the Isle of Jersey, was founded.

1675 - King Philip's War began when Indians massacre colonists at Swansee, Plymouth colony.

1793 - The first republican constitution in France was adopted.

1812 - Napoleon crossed the Nieman River and invaded Russia.

1844 - Charles Goodyear was granted U.S. patent #3,633 for vulcanized rubber.

1859 - At the Battle of Solferino, also known as the Battle of the Three Sovereigns, the French army led by Napoleon III defeated the Austrian army under Franz Joseph I in northern Italy.

1861 - Federal gunboats attacked Confederate batteries at Mathias Point, Virginia.

1862 - U.S. intervention saved the British and French at the Dagu forts in China.

1869 - Mary Ellen "Mammy" Pleasant officially became the Vodoo Queen in San Francisco, CA.

1896 - Booker T. Washington became the first African American to receive an honorary MA degree from Howard University.

1910 - The Japanese army invaded Korea.

1913 - Greece and Serbia annulled their alliance with Bulgaria following border disputes over Macedonia and Thrace.

1922 - The American Professional Football Association took the name of The National Football League.

1931 - The Soviet Union and Afghanistan signed a treaty of neutrality.

1940 - France signed an armistice with Italy.

1940 - TV cameras were used for the first time in a political convention as the Republicans convened in Philadelphia, PA.

1941 - U.S. President Franklin Roosevelt pledged all possible support to the Soviet Union.

1947 - Kenneth Arnold reported seeing flying saucers over Mt. Rainier, Washington.

1948 - The Soviet Union began the Berlin Blockade.

1953 - John F. Kennedy and Jacqueline Bouvier announced their engagement.

1955 - Soviet MIG's down a U.S. Navy patrol plane over the Bering Strait.

1962 - The New York Yankees beat the Detroit Tigers, 9-7, after 22 innings.

1964 - The Federal Trade Commission announced that starting in 1965, cigarette manufactures would be required to include warnings on their packaging about the harmful effects of smoking.

1968 - "Resurrection City," a shantytown constructed as part of the Poor People's March on Washington D.C., was closed down by authorities.

1970 - The U.S. Senate voted overwhelmingly to repeal the Gulf of Tonkin Resolution.

1970 - The movie "Myra Breckinridge" premiered.

1971 - The National Basketball Association modified its four-year eligibility rule to allow for collegiate hardship cases.

1982 - The U.S. Supreme Court ruled 5-4 that no president could be sued for damages connected with actions taken while serving as President of the United States.

1985 - Natalia Solzhenitsyn the wife of exiled, Soviet author Alexander Solzhenitsyn, became a U.S. citizen.

1997 - The U.S. Air Force released a report on the "Roswell Incident," suggesting the alien bodies witnesses reported seeing in 1947 were actually life-sized dummies.

1998 - AT&T Corp. struck a deal to buy cable TV giant Tele-Communications Inc. for $31.7 billion.

1998 - Walt Disney World Resort admitted its 600-millionth guest.

2002 - The U.S. Supreme Court ruled that juries, not judges, must make the decision to give a convicted killer the death penalty.

2002 - A painting from Monet's Waterlilies series sold for $20.2 million.

2003 - In Paris, France, manuscripts by novelist Georges Simenon brought in $325,579. The original manuscript of "La Mort de Belle" raised $81,705.

2010 - Apple released the iPhone 4.

June 25, 2012

0841 - Charles the Bald and Louis the German defeated Lothar at Fontenay.

1080 - At Brixen, a council of bishops declared Pope Gregory to be deposed and Archbishop Guibert as antipope Clement III.

1580 - The Book of Concord was first published. The book is a collection of doctrinal standards of the Lutheran Church.

1658 - Aurangzeb proclaimed himself emperor of the Moghuls in India.

1767 - Mexican Indians rioted as Jesuit priests were ordered home.

1788 - Virginia ratified the U.S. Constitution and became the 10th state of the United States.

1864 - Union troops surrounding Petersburg, VA, began building a mine tunnel underneath the Confederate lines.

1867 - Lucien B. Smith patented the first barbed wire.

1868 - The U.S. Congress enacted legislation granting an eight-hour day to workers employed by the Federal government.

1868 - Florida, Alabama, Louisiana, Georgia, North Carolina and South Carolina were readmitted to the Union.

1870 - In Spain, Queen Isabella abdicated in favor of Alfonso XII.

1876 - Lt. Col. Custer and the 210 men of U.S. 7th Cavalry were killed by Sioux and Cheyenne Indians at Little Big Horn in Montana. The event is known as "Custer's Last Stand."

1877 - In Philadelphia, PA, Alexander Graham Bell demonstrated the telephone for Sir William Thomson (Baron Kelvin) and Emperor Pedro II of Brazil at the Centennial Exhibition.

1906 - Pittsburgh millionaire Harry Kendall Thaw, the son of coal and railroad baron William Thaw, shot and killed Stanford White. White, a prominent architect, had a tryst with Florence Evelyn Nesbit before she married Thaw. The shooting took place at the premeire of Mamzelle Champagne in New York.

1910 - The U.S. Congress authorized the use of postal savings stamps.

1917 - The first American fighting troops landed in France.

1920 - The Greeks took 8,000 Turkish prisoners in Smyrna.

1921 - Samuel Gompers was elected head of the AFL for the 40th time.

1938 - Gaelic scholar Douglas Hyde was inaugurated as the first president of the Irish Republic.

1941 - Finland declared war on the Soviet Union.

1946 - Ho Chi Minh traveled to France for talks on Vietnamese independence.

1948 - The Soviet Union tightened its blockade of Berlin by intercepting river barges heading for the city.

1950 - North Korea invaded South Korea initiating the Korean War.

1951 - In New York, the first regular commercial color TV transmissions were presented on CBS using the FCC-approved CBS Color System. The public did not own color TV's at the time.

1959 - The Cuban government seized 2.35 million acres under a new agrarian reform law.

1959 - Eamon De Valera became president of Ireland at the age of 76.

1962 - The U.S. Supreme Court ruled that the use of unofficial non-denominational prayer in public schools was unconstitutional.

1964 - U.S. President Lyndon Johnson ordered 200 naval personnel to Mississippi to assist in finding three missing civil rights workers.

1966 - "Dark Shadows" began running on ABC-TV.

1968 - Bobby Bonds (San Francisco Giants) hit a grand-slam home run in his first game with the Giants. He was the first player to debut with a grand-slam.

1970 - The U.S. Federal Communications Commission handed down a ruling (35 FR 7732), making it illegal for radio stations to put telephone calls on the air without the permission of the person being called.

1973 - Erskine Childers Jr. became president of Ireland after the retirement of Eamon De Valera.

1973 - White House Counsel John Dean admitted that U.S. President Nixon took part in the Watergate cover-up.

1975 - Mozambique became independent. Samora Machel was sworn in as president after 477 years of Portuguese rule.

1981 - The U.S. Supreme Court decided that male-only draft registration was constitutional.

1985 - ABC’s "Monday Night Football" began with a new line-up. The trio was Frank Gifford, Joe Namath and O.J. Simpson.

1985 - New York Yankees officials enacted the rule that mandated that the team’s bat boys were to wear protective helmets during all games.

1986 - The U.S. Congress approved $100 million in aid to the Contras fighting in Nicaragua.

1987 - Austrian President Kurt Waldheim visited Pope John Paul II at the Vatican. The meeting was controversial due to allegations that Waldheim had hidden his Nazi past.

1990 - The U.S. Supreme Court upheld the right of an individual, whose wishes are clearly made, to refuse life-sustaining medical treatment. "The right to die" decision was made in the Curzan vs. Missouri case.

1991 - The last Soviet troops left Czechoslovakia 23 years after the Warsaw Pact invasion.

1991 - The Yugoslav republics of Slovenia and Croatia declared their independence from Yugoslavia.

1993 - Kim Campbell took office as Canada's first woman prime minister. She assumed power upon the resignation of Brian Mulroney.

1997 - The Russian space station Mir was hit by an unmanned cargo vessel. Much of the power supply was knocked out and the station's Spektr module was severely damaged.

1997 - U.S. air pollution standards were significantly tightened by U.S. President Clinton.

