Events Pre-1600 451 – Battle of Chalons: Flavius Aetius battles Attila the Hun. After the battle, which was inconclusive, Attila retreats. Despite suffering catastrophic losses that led to the collapse of their alliance with the Goths and the destruction of much of the Roman army, the Romans nevertheless proclaimed victory despite the lack of any clear military success. 1180 – First Battle of Uji, starting the Genpei War in Japan. 1210 – Michael I Komnenos Doukas, the first ruler of the despotate of Epirus, signs a treaty with the Republic of Venice and becomes their vassal. 1295 – The Treaty of Anagni, an attempt mediated by the papacy to end the War of the Sicilian Vespers, is signed by the crown of Aragon, the kingdom of France and kingdom of Naples.
1601–1900 1622 – The Battle of Höchst takes place during the Thirty Years' War. 1631 – The Sack of Baltimore: The Irish village of Baltimore is attacked by Barbary slave traders. 1652 – Tarhoncu Ahmed Pasha is appointed Grand Vizier of the Ottoman Empire. 1685 – Monmouth Rebellion: James Scott, 1st Duke of Monmouth declares himself King of England at Bridgwater. 1756 – A British garrison is imprisoned in the Black Hole of Calcutta. 1782 – The U.S. Congress adopts the Great Seal of the United States. 1787 – Oliver Ellsworth moves at the Federal Convention to call the government the 'United States'. 1789 – Deputies of the French Third Estate take the Tennis Court Oath. 1791 – King Louis XVI, disguised as a valet, and the French royal family attempt to flee Paris during the French Revolution. 1819 – The U.S. vessel arrives at Liverpool, United Kingdom. It is the first steam-propelled vessel to cross the Atlantic, although most of the journey is made under sail. 1837 – King William IV dies, and is succeeded by his niece, Victoria. 1840 – Samuel Morse receives the patent for the telegraph. 1862 – Barbu Catargiu, the Prime Minister of Romania, is assassinated. 1863 – American Civil War: West Virginia is admitted as the 35th U.S. state. 1877 – Alexander Graham Bell installs the world's first commercial telephone service in Hamilton, Ontario, Canada. 1893 – Lizzie Borden is acquitted of the murders of her father and stepmother. 1895 – The Kiel Canal, crossing the base of the Jutland peninsula and the busiest artificial waterway in the world, is officially opened. 1900 – Boxer Rebellion: The Imperial Chinese Army begins a 55-day siege of the Legation Quarter in Beijing, China. 1900 – Baron Eduard Toll, leader of the Russian Polar Expedition of 1900, departs Saint Petersburg in Russia on the explorer ship Zarya, never to return.
1901–present 1921 – Workers of Buckingham and Carnatic Mills in the city of Chennai, India, begin a four-month strike. 1926 – The 28th International Eucharistic Congress begins in Chicago, with over 250,000 spectators attending the opening procession. 1942 – The Holocaust: Kazimierz Piechowski and three others, dressed as members of the SS-Totenkopfverbände, steal an SS staff car and escape from the Auschwitz concentration camp. 1943 – The Detroit race riot breaks out and continues for three more days. 1943 – World War II: The Royal Air Force launches Operation Bellicose, the first shuttle bombing raid of the war. Avro Lancaster bombers damage the V-2 rocket production facilities at the Zeppelin Works while en route to an air base in Algeria. 1944 – World War II: The Battle of the Philippine Sea concludes with a decisive U.S. naval victory. The lopsided naval air battle is also known as the "Great Marianas Turkey Shoot". 1944 – World War II: During the Continuation War, the Soviet Union demands unconditional surrender from Finland during the beginning of partially successful Vyborg–Petrozavodsk Offensive. The Finnish government refuses. 