1998 - The U.S. Supreme Court rejected the line-item veto thereby striking down presidential power to cancel specific items in tax and spending legislation.

1998 - The U.S. Supreme Court ruled that those infected with HIV are protected by the Americans With Disabilities Act.

1998 - Microsoft's "Windows 98" was released to the public.

1999 - Germany's parliament approved a national Holocaust memorial to be built in Berlin.

2000 - U.S. and British researchers announced that they had completed a rough draft of a map of the genetic makeup of human beings. The project was 10 years old at the time of the announcement.

2000 - A Florida judge approved a class-action lawsuit to be filed against American Online (AOL) on behalf of hourly subscribers who were forced to view "pop-up" advertisements.

June 26, 2012

1096 - Peter the Hermit's crusaders forced their way across Sava, Hungary.

1243 - The Seljuk Turkish army in Asia Minor was wiped out by the Mongols.

1483 - Richard III usurped himself to the English throne.

1794 - The French defeated an Austrian army at the Battle of Fleurus.

1804 - The Lewis and Clark Expedition reached the mouth of the Kansas River after completing a westward trek of nearly 400 river miles.

1819 - The bicycle was patented by W.K. Clarkson, Jr.

1844 - John Tyler took Julia Gardiner as his bride, thus becoming the first U.S. President to marry while in office.

1870 - The first section of the boardwalk in Atlantic City, NJ, was opened to the public.

1894 - The American Railway Union called a general strike in sympathy with Pullman workers.

1900 - The United States announced that it would send troops to fight against the Boxer rebellion in China.

1900 - A commission that included Dr. Walter Reed began the fight against the deadly disease yellow fever.

1907 - Russia's nobility demanded drastic measures to be taken against revolutionaries.

1908 - Shah Muhammad Ali's forces squelched the reform elements of Parliament in Persia.

1917 - General John "Black Jack" Pershing arrived in France with the American Expeditionary Force.

1925 - Charlie Chaplin's comedy, "The Gold Rush," premiered in Hollywood.

1926 - A memorial to the first U.S. troops in France was unveiled at St. Nazaire.

1924 - After eight years of occupation, American troops left the Dominican Republic.

1942 - The Grumman F6F Hellcat fighter was flown for the first time.

1945 - The U.N. Charter was signed by 50 nations in San Francisco, CA.

1948 - The Berlin Airlift began as the U.S., Britain and France started ferrying supplies to the isolated western sector of Berlin.

1951 - The Soviet Union proposed a cease-fire in the Korean War.

1959 - CBS journalist Edward R. Murrow interviewed Lee Remick. It was his 500th and final guest on "Person to Person."

1959 - U.S. President Eisenhower joined Britain's Queen Elizabeth II in ceremonies officially opening the St. Lawrence Seaway.

1961 - A Kuwaiti vote opposed Iraq's annexation plans.

1963 - U.S. President John Kennedy announced "Ich bin ein Berliner" (I am a Berliner) at the Berlin Wall.

1971 - The U.S. Justice Department issued a warrant for Daniel Ellsberg, accusing him of giving away the Pentagon Papers.

1975 - Indian Prime Minister Indira Gandhi declared a state of emergency due to "deep and widespread conspiracy."

1976 - The CN (Canadian National) Tower in Toronto, Canada, opened.

1979 - Muhammad Ali, at 37 years old, announced that he was retiring as world heavyweight boxing champion.

1981 - In Mountain Home, Idaho, Virginia Campbell took her coupons and rebates and bought $26,460 worth of groceries. She only paid 67 cents after all the discounts.

1985 - Wilbur Snapp was ejected after playing "Three Blind Mice" during a baseball game. The incident followed a call made by umpire Keith O'Connor.

1987 - The movie "Dragnet" opened in the U.S.

1996 - The U.S. Supreme Court ordered the Virginia Military Institute to admit women or forgo state support.

1997 - The U.S. Supreme Court struck down the Communications Decency Act of 1996 that made it illegal to distribute indecent material on the Internet.

1997 - The U.S. Supreme Court upheld state laws that allow for a ban on doctor-assisted suicides.

1998 - The U.S. and Peru open school to train commandos to patrol Peru's rivers for drug traffickers.

1998 - The U.S. Supreme Court ruled that employers are always potentially liable for supervisor's sexual misconduct toward an employee.

2000 - The Human Genome Project and Celera Genomics Corp. jointly announced that they had created a working draft of the human genome.

2000 - Indonesia's President Abdurrahman Wahid declared a state of emergency in the Moluccas due to the escalation of fighting between Christians and Muslims.

2001 - Ray Bourque (Colorado Avalanche) announced his retirement just 17 days after winning his first Stanley Cup. Bouque retired after 22 years and held the NHL record for highest-scoring defenseman and playing in 19 consecutive All-Star games.

2002 - David Hasseloff checked into The Betty Ford Center for treatment of alcoholism.

2002 - WorldCom Inc. filed for Chapter 11 bankruptcy protection.

June 27, 2012

0363 - The death of Roman Emperor Julian brought an end to the Pagan Revival.

1693 - "The Ladies' Mercury" was published by John Dunton in London. It was the first women's magazine and contained a "question and answer" column that became known as a "problem page."

1743 - King George II of England defeated the French at Dettingen, Bavaria, in the War of the Austrian Succession.

1787 - Edward Gibbon completed "The Decline and Fall of the Roman Empire." It was published the following May.

1801 - British forces defeated the French and took control of Cairo, Egypt.

1847 - New York and Boston were linked by telegraph wires.

1871 - The yen became the new form of currency in Japan.

1885 - Chichester Bell and Charles S. Tainter applied for a patent for the gramophone. It was granted on May 4, 1886.

1893 - The New York stock market crashed. By the end of the year 600 banks and 74 railroads had gone out of business.

1905 - The battleship Potemkin succumbed to a mutiny on the Black Sea.

1918 - Two German pilots were saved by parachutes for the first time.

1923 - Yugoslav Premier Nikola Pachitch was wounded by Serb attackers in Belgrade.

1924 - Democrats offered Mrs. Leroy Springs for vice presidential nomination. She was the first woman considered for the job.

1927 - The U.S. Marines adopted the English bulldog as their mascot.

1929 - Scientists at Bell Laboratories in New York revealed a system for transmitting television pictures.

1931 - Igor Sikorsky filed U.S. Patent 1,994,488, which marked the breakthrough in helicopter technology.

1940 - Robert Pershing Wadlow was measured by Dr. Cyril MacBryde and Dr. C. M. Charles. They recorded his height at 8' 11.1." He was only 22 at the time of his death on July 15, 1940.

1942 - The FBI announced the capture of eight Nazi saboteurs who had been put ashore from a submarine on New York's Long Island.

1944 - During World War II, American forces completed their capture of the French port of Cherbourg from the German army.

1949 - "Captain Video and His Video Rangers" premiered on the Dumont Television Network.

1950 - Two days after North Korea invaded South Korea, U.S. President Truman ordered the Air Force and Navy into the Korean conflict. The United Nations Security Council had asked for member nations to help South Korea repel an invasion from the North.

1954 - The world's first atomic power station opened at Obninsk, near Moscow.

1955 - The first "Wide Wide World" was broadcast on NBC-TV.

1955 - The state of Illinois enacted the first automobile seat belt legislation.

1958 - NBC's "Matinee Theatre" was seen for the final time.

1959 - The play, "West Side Story," with music by Leonard Bernstein, closed after 734 performances on Broadway.

1961 - Arthur Michael Ramsey was enthroned as the 100th Archbishop of Canterbury.

1964 - Ernest Borgnine and Ethel Merman were married. It only lasted 38 days.

1966 - "Dark Shadows" began running on ABC-TV.

1967 - The world's first cash dispenser was installed at Barclays Bank in Enfield, England. The device was invented by John Sheppard-Barron. The machine operated on a voucher system and the maximum withdrawal was $28.

1967 - Two hundred people were arrested during a race riot in Buffalo, NY.

1969 - Patrons at the Stonewall Inn, a gay bar in New York City's Greenwich Village, clashed with police. This incident is considered to be the birth of the homosexual rights movement.