1944 – The experimental MW 18014 V-2 rocket reaches an altitude of 176 km, becoming the first man-made object to reach outer space. 1945 – The United States Secretary of State approves the transfer of Wernher von Braun and his team of Nazi rocket scientists to the U.S. under Operation Paperclip. 1948 – In Western Allied-occupied Germany, the Currency Reform of 1948 goes into effect, introducing the Deutsche Mark. The Soviet Military Administration in Germany responded by imposing the Berlin Blockade four days later. 1956 – A Venezuelan Super-Constellation crashes in the Atlantic Ocean off Asbury Park, New Jersey, killing 74 people. 1959 – A rare June hurricane strikes Canada's Gulf of St. Lawrence killing 35. 1960 – The Mali Federation gains independence from France (it later splits into Mali and Senegal). 1963 – Following the Cuban Missile Crisis, the Soviet Union and the United States sign an agreement to establish the so-called "red telephone" link between Washington, D.C., and Moscow. 1964 – A Curtiss C-46 Commando crashes in the Shengang District of Taiwan, killing 57 people. 1972 – Watergate scandal: An -minute gap appears in the tape recording of the conversations between U.S. President Richard Nixon and his advisers regarding the recent arrests of his operatives while breaking into the Watergate complex. 1973 – Snipers fire upon left-wing Peronists in Buenos Aires, Argentina, in what is known as the Ezeiza massacre. At least 13 are killed and more than 300 are injured. 1973 – Aeroméxico Flight 229 crashes on approach to Licenciado Gustavo Díaz Ordaz International Airport, killing all 27 people on board. 1975 – The film Jaws is released in the United States, becoming the highest-grossing film of that time and starting the trend of films known as "summer blockbusters". 1979 – ABC News correspondent Bill Stewart is shot dead by a Nicaraguan National Guard soldier under the regime of Anastasio Somoza Debayle during the Nicaraguan Revolution. The murder is caught on tape and sparks an international outcry against the regime. 1982 – The International Conference on the Holocaust and Genocide opens in Tel Aviv, despite attempts by the Turkish government to cancel it, as it included presentations on the Armenian genocide. 1982 – The Argentine Corbeta Uruguay base on Southern Thule surrenders to Royal Marine commandos in the final action of the Falklands War. 1988 – Haitian president Leslie Manigat is ousted from power in a coup d'état led by Lieutenant General Henri Namphy. 1990 – Asteroid Eureka is discovered. 1990 – The 7.4 Manjil–Rudbar earthquake affects northern Iran with a maximum Mercalli intensity of X (Extreme), killing 35,000–50,000, and injuring 60,000–105,000. 1991 – The German Bundestag votes to move seat of government from the former West German capital of Bonn to the present capital of Berlin. 1994 – The 1994 Imam Reza shrine bomb explosion in Iran leaves at least 25 dead and 70 to 300 injured. 1996 – Space Shuttle Columbia launches on STS-78 to conduct life science and microgravity research aboard the Spacelab module. 2003 – The Wikimedia Foundation is founded in St. Petersburg, Florida. 2008 – Twelve people are killed, including nine clubgoers and three police officers, during a crowd crush in Mexico City. 2011 – RusAir Flight 9605 crashes in Besovets during approach to Petrozavodsk Airport, killing 47. 2019 – Iran's Air Defense Forces shoot down an American surveillance drone over the Strait of Hormuz amid rising tensions between the two countries. 2025 – The first EF5 tornado in 12 years occurs in Enderlin, North Dakota.