1972 - Bobby Hull signed a 10-year hockey contract for $2,500,000. He became a player and coach of the Winnipeg Jets of the World Hockey Association.

1973 - Former White House counsel John W. Dean told the Senate Watergate Committee about an "enemies list" that was kept by the Nixon White House.

1973 - Nixon vetoed a Senate ban on bombing Cambodia.

1980 - U.S. President Carter signed legislation reviving draft registration.

1984 - The U.S. Supreme Court ruled that individual colleges could make their own TV package deals.

1984 - The Federal Communications Commission moved to deregulate U.S. commercial TV by lifting most programming requirements and ending day-part restrictions on advertising.

1985 - Route 66 was officially removed from the United States Highway System.

1985 - The U.S. House of Representatives voted to limit the use of combat troops in Nicaragua.

1986 - The World Court ruled that the U.S. had broken international law by aiding Nicaraguan rebels.

1991 - Associate Justice Thurgood Marshall resigned from the U.S. Supreme Court. He had been appointed in 1967 by President Lyndon Johnson.

1995 - Qatar's Crown Prince Sheik Hamad bin Khalifa al-Thani ousted his father in a bloodless palace coup.

1998 - An English woman was impregnated with her dead husband's sperm after two-year legal battle over her right to the sperm.

1998 - In a live joint news conference in China U.S. President Clinton and President Jiang Zemin offered an uncensored airing of differences on human rights, freedom, trade and Tibet.

2002 - In the U.S., the Securities and Exchange Commission required companies with annual sales of more than $1.2 billion to submit sworn statements backing up the accuracy of their financial reports.

2005 - In Alaska's Denali National Park, a roughly 70-million year old dinosaur track was discovered. The track was form a three-toed Cretaceous period dinosaur.

June 28, 2012

1635 - The French colony of Guadeloupe was established in the Caribbean.

1675 - Frederick William of Brandenburg crushed the Swedes.

1709 - The Russians defeated the Swedes and Cossacks at the Battle of Poltava.

1776 - American Colonists repulsed a British sea attack on Charleston, SC.

1778 - Mary "Molly Pitcher" Hays McCauley, wife of an American artilleryman, carried water to the soldiers during the Battle of Monmouth and, supposedly, took her husband's place at his gun after he was overcome with heat.

1869 - R. W. Wood was appointed as the first Surgeon General of the U.S. Navy.

1894 - The U.S. Congress made Labor Day a U.S. national holiday.

1902 - The U.S. Congress passed the Spooner bill, it authorized a canal to be built across the isthmus of Panama.

1911 - Samuel J. Battle became the first African-American policeman in New York City.

1914 - Archduke Francis Ferdinand and the Mrs. Archduke were assassinated by Serb nationalist in (what is now known as) Sarajevo, Bosnia.

1919 - The Treaty of Versailles was signed ending World War I exactly five years after it began. The treaty also established the League of Nations.

1921 - A coal strike in Great Britain was settled after three months.

1930 - More than 1,000 communists were routed during an assault on the British consulate in London.

1939 - Pan American Airways began the first transatlantic passenger service.

1938 - The U.S. Congress created the Federal Housing Administration (FHA) to insure construction loans.

1940 - The "Quiz Kids" was heard on NBC radio for the first time.

1942 - German troops launched an offensive to seize Soviet oil fields in the Caucasus and the city of Stalingrad.

1943 - "The Dreft Star Playhouse" debuted on NBC radio.

1944 - "The Alan Young Show" debuted on NBC radio.

1945 - U.S. General Douglas MacArthur announced the end of Japanese resistance in the Philippines.

1949 - The last U.S. combat troops were called home from Korea, leaving only 500 advisers.

1950 - North Korean forces captured Seoul, South Korea.

1951 - "Amos ’n’ Andy" moved to CBS-TV from radio.

1954 - French troops began to pull out of Vietnam’s Tonkin Province.

1960 - In Cuba, Fidel Castro confiscated American-owned oil refineries without compensation.

1964 - Malcolm X founded the Organization for Afro American Unity to seek independence for blacks in the Western Hemisphere.

1965 - The first commercial satellite began communications service. It was Early Bird (Intelsat II).

1967 - Israel formally declared Jerusalem reunified under its sovereignty following its capture of the Arab sector in the June 1967 war.

1971 - The U.S. Supreme Court overturned the draft evasion conviction of Muhammad Ali.

1972 - U.S. President Nixon announced that no new draftees would be sent to Vietnam.

1976 - The first women entered the U.S. Air Force Academy.

1978 - The U.S. Supreme Court ordered the medical school at the University of California at Davis to admit Allan Bakke. Bakke, a white man, argued he had been a victim of reverse racial discrimination.

1996 - The Citadel voted to admit women, ending a 153-year-old men-only policy at the South Carolina military school.

1996 - Charles M. Schulz got a star on the Hollywood Walk of Fame.

1997 - Mike Tyson was disqualified for biting Evander Holyfield's ear after three rounds of their WBA heavyweight title fight in Las Vegas, NV.

1998 - Poland, due to shortage of funds, is allowed to lease, U.S. aircraft to bring military force up to NATO standards.

1998 - The Cincinnati Enquirer apologized to Chiquita banana company and retracted their stories that questioned company's business practices. They also agreed to pay more than $10 million to settle legal claims.

2000 - The U.S. Supreme Court declared that a Nebraska law that outlawed "partial birth abortions" was unconstitutional. About 30 U.S. states had similar laws at the time of the ruling.

2000 - Darva Conger announced that she had done a layout for Playboy magazine. Conger had married Rick Rockwell on Fox-TV's "Who Wants to Marry a Multimillionaire."

2000 - The European Commission announced that they had blocked the planned merger between the U.S. companies WorldCom Inc. and Sprint due to competition concerns.

2000 - Six-year-old Elián González returned to Cuba from the U.S. with his father. The child had been the center of an international custody dispute.

2001 - Slobodan Milosevic was taken into custody and was handed over to the U.N. war crimes tribunal in The Hague, Netherlands. The indictment charged Milosevic and four other senior officials, with crimes against humanity and violations of the laws and customs of war in Kosovo.

2001 - The U.S. Court of Appeals for the District of Columbia Circuit set aside an order that would break up Microsoft for antitrust violations. However, the judges did agree that the company was in violation of antitrust laws.

2004 - The U.S. turned over official sovereignty to Iraq's interim leadership. The event took place two days earlier than previously announced to thwart insurgents' attempts at undermining the transfer.

2004 - The U.S. resumed diplomatic ties with Libya after a 24-year break.

2007 - The American bald eagle was removed from the endangered species list.

June 29, 2012

1236 - Ferdinand III of Castile and Leon took Cordoba in Spain.

1652 - Massachusetts declared itself an independent commonwealth.

1767 - The British Parliament approved the Townshend Revenue Acts. The acts imposed import duties on glass, lead, paint, paper and tea shipped to America.

1776 - The Virginia constitution was adopted and Patrick Henry was made governor.

1804 - Privates John Collins and Hugh Hall of the Lewis and Clark Expedition were found guilty by a court-martial consisting of members of the Corps of Discovery for getting drunk on duty. Collins received 100 lashes on his back and Hall received 50.

1860 - The first iron-pile lighthouse was completed at Minot’s Ledge, MA.

1880 - France annexed Tahiti.

1888 - Professor Frederick Treves performed the first appendectomy in England.

1897 - The Chicago Cubs scored 36 runs in a game against Louisville, setting a record for runs scored by a team in a single game.

1901 - The first edition of "Editor & Publisher" was issued.

1903 - The British government officially protested Belgian atrocities in the Congo.

1905 - Russian troops intervened as riots erupted in ports all over the country. Many ships were looted.

1917 - The Ukraine proclaimed independence from Russia.

1925 - Marvin Pipkin filed for a patent for the frosted electric light bulb.

1926 - Fascists in Rome added an hour to the work day in an economic efficiency measure.

1932 - Siam’s army seized Bangkok and announced an end to the absolute monarchy.

1932 - "Vic and Sade" debuted on NBC radio.

1941 - Joe DiMaggio got a base hit in his 42nd consecutive game. He broke George Sisler's record from 1922.

1946 - British authorities arrested more than 2,700 Jews in Palestine in an attempt to end alleged terrorism.

1950 - U.S. President Harry S. Truman authorized a sea blockade of Korea.

1951 - The United States invited the Soviet Union to the Korean peace talks on a ship in Wonson Harbor.

1953 - The Federal Highway Act authorized the construction of 42,500 miles of freeway from coast to coast.

1954 - The Atomic Energy Commission voted against reinstating Dr. J. Robert Oppenheimer's access to classified information.

1955 - The Soviet Union sent tanks to Poznan, Poland, to put down anti-Communist demonstrations.

1956 - Marilyn Monroe and Arthur Miller were married. They were divorced on January 20, 1961.

1966 - The U.S. bombed fuel storage facilities near the North Vietnamese cities of Hanoi and Haiphong.

1967 - Israel removed barricades, re-unifying Jerusalem.

1972 - The U.S. Supreme Court ruled that the death penalty could constitute "cruel and unusual punishment." The ruling prompted states to revise their capital punishment laws.

1982 - Israel invaded Lebanon.

1987 - Vincent Van Gogh’s "Le Pont de Trinquetaille" was bought for $20.4 million at an auction in London, England.

1995 - The shuttle Atlantis and the Russian space station Mir docked, forming the largest man-made satellite ever to orbit the Earth.

1998 - With negotiations on a new labor agreement at a standstill, the National Basketball Association (NBA) announced that a lockout would be imposed at midnight.

2000 - In Santa Rosa, CA, the official groundbreaking ceremony took place for the Charles M. Schulz Museum.

2007 - The Apple iPhone went on sale.

June 30, 2012

1097 - The Crusaders defeated the Turks at Dorylaeum.

1841 - The Erie Railroad rolled out its first passenger train.

1859 - Charles Blondin became the first person to cross Niagara Falls on a tightrope.

1894 - Korea declared independence from China and asked for Japanese aid.

1908 - An explosion in Siberia, which knocked down trees in a 40-mile radius and struck people unconscious some 40 miles away. It was believed by some scientists to be caused by a falling fragment from a meteorite.

1912 - Belgian workers went on strike to demand universal suffrage.

1913 - Fighting broke out between Bulgaria and Greece and Spain. It was the beginning of the Second Balkan War.

1915 - During World War I, the Second Battle Artois ended when the French failed to take Vimy Ridge.

1921 - The Radio Corporation of America (RCA) was formed.

1922 - Irish rebels in London assassinate Sir Henry Wilson, the British deputy for Northern Ireland.

1930 - France pulled its troops out of Germany’s Rhineland.

1934 - Adolf Hitler purged the Nazi Party by destroying the SA and bringing to power the SS in the "Night of the Long Knives."

1935 - Fascists caused an uproar at the League of Nations when Haile Selassie of Ethiopia speaks.

1936 - Margaret Mitchell’s book, "Gone with the Wind," was published in New York City.

1950 - U.S. President Harry Truman ordered U.S. troops into Korea and authorizes the draft.

1951 - On orders from Washington, General Matthew Ridgeway broadcasts that the United Nations was willing to discuss an armistice with North Korea.

1952 - CBS-TV debuted "The Guiding Light."

1953 - The first Corvette rolled off the Chevrolet assembly line in Flint, MI. It sold for $3,250.

1955 - The U.S. began funding West Germany’s rearmament.

1957 - The American occupation headquarters in Japan was dissolved.

1958 - The U.S. Congress passed a law authorizing the admission of Alaska as the 49th state in the Union.

1960 - The Katanga province seceded from Congo (upon Congo's independence from Belgium).

1962 - Los Angeles Dodger Sandy Koufax pitched his first no-hitter in a game with the New York Mets.

1964 - The last of U.N. troops left Congo after a four-year effort to bring stability to the country.

1970 - The Cincinnati Reds moved to their new home at Riverfront Stadium.

1971 - The U.S. Supreme Court allowed the New York Times to continue publishing the Pentagon Papers.

1971 - The Soviet spacecraft Soyuz 11 returned to Earth. The three cosmonauts were found dead inside.

1971 - The 26th Amendment to the U.S. Constitution was ratified when Ohio became the 38th state to approve it. The amendment lowered the minimum voting age to 18.

1974 - Russian ballet dancer Mikhail Baryshnikov defected in Toronto, Canada.

1974 - The July 4th scene from the Steven Spielberg movie "Jaws" was filmed.

1977 - U.S. President Jimmy Carter announced his opposition to the B-1 bomber.

1984 - The longest professional football game took place in the United States Football League (USFL). The Los Angeles Express beat the Michigan Panthers 27-21 after 93 minutes and 33 seconds.

1985 - Yul Brynner left his role as the King of Siam after 4,600 performances in "The King and I."

1986 - The U.S. Supreme Court ruled 5-4 that states could outlaw homosexual acts between consenting adults.

1994 - The U.S. Figure Skating Association stripped Tonya Harding of the 1994 national championship and banned her from the organization for life for an attack on rival Nancy Kerrigan.

1998 - Officials confirmed that the remains of a Vietnam War serviceman buried in the Tomb of the Unknowns at Arlington National Cemetery were identified as those of Air Force pilot Michael J. Blassie.

2000 - U.S. President Clinton signed the E-Signature bill to give the same legal validity to an electronic signature as a signature in pen and ink.

July 1, 2012

0096 - Vespasian, a Roman Army leader, was hailed as a Roman Emperor by the Egyptian legions.

1543 - England and Scotland signed the peace of Greenwich.

1596 - An English fleet under the Earl of Essex, Lord Howard of Effingham and Francis Vere captured and sacked Cadiz, Spain.

1690 - The French defeated the forces of the Grand Alliance at Fleurus in the Netherlands.

1798 - Napoleon Bonaparte took Alexandria, Egypt.

1847 - The U.S. Post Office issued its first adhesive stamps.

1862 - The U.S. Congress established the Bureau of Internal Revenue.

1863 - During the U.S. Civil War, the first day's fighting at Gettysburg began.

1867 - Canada became an independent dominion.

1874 - The Philadelphia Zoological Society zoo opened as the first zoo in the United States.

1876 - Montenegro declared war on the Turks.

1893 - The first bicycle race track in America to be made out of wood was opened in San Francisco, CA.

1897 - Three years after the first issue of "Billboard Advertising" was published, the publication was renamed, "The Billboard".

1898 - During the Spanish-American War, Theodore Roosevelt and his "Rough Riders" waged a victorious assault on San Juan Hill in Cuba.

1905 - The USDA Forest Service was created within the Department of Agriculture. The agency was given the mission to sustain healthy, diverse, and productive forests and grasslands for present and future generations.

1909 - Thomas Edison began commercially manufacturing his new "A" type alkaline storage batteries.

1916 - The massive Allied offensive known as the Battle of the Somme began in France. The battle was the first to use tanks.

1934 - The Federal Communications Commission replaced the Federal Radio Commission as the regulator of broadcasting in the United States.

1940 - In Washington, the Tacoma Narrows Bridge was opened to traffic. The bridge collapsed during a wind storm on November 7, 1940.

1941 - Bulova Watch Company sponsored the first TV commercial in New York City, NY.

1942 - German troops captured Sevestpol, Crimea, in the Soviet Union.

1943 - The U.S. Government began automatically withholding federal income tax from paychecks.

1945 - New York established the New York State Commission Against Discrimination to prevent discrimination in employment because of race, creed or natural origin. It was the first such agency in the U.S.

1946 - U.S. President Harry Truman signed Public Law 476 that incorporated the Civil Air Patrol as a benevolent, nonprofit organization. The Civil Air Patrol was created on December 1, 1941.

1946 - The U.S. exploded a 20-kiloton atomic bomb near Bikini Atoll in the Pacific Ocean.

1948 - The price of a subway ride in New York City was increased from 5 cents to 10.

1950 - American ground troops arrived in South Korea to stem the tide of the advancing North Korean army.

1951 - Bob Feller set a major league baseball record as he pitched his third no-hitter for the Cleveland Indians.

1960 - Somalia gained its independence from Britain through the unification of Somaliland with Italian Somalia.

1961 - British troops landed in Kuwait to aid against Iraqi threats.