Births Pre-1600 1005 – Ali az-Zahir, Fatimid caliph of Egypt (died 1036) 1389 – John of Lancaster, 1st Duke of Bedford, English statesman (died 1435) 1469 – Gian Galeazzo Sforza, duke of Milan (died 1494) 1566 – Sigismund III Vasa, Polish and Swedish king (died 1632) 1583 – Jacob De la Gardie, Swedish soldier and politician, Lord High Constable of Sweden (died 1652)
1601–1900 1634 – Charles Emmanuel II, duke of Savoy (died 1675) 1642 – (O.S.) George Hickes, English minister and scholar (died 1715) 1647 – (O.S.) John George III, Elector of Saxony (died 1691) 1717 – Jacques Saly, French sculptor and painter (died 1776) 1723 – (O.S.) Adam Ferguson, Scottish philosopher and historian (died 1816) 1737 – Tokugawa Ieharu, Japanese shōgun (died 1786) 1754 – Amalie of Hesse-Darmstadt, princess of Baden (died 1832) 1756 – Joseph Martin Kraus, German-Swedish composer and educator (died 1792) 1761 – Jacob Hübner, German entomologist and author (died 1826) 1763 – Wolfe Tone, Irish rebel leader (died 1798) 1770 – Moses Waddel, American minister and academic (died 1840) 1771 – Thomas Douglas, 5th Earl of Selkirk, Scottish philanthropist and politician, Lord Lieutenant of Kirkcudbright (died 1820) 1771 – Hermann von Boyen, Prussian general and politician, Prussian Minister of War (died 1848) 1777 – Jean-Jacques Lartigue, Canadian bishop (died 1840) 1778 – Jean Baptiste Gay, vicomte de Martignac, French politician, 7th Prime Minister of France (died 1832) 1786 – Marceline Desbordes-Valmore, French poet and author (died 1859) 1796 – Luigi Amat di San Filippo e Sorso, Italian cardinal (died 1878) 1808 – Samson Raphael Hirsch, German rabbi and scholar (died 1888) 1809 – Isaak August Dorner, German theologian and academic (died 1884) 1813 – Joseph Autran, French poet and author (died 1877) 1819 – Jacques Offenbach, German-French cellist and composer (died 1880) 1847 – Gina Krog, Norwegian suffragist and women's rights activist (died 1916) 1855 – Richard Lodge, English historian and academic (died 1936) 1858 – Charles W. Chesnutt, American novelist and short story writer (died 1932) 1859 – Christian von Ehrenfels, Austrian philosopher (died 1932) 1860 – Alexander Winton, Scottish-American race car driver and engineer (died 1932) 1860 – Jack Worrall, Australian cricketer, footballer, and coach (died 1937) 1861 – Frederick Gowland Hopkins, English biochemist and academic, Nobel Prize laureate (died 1947) 1865 – George Redmayne Murray, English biologist and physician (died 1939) 1866 – James Burns, English cricketer (died 1957) 1867 – Leon Wachholz, Polish scientist and medical examiner (died 1942) 1869 – Laxmanrao Kirloskar, Indian businessman, founded the Kirloskar Group (died 1956) 1870 – Georges Dufrénoy, French painter and academic (died 1943) 1872 – George Carpenter, American 5th General of The Salvation Army (died 1948) 1875 – Reginald Punnett, English geneticist, statistician, and academic (died 1967) 1882 – Daniel Sawyer, American golfer (died 1937) 1884 – Mary R. Calvert, American astronomer and author (died 1974) 1884 – Johannes Heinrich Schultz, German psychiatrist and psychotherapist (died 1970) 1885 – Andrzej Gawroński, Polish linguist and academic (died 1927) 1887 – Kurt Schwitters, German painter and illustrator (died 1948) 1889 – John S. Paraskevopoulos, Greek-South African astronomer and academic (died 1951) 1891 – Giannina Arangi-Lombardi, Italian soprano (died 1951) 1891 – John A. Costello, Irish lawyer and politician, 3rd Taoiseach of Ireland (died 1976) 1893 – Wilhelm Zaisser, German soldier and politician (died 1958) 1894 – Lloyd Hall, American chemist and academic (died 1971) 1896 – Wilfrid Pelletier, Canadian pianist, composer, and conductor (died 1982) 1897 – Elisabeth Hauptmann, German author and playwright (died 1973) 1899 – Jean Moulin, French soldier and engineer (died 1943)
1901–present 1903 – Sam Rabin, English wrestler, sculptor, and singer (died 1991) 1905 – Lillian Hellman, American playwright and screenwriter (died 1984) 1906 – Catherine Cookson, English novelist (died 1998) 1906 – Bob King, American high jumper and obstetrician (died 1965) 1906 – William Reid, Scottish mining engineer (died 1985) 1907 – Jimmy Driftwood, American singer-songwriter and banjo player (died 1998) 1908 – Billy Werber, American baseball player (died 2009) 1908 – Gus Schilling, American actor (died 1957) 1909 – Errol Flynn, Australian-American actor (died 1959) 1910 – Josephine Johnson, American author and poet (died 1990) 1911 – Gail Patrick, American actress (died 1980)