1961 - The first community air-raid shelter was built. The shelter in Boise, ID had a capacity of 1,000 people and family memberships sold for $100.

1963 - The U.S. postmaster introduced the five-digit ZIP (Zoning Improvement Plan) code.

1966 - The Medicare federal insurance program went into effect.

1968 - The Nuclear Nonproliferation Treaty was signed by 60 countries. It limited the spreading of nuclear material for military purposes. On May 11, 1995, the treaty was extended indefinitely.

1969 - Britain's Prince Charles was invested as the Prince of Wales.

1974 - Isavel Peron became the president of Argentina upon the death of her husband, Juan.

1979 - Susan B. Anthony was commemorated on a U.S. coin, the Susan B. Anthony dollar.

1979 - Sony introduced the Walkman.

1980 - "O Canada" was proclaimed the national anthem of Canada.

1980 - U.S. President Jimmy Carter signed legislation that provided for 2 acres of land near the Lincoln Memorial for the Vietnam Veterans Memorial.

1981 - The U.S. Supreme Court ruled that candidates for federal office had an "affirmative right" to go on national television.

1985 - Robin Yount (Milwaukee Brewers) got the 1,800th hit of his career.

1987 - John Kevin Hill, at age 11, became the youngest to fly across the U.S. when he landed at National Airport in Washington, DC.

1989 - The Montreal Protocol, an international treaty, went into effect. It limited the production of ozone-destroying chemicals.

1991 - Court TV began airing.

1991 - The Warsaw Pact dissolved.

1994 - Yasser Arafat of the Palestinian Liberation Organization visited the Gaza Strip.

1997 - The sovereignty over Hong Kong was transferred from Great Britain to China. Britain had controlled Hong Kong as a colony for 156 years.

1999 - The U.S. Justice Department released new regulations that granted the attorney general sole power to appoint and oversee special counsels. The 1978 independent-counsel statute expired on June 30.

2003 - In Hong Kong, thousands of protesters marched to show their opposition to anti-subversion legislation.

July 2, 2012

1298 - An army under Albert of Austria defeated and killed Adolf of Nassua near Worms, Germany.

1625 - The Spanish army took Breda, Spain, after nearly a year of siege.

1644 - Lord Cromwell crushed the Royalists at the Battle of Marston Moor near York, England.

1747 - Marshall Saxe led the French forces to victory over an Anglo-Dutch force under the Duke of Cumberland at the Battle of Lauffeld.

1776 - Richard Henry Lee’s resolution that the American colonies "are, and of right ought to be, free and independent States" was adopted by the Continental Congress.

1850 - Prussia agreed to pull out of Schlewig and Holstein, Germany.

1850 - B.J. Lane patented the gas mask.

1857 - New York City’s first elevated railroad officially opened for business.

1858 - Czar Alexander II freed the serfs working on imperial lands.

1881 - Charles J. Guiteau fatally wounded U.S. President James A. Garfield in Washington, DC.

1890 - The U.S. Congress passed the Sherman Antitrust Act.

1926 - The U.S. Congress established the Army Air Corps.

1937 - American aviation pioneer Amelia Earhart disappeared in the Central Pacific during an attempt to fly around the world at the equator.

1939 - At Mount Rushmore, Theodore Roosevelt's face was dedicated.

1944 - American bombers, as part of Operation Gardening, dropped land mines, leaflets and bombs on German-occupied Budapest.

1947 - An object crashed near Roswell, NM. The U.S. Army Air Force insisted it was a weather balloon, but eyewitness accounts led to speculation that it might have been an alien spacecraft.

1964 - U.S. President Johnson signed the "Civil Rights Act of 1964" into law. The act made it illegal in the U.S. to discriminate against others because of their race.

1967 - The U.S. Marine Corps launched Operation Buffalo in response to the North Vietnamese Army's efforts to seize the Marine base at Con Thien.

1976 - The U.S. Supreme Court ruled the death penalty was not inherently cruel or unusual.

1976 - North Vietnam and South Vietnam were reunited.

1979 - The U.S. Mint officially released the Susan B. Anthony coin in Rochester, NY.

1980 - U.S. President Jimmy Carter reinstated draft registration for males 18 years of age.

1981 - Soyuz T-6 returned to Earth.

1985 - General Motors announced that it was installing electronic road maps as an option in some of its higher-priced cars.

1995 - "Forbes" magazine reported that Microsoft's chairman, Bill Gates, was the worth $12.9 billion, making him the world's richest man. In 1999, he was worth about $77 billion.

1998 - Cable News Network (CNN) retracted a story that alleged that U.S. commandos had used nerve gas to kill American defectors during the Vietnam War.

2000 - In Mexico, Vicente Fox Quesada of the National Action Party (PAN) defeated Francisco Labastida Ochoa of the Institutional Revolutionary Party (PRI) in the presidential election. The PRI had controlled the presidency in Mexico since the party was founded in 1929.

July 3, 2012

1608 - The city of Quebec was founded by Samuel de Champlain.

1775 - U.S. Gen. George Washington took command of the Continental Army at Cambridge, MA.

1790 - In Paris, the marquis of Condorcet proposed granting civil rights to women.

1844 - Ambassador Caleb Cushing successfully negotiated a commercial treaty with China that opened five Chinese ports to U.S. merchants and protected the rights of American citizens in China.

1863 - The U.S. Civil War Battle of Gettysburg, PA, ended after three days. It was a major victory for the North as Confederate troops retreated.

1871 - The Denver and Rio Grande Western Railroad Company introduced the first narrow-gauge locomotive. It was called the "Montezuma."

1878 - John Wise flew the first dirigible in Lancaster, PA.

1880 - "Science" began publication. Thomas Edison had provided the principle funding.

1890 - IDaho became the 43rd state to join the United States of America.

1898 - During the Spanish American War, a fleet of Spanish ships in Cuba's Santiago Harbor attempted to run a blockade of U.S. naval forces. Nearly all of the Spanish ships were destroyed in the battle that followed.

1903 - The first cable across the Pacific Ocean was spliced between Honolulu, Midway, Guam and Manila.

1912 - Rube Marquand of the New York Giants set a baseball pitching record when earned his 19th consecutive win.

1922 - "Fruit Garden and Home" magazine was introduced. It was later renamed "Better Homes and Gardens."

1924 - Clarence Birdseye founded the General Seafood Corp.

1930 - The U.S. Congress created the U.S. Veterans Administration.

1934 - U.S. Federal Deposit Insurance Corporation (FDIC) made its first payment to Lydia Losiger.

1937 - Del Mar race track opened in Del Mar, CA.

1939 - Chic Young’s comic strip character, "Blondie" was first heard on CBS radio.

1940 - Bud Abbott and Lou Costello debuted on NBC radio.

1944 - The U.S. First Army opened a general offensive to break out of the hedgerow area of Normandy, France.

1944 - During World War II, Soviet forces recaptured Minsk.

1945 - U.S. troops landed at Balikpapan and take Sepinggan airfield on Borneo in the Pacific.

1945 - The first civilian passenger car built since February 1942 was driven off the assembly line at the Ford Motor Company plant in Detroit, MI. Production had been diverted due to World War II.

1950 - U.S. carrier-based planes attacked airfields in the Pyongyang-Chinnampo area of North Korea in the first air-strike of the Korean War.

1954 - Food rationing ended in Great Britain almost nine years after the end of World War II.

1962 - Jackie Robinson became the first African American to be inducted into the National Baseball Hall of Fame.

1974 - The Threshold Test Ban Treaty was signed, prohibiting underground nuclear weapons tests with yields greater than 150 kilotons.

1981 - The Associated Press ran its first story about two rare illnesses afflicting homosexual men. One of the diseases was later named AIDS.

1986 - U.S. President Reagan presided over a ceremony in New York Harbor that saw the relighting of the renovated Statue of Liberty.

1986 - Mikhail Baryshnikov became a U.S. citizen at Ellis Island, New York Harbor.

1991 - U.S. President George H.W. Bush formally inaugurated the Mount Rushmore National Memorial in South Dakota.

July 4, 2012

1776 - The amended Declaration of Independence, prepared by Thomas Jefferson, was approved and signed by John Hancock, the President of the Continental Congress in America.

1802 - The U.S. Military Academy officially opened at West Point, NY.

1803 - The Louisiana Purchase was announced in newspapers. The property was purchased, by the U.S. from France, was for $15 million (or 3 cents an acre). The "Corps of Discovery," led by Meriwether Lewis and William Clark, began the exploration of the territory on May 14, 1804.

1817 - Construction began on the Erie Canal, to connect Lake Erie and the Hudson River.

1845 - American writer Henry David Thoreau began his two-year experiment in simple living at Walden Pond, near Concord, MA.

1848 - In Washington, DC, the cornerstone for the Washington Monument was laid.

1855 - The first edition of "Leaves of Grass," by Walt Whitman, was published in Brooklyn, NY.

1863 - The Confederate town of Vicksburg, MS, surrendered to General Ulysses S. Grant.

1881 - Tuskegee Institute opened in Alabama.

1884 - Bullfighting was introduced in the U.S. in Dodge City, KS.

1886 - The first rodeo in America was held at Prescott, AZ.

1892 - The first double-decked street car service was inaugurated in San Diego, CA.

1894 - After seizing power, Judge Stanford B. Dole declared Hawaii a republic.

1901 - William H. Taft became the American governor of the Philippines.

1910 - Race riots broke out all over the United States after African-American jack Johnson knocked out Jim Jeffries in a heavyweight boxing match.

1934 - Boxer Joe Louis won his first professional fight.

1934 - At Mount Rushmore, George Washington's face was dedicated.

1939 - Lou Gehrig retired from major league baseball.

1946 - The Philippines achieved full independence for the first time in over four hundred years.

1955 - The first king cobra snakes born in captivity in the U.S. hatched at the Bronx Zoo in New York City.

1957 - The U.S. Postal Service issued the 4¢ Flag stamp.

1959 - The 49-star U.S. flag was debuted.

1960 - The 50-star U.S. flag made its debut in Philadelphia, PA.

1966 - U.S. President Johnson signed the Freedom of Information Act, which went into effect the following year.

1976 - The U.S. celebrated its Bicentennial.

1982 - The Soviets performed a nuclear test at Eastern Kazakhl Semipalitinsk.

1987 - Klaus Barbie, the former Gestapo chief known as the "Butcher of Lyon," was convicted by a French court of crimes against humanity and sentenced to life in prison.

1997 - The Mars Pathfinder, an unmanned spacecraft, landed on Mars. A rover named Sojourner was deployed to gather data about the surface of the planet.

1997 - Ferry service between Manhattan and Staten Island was made free of charge. Previously, the charge had ranged from 5 cents to 50 cents.

2004 - In New York, the cornerstone of the Freedom Tower was laid on the former World Trade Center site.

2005 - NASA's Deep Impact spacecraft took pictures as a space probe smashed into the Tempel 1 comet. The mission was aimed at learning more about comets that formed from the leftover buidling blocks of the solar system. The Deep Impact mission launched on January 12, 2005.

2009 - North Korea launched seven ballistic missiles into waters off its east coast that defied U.N. resolutions.

2009 - The Statue of Liberty's crown reopened to visitors. It had been closed to the public since 2001.

July 5, 2012

1806 - A Spanish army repelled the British during their attempt to retake Buenos Aires, Argentina.

1811 - Venezuela became the first South American country to declare independence from Spain.

1814 - U.S. troops under Jacob Brown defeated a superior British force at Chippewa, Canada.

1830 - France occupied the North African city of Algiers.

1832 - The German government began curtailing freedom of the press after German Democrats advocate a revolt against Austrian rule.

1839 - British naval forces bombarded Dingai on Zhoushan Island in China and then occupied it.

1863 - U.S. Federal troops occupied Vicksburg, MS, and distributed supplies to the citizens.

1865 - William Booth founded the Salvation Army in London.

1892 - Andrew Beard was issued a patent for the rotary engine.

1916 - Adelina and August Van Buren started on the first successful transcontinental motorcycle tour to be attempted by two women. They started in New York City and arrived in San Diego, CA, on September 12, 1916.

1935 - "Hawaii Call" was broadcast for the first time.

1935 - U.S. President Roosevelt signed the National Labor Relations Act into law. The act authorized labor to organize for the purpose of collective bargaining.

1940 - During World War II, Britain and the Vichy government in France broke diplomatic relations.

1941 - German troops reached the Dnieper River in the Soviet Union.

1943 - The battle of Kursk began as German tanks attack the Soviet salient. It was the largest tank battle in history.

1946 - The bikini bathing suit, created by Louis Reard, made its debut during a fashion show at the Molitor Pool in Paris. Micheline Bernardini wore the two-piece outfit.

1947 - Larry Doby signed a contract with the Cleveland Indians, becoming the first black player in the American League.

1948 - Britain's National Health Service Act went into effect, providing government-financed medical and dental care.

1950 - U.S. forces engaged the North Koreans for the first time at Osan, South Korea.

1951 - Dr. William Shockley announced that he had invented the junction transistor.

1962 - Algeria became independent after 132 years of French rule.

1975 - Arthur Ashe became the first black man to win a Wimbledon singles title when he defeated Jimmy Connors.

1984 - The U.S. Supreme Court weakened the 70-year-old "exclusionary rule," deciding that evidence seized with defective court warrants could be used against defendants in criminal trials.

1989 - Former U.S. National Security Council aide Oliver North received a $150,000 fine and a suspended prison term for his part in the Iran-Contra affair. The convictions were later overturned.

1991 - Regulators shut down the Pakistani-managed Bank of Credit and Commerce International (BCCI) in eight countries. The charge was fraud, drug money laundering and illegal infiltration into the U.S. banking system.

1995 - The U.S. Justice Department decided not to take antitrust action against Ticketmaster.

1998 - Japan joined U.S. and Russia in space exploration with the launching of the Planet-B probe to Mars.

2000 - Jordanian security agents shot and killed a Syrian hijacker after he threw a grenade that exploded and wounded 15 passengers aboard a Royal Jordanian airliner.

2000 - 10 Bengal tigers, including 7 rare white tigers, died at the Nandankanan Zoo in India. The tigers died of trypanosomiasis (sleeping sickness).

2000 - Euan Blair, the oldest son of British prime minister Tony Blair, was arrested after police found him drunk and lying on the ground in London's Leicester Square.

July 6, 2012

1483 - King Richard III of England was crowned.

1699 - Captain William Kidd, the pirate, was captured in Boston, MA, and deported back to England.

1777 - British forces captured Fort Ticonderoga during the American Revolution.

1854 - In Jackson, MI, the Republican Party held its first convention.

1858 - Lyman Blake patented the shoe manufacturing machine.

1885 - Louis Pasteur successfully tested his anti-rabies vaccine. The child used in the test later became the director of the Pasteur Institute.

1905 - Fingerprints were exchanged for the first time between officials in Europe and the U.S. The person in question was John Walker.

1917 - During World War I, Arab forces led by T.E. Lawrence captured the port of Aqaba from the Turks.

1919 - A British dirigible landed in New York at Roosevelt Field. It completed the first crossing of the Atlantic Ocean by an airship.

1923 - The Union of Soviet Socialist Republics was established.

1928 - "The Lights of New York" was previewed in New York's Strand Theatre. It was the first all-talking movie.

1932 - The postage rate for first class mail in the U.S. went from 2-cents to 3-cents.

1933 - The first All-Star baseball game was held in Chicago. The American League beat the National League 4-2.

1942 - Diarist Anne Frank and her family took refuge from the Nazis in Amsterdam.

1945 - U.S. President Truman signed an order creating the Medal of Freedom.

1945 - Nicaragua became the first nation to formally accept the United Nations Charter.

1947 - "Candid Microphone" began airing on ABC radio.

1948 - Frieda Hennok became the first woman to serve as the commissioner of the Federal Communications Commission.

1957 - Althea Gibson won the Wimbledon women’s singles tennis title. She was the first black athlete to win the event.

1966 - Malawi became a republic within the Commonwealth with Dr. Hastings Banda as its first president.

1967 - The Biafran War erupted. The war lasted two-and-a-half years. About 600,000 people died.

1981 - Former President of Argentina Isabel Peron was freed after five years of house arrest by a federal court.

1981 - The Dupont Company announced an agreement to purchase Conoco, Inc. (Continental Oil Co.) for $7 billion. At the time it was the largest merger in corporate history.

1983 - The U.S. Supreme Court ruled that retirement plans could not pay women smaller monthly payments solely because of their gender.

1983 - Fred Lynn (California Angels) hit the first grand slam in an All-Star game. The American League defeated the National League 13-3.

1985 - Martina Navratilova won her 4th consecutive Wimbledon singles title.

1985 - The submarine Nautilus arrived in Groton, Connecticut. The vessel had been towed from Mare Island Naval Shipyard.

1988 - Several popular beaches were closed in New York City due to medical waste and other debris began washing up on the seashores.

1989 - The U.S. Army destroyed its last Pershing 1-A missiles at an ammunition plant in Karnack, TX. The dismantling was under the terms of the 1987 Intermediate-range Nuclear Forces Treaty.

1996 - Steffi Graf won her seventh Wimbledon title.

1997 - The Mars Pathfinder released Sojourner, a robot rover on the surface of Mars. The spacecraft landed on the red planet on July 4th.

1997 - In Cambodia, Second Prime Minister Hun Sen ousted First Prime Minister Norodom Ranariddh and claimed to have the capital under his control.

1998 - Protestants rioted in many parts of Northern Ireland after British authorities blocked an Orange Order march in Portadown.

July 7, 2012

1754 - Kings College opened in New York City. It was renamed Columbia College 30 years later.

1846 - U.S. annexation of California was proclaimed at Monterey after the surrender of a Mexican garrison.

1862 - The first railroad post office was tested on the Hannibal and St. Joseph Railroad in Missouri.

1885 - G. Moore Peters patented the cartridge-loading machine.

1898 - The United States annexed Hawaii.

1917 - Aleksandr Kerensky formed a provisional government in Russia.

1920 - A device known as the radio compass was used for the first time on a U.S. Navy airplane near Norfolk, VA.

1930 - Construction began on Boulder Dam, later Hoover Dam, on the Colorado River.

1937 - Japanese forces invaded China.

1946 - Mother Frances Xavier Cabrini was canonized as the first American saint.

1949 - "Dragnet" was first heard on NBC radio.

1950 - The U.N. Security Council authorized military aid for South Korea.

1969 - Canada's House of Commons gave final approval to a measure that made the French language equal to English throughout the national government.

1981 - U.S. President Reagan announced he was nominating Arizona Judge Sandra Day O'Connor to become the first female justice on the U.S. Supreme Court.

1983 - Eleven-year-old Samantha Smith of Manchester, Maine, left for a visit to the Soviet Union at the personal invitation of Soviet leader Yuri V. Andropov.

1987 - Public testimony at the Iran-Contra hearing began.

1998 - A jury in Santa Monica, CA, convicted Mikail Markhasev of murdering Ennis Cosby, Bill Cosby's only son, during a roadside robbery.

1999 - In Sierra Leone, President Ahmad Tejan Kabbah and rebel leader Foday Sankoh signed a pact to end the nation's civil war.

2000 - Cisco Systems Inc. announced that it would buy Netiverse Inc. for $210 million in stock. It was the 13th time Cisco had purchased a company in 2000.

2000 - Amazon.com announced that they had sold almost 400,000 copies of "Harry Potter and The Goblet of Fire," making it the biggest selling book in e-tailing history.

2003 - In Liberia, a team of U.S. military experts arrived at the U.S. embassy compound to assess whether to deploy troops as part of a peacekeeping force in the country.

2011 - The world's first artificial organ transplant was achieved. It was an artificial windpipe coated with stem cells.

July 8, 2012

1099 - Christian soldiers on the First Crusade march around Jerusalem.

1608 - The first French settlement at Quebec was established by Samuel de Champlain.

1663 - King Charles II of England granted a charter to Rhode Island.

1693 - Uniforms for police in New York City were authorized.

1709 - Peter the Great defeated Charles XII at Poltava, in the Ukraine, The Swedish empire was effectively ended.

1755 - Britain broke off diplomatic relations with France as their disputes in the New World intensified.

1776 - Col. John Nixon gave the first public reading of the U.S. Declaration of Independence to a crowd at Independence Square in Philadelphia.

1794 - French troops captured Brussels, Belgium.

1795 - Kent County Free School changed its name to Washington College. It was the first college to be named after U.S. President George Washington. The school was established by an act of the Maryland Assembly in 1723.

1815 - Louis XVIII returned to Paris after the defeat of Napoleon.

1865 - C.E. Barnes patented the machine gun.

1879 - The first ship to use electric lights departed from San Francisco, CA.

1881 - Edward Berner, druggist in Two Rivers, WI, poured chocolate syrup on ice cream in a dish. To this time chocolate syrup had only been used for making ice-cream sodas.

1889 - The Wall Street Journal was first published.

1889 - John L. Sullivan defeated Jake Kilrain, in the last championship bare-knuckle fight. The fight lasted 75 rounds.

1907 - Florenz Ziegfeld staged his first "Follies" on the roof of the New York Theater in New York City.

1919 - U.S. President Wilson returned from the Versailles Peace Conference in France.

1947 - Demolition work began in New York City for the new permanent headquarters of the United Nations.

1950 - General Douglas MacArthur was named commander-in-chief of United Nations forces in Korea.

1953 - Notre Dame announced that the next five years of its football games would be shown in theatres over closed circuit TV.

1960 - The Soviet Union charged Gary Powers with espionage. He was shot down in a U-2 spy plane.

1963 - All Cuban-owned assets in the United States were frozen.

1969 - The U.S. Patent Office issued a patent for the game "Twister."

1970 - The San Francisco Giant’s Jim Ray Hart became the first National League player in 59 seasons to collect six runs batted (RBI) during a single inning.

1981 - The Solar Challenger became the frist solar-powered airplane to cross the English Channel.

1986 - Kurt Waldheim was inaugurated as president of Austria despite controversy over his alleged ties to Nazi war crimes.

1997 - The Mayo Clinic and the U.S. government warned that the diet-drug combination known as "fen-phen" could cause serious heart and lung damage.

1997 - NATO invited Poland, Hungary, and the Czech Republic to join the alliance in 1999.

2000 - J.K. Rowling's "Harry Potter and the Goblet of Fire" was released in the U.S. It was the fourth Harry Potter book.

2010 - The Solar Impulse completed the first 24-hour flight by a solar powered plane.

July 9, 2012

0118 - Hadrian, Rome's new emperor, made his entry into the city.

0455 - Avitus, the Roman military commander in Gaul, became Emperor of the West.

1540 - England's King Henry VIII had his 6-month-old marriage to his fourth wife, Anne of Cleves, annulled.

1609 - In a letter to the crown, the emperor Rudolf II granted Bohemia freedom of worship.

1755 - General Edward Braddock was killed when French and Indian troops ambushed his force of British regulars and colonial militia.

1776 - The American Declaration of Independence was read aloud to Gen. George Washington's troops in New York.

1789 - In Versailles, the French National Assembly declared itself the Constituent Assembly and began to prepare a French constitution.

1790 - The Swedish navy captured one third of the Russian fleet at the naval battle of Svensksund in the Baltic Sea.

1792 - S.L. Mitchell of Columbia College in New York City became the first Professor of Agriculture.

1808 - The leather-splitting machine was patented by Samuel Parker.

1816 - Argentina declared independence from Spain.

1847 - A 10-hour work day was established for workers in the state of New Hampshire.

1868 - The 14th Amendment to the U.S. Constitution was ratified. The amendment was designed to grant citizenship to and protect the civil liberties of recently freed slaves. It did this by prohibiting states from denying or abridging the privileges or immunities of citizens of the United States, depriving any person of his life, liberty, or property without due process of law, or denying to any person within their jurisdiction the equal protection of the laws.

1872 - The doughnut cutter was patented by John F. Blondel.

1877 - Alexander Graham Bell, Gardiner Greene Hubbard, Thomas Sanders and Thomas Watson formed the Bell Telephone Company.

1878 - The corncob pipe was patented by Henry Tibbe.

1900 - The Commonwealth of Australia was established by an act of the British Parliament, uniting the separate colonies under a federal government.

1922 - Johnny Weissmuller became the first person to swim the 100 meters freestyle in less than a minute.

1935 - Norman Bright ran the two mile event in the record time of 9 minutes, 13.2 seconds at a meet in New York City.

1943 - American and British forces made an amphibious landing on Sicily.

1947 - The engagement of Britain's Princess Elizabeth to Lt. Philip Mountbatten was announced.

1951 - U.S. President Truman asked Congress to formally end the state of war between the United States and Germany.

1953 - New York Airways began the first commuter passenger service by helicopter.

1968 - The first All-Star baseball game to be played indoors took place at the Astrodome in Houston, TX.

1971 - The United States turned over complete responsibility of the Demilitarized Zone to South Vietnamese units.

1985 - Herschel Walker of the New Jersey Generals was named the Most Valuable Player in the United States Football League (USFL).

1985 - Joe Namath signed a five-year pact with ABC-TV to provide commentary for "Monday Night Football".

1997 - Mike Tyson was banned from the boxing ring and fined $3 million for biting the ear of opponent Evander Holyfield.

2005 - Danny Way, a daredevil skateboarder, rolled down a large ramp and jumped across the Great Wall of China. He was the first person to clear the wall without motorized aid.

July 10, 2012

1609 - The Catholic states in Germany set up a league under the leadership of Maximillian of Bavaria.

1679 - The British crown claimed New Hampshire as a royal colony.

1776 - The statue of King George III was pulled down in New York City.

1778 - In support of the American Revolution, Louis XVI declared war on England.

1821 - U.S. troops took possession of Florida. The territory was sold by Spain.

1832 - U.S. President Andrew Jackson vetoed legislation to re-charter the Second Bank of the United States.

1866 - Edison P. Clark patented his indelible pencil.

1890 - Wyoming became the 44th state to join the United States.

1900 - ‘His Master’s Voice’, was registered with the U.S. Patent Office. The logo of the Victor Recording Company, and later, RCA Victor, shows the dog, Nipper, looking into the horn of a gramophone machine.

1910 - W.R. Brookins became the first to fly an airplane at an altitude of one mile.

1913 - The highest temperature ever recorded in the U.S. was 134 degrees in Death Valley, CA.

1919 - The Treaty of Versailles was hand delivered to the U.S. Senate by President Wilson.

1925 - The official news agency of the Soviet Union, TASS, was established.

1928 - George Eastman first demonstrated color motion pictures.

1929 - The U.S. government began issuing paper money in the small size.

1938 - Howard Hughes completed a 91 hour flight around the world.

1940 - The 114-day Battle of Britain began during World War II.

1943 - Arthur Ashe, the first African-American inducted into the International Tennis Hall of Fame, was born. He had won 33 career titles.

1949 - The first practical rectangular television was presented. The picture tube measured 12 by 16 and sold for $12.

1951 - Armistice talks aimed at ending the Korean conflict began at Kaesong.

1951 - Sugar Ray Robinson was defeated for only the second time in 133 fights as Randy Turpin took the middleweight crown.

1953 - American forces withdraw from Pork Chop Hill in Korea after heavy fighting.

1962 - The Telstar Communications satellite was launched. The satellite relayed TV and telephone signals between Europe and the U.S.

1962 - Fred Baldasare swam the English Channel underwater. It was a 42 miles and took 18 hours.

1969 - The National League was divided up into two baseball divisions.

1973 - Britain granted the Bahamas their independence after three centuries of British colonial rule.

1984 - Dwight ‘Doc’ Gooden, of the New York Mets, became the youngest player to appear in an All-Star Game as a pitcher. He was 19 years, 7 months, and 24 days old.

1985 - Coca-Cola resumed selling the old formula of Coke, it was renamed "Coca-Cola Classic." It was also announced that they would continue to sell "New" Coke.

1989 - Mel Blanc, the "man of a thousand voices," died at age 81. He was known for such cartoon characters as Daffy Duck, Bugs Bunny and Porky Pig.

1990 - Mikhail Gorbachev won re-election as the leader of the Soviet Communist Party.

1991 - Boris Yeltsin took the oath of office as the first elected president of the Russian republic.

1991 - U.S. President Bush lifted economic sanctions against South Africa, citing its "profound transformation" toward racial equality.

1993 - Kenyan runner Yobes Ondieki became the first man to run 10,000 meters in less than 27 minutes.

1997 - Scientists in London said DNA from a Neanderthal skeleton supported a theory that all humanity descended from an "African Eve" 100,000 to 200,000 years ago.

1998 - The World Bank approved a $700 million loan to Thailand.

1998 - The U.S. military delivered the remains of Air Force 1st Lt. Michael Blassie to his family in St. Louis. He had been placed in Arlington Cemetery's Tomb of the Unknown in 1984. His identity had been confirmed with DNA tests.

1999 - The heads of six African nations that had troops in the Democratic Republic of the Congo signed a cease-fire agreement that would end the civil war in that nation.

2002 - Peter Paul Rubens' painting "The Massacre of the Innocents" sold for $76.2 million at Sotheby's.

July 11, 2012

1346 - Charles IV of Luxembourg was elected Holy Roman Emperor in Germany.

1533 - Henry VIII, who divorced his wife and became head of the church of England, was excommunicated from the Catholic Church by Pope Clement VII.

1708 - The French were defeated at Oudenarde, Malplaquet, in the Netherlands by the Duke of Marlborough and Eugene of Savoy.

1742 - A papal decree was issued condemning the disciplining actions of the Jesuits in China.

1786 - Morocco agreed to stop attacking American ships in the Mediterranean for a payment of $10,000.

1798 - The U.S. Marine Corps was formally re-established by "An Act for Establishing a Marine Corps" passed by the U.S. Congress. The act also created the U.S. Marine Band. The Marines were first commissioned by the Continental Congress on November 10, 1775.

1804 - The United States' first secretary of the treasury, Alexander Hamilton, was killed by Vice President Aaron Burr in a duel.

1864 - In the U.S., Confederate forces led by Gen. Jubal Early began an invasion of Washington, DC. They turned back the next day.

1914 - Babe Ruth debuted in the major leagues with the Boston Red Sox.

1918 - Enrico Caruso recorded "Over There" written by George M. Cohan.

1934 - The first appointments to the newly created Federal Communications Commission were made.

1934 - U.S. President Franklin Delano Roosevelt became the first American chief executive to travel through the Panama Canal while in office.

1955 - The U.S. Air Force Academy was dedicated in Colorado Springs, CO, at Lowry Air Base.

1960 - In Honolulu, HI, the first tournament held outside the Continental U.S., sanctioned by the U.S. Golf Association, began.

1962 - The first transatlantic TV transmission was sent through the Telstar I satellite.

1972 - U.S. forces broke the 95-day siege at An Loc in Vietnam.

1977 - The Medal of Freedom was awarded posthumously to Rev. Martin Luther King Jr. in a White House ceremony.

1979 - The abandoned U.S. space station Skylab returned to Earth. It burned up in the atmosphere and showered debris over the Indian Ocean and Australia.

1985 - Dr. H. Harlan Stone announced that he had used zippers for stitches on 28 patients. The zippers were used when he thought he may have to re-operate.

1985 - Nolan Ryan (Houston Astros) became the first major league pitcher to earn 4,000 strikeouts in a career. (Texas)

1987 - Bo Jackson signed a contract to play football for the L.A. Raiders for 5 years. He was also continued to play baseball for the Kansas City Royals. (California)

1995 - Full diplomatic relations were established between the United States and Vietnam.

1998 - U.S. Air Force Lt. Michael Blassie, a casualty of the Vietnam War, was laid to rest near his Missouri home. He had been positively identified from his remains that had been enshrined in the Tomb of the Unknowns in Arlington, VA.

1999 - A U.S. Air Force jet flew over the Antarctic and dropped off emergency medical supplies for Dr. Jerri Nelson after she had discovered a lump in her breast. Nelso was at the Amundsen-Scott South Pole Research Center.

2000 - The video "Jaws," the Anniversary Collector's Edition, was released.

2000 - Liam Neeson broke his pelvis after hitting a deer with his Harley Davidson motorcycle.

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