Events Pre-1600 229 – Sun Quan proclaims himself emperor of Eastern Wu. 1266 – War of Saint Sabas: In the Battle of Trapani, the Venetians defeat a larger Genoese fleet, capturing all its ships. 1280 – The Spanish Reconquista: In the Battle of Moclín the Emirate of Granada ambush a superior pursuing force, killing most of them in a military disaster for the Kingdom of Castile. 1287 – The Aragonese fleet under Roger of Lauria defeats a Angevin fleet in the Battle of the Counts close to Naples. 1305 – A peace treaty between the Flemish and the French is signed at Athis-sur-Orge. 1314 – First War of Scottish Independence: The Battle of Bannockburn (south of Stirling) begins. 1532 – Henry VIII of England and Francis I of France sign the "Treaty of Closer Amity With France" (also known as the Pommeraye treaty), pledging mutual aid against Charles V, Holy Roman Emperor. 1565 – Dragut, commander of the Ottoman navy, dies during the Great Siege of Malta. 1594 – The Action of Faial, Azores. The Portuguese carrack Cinco Chagas, loaded with slaves and treasure, is attacked and sunk by English ships with only 13 survivors out of over 700 on board.
1601–1900 1683 – William Penn signs a friendship treaty with Lenape Indians in Pennsylvania. 1713 – The French residents of Acadia are given one year to declare allegiance to Britain or leave Nova Scotia, Canada. 1757 – Battle of Plassey: Three thousand British troops under Robert Clive defeat a 50,000-strong Indian army under Siraj ud-Daulah at Plassey. 1758 – Seven Years' War: Battle of Krefeld: British, Hanoverian, and Prussian forces defeat French troops at Krefeld in Germany. 1760 – Seven Years' War: Battle of Landeshut: Austria defeats Prussia. 1780 – American Revolution: Battle of Springfield fought in and around Springfield, New Jersey (including Short Hills, formerly of Springfield, now of Millburn Township). 1794 – Empress Catherine II of Russia grants Jews permission to settle in Kyiv. 1810 – John Jacob Astor forms the Pacific Fur Company. 1812 – War of 1812: Great Britain revokes the restrictions on American commerce, thus eliminating one of the chief reasons for going to war. 1860 – The United States Congress establishes the Government Printing Office. 1865 – American Civil War: At Fort Towson in the Oklahoma Territory, Confederate Brigadier General Stand Watie surrenders the last significant Confederate army. 1868 – Christopher Latham Sholes receives a patent for an invention he called the "Type-Writer". 1887 – The Rocky Mountains Park Act becomes law in Canada, creating the nation's first national park, Banff National Park. 1894 – The International Olympic Committee is founded at the Sorbonne in Paris, at the initiative of Baron Pierre de Coubertin.
1901–present 1908 – The Persian Cossack Brigade bombards the building of the National Consultative Assembly of Iran (Majles), killing hundreds of civilians. 1913 – Second Balkan War: The Greeks defeat the Bulgarians in the Battle of Doiran. 1914 – Mexican Revolution: Pancho Villa takes Zacatecas from Victoriano Huerta. 1919 – Estonian War of Independence: The decisive defeat of the Baltische Landeswehr in the Battle of Cēsis; this date is celebrated as Victory Day in Estonia. 1925 – Shameen Incident: British Army and French Army soldiers stationed in the concession of Shameen open fire on Chinese protesters, resulting in at least 52 deaths. 1926 – The College Board administers the first SAT exam. 1931 – Wiley Post and Harold Gatty take off from Roosevelt Field, Long Island in an attempt to circumnavigate the world in a single-engine plane. 1938 – The Civil Aeronautics Act is signed into law, forming the Civil Aeronautics Authority in the United States. 1940 – Henry Larsen begins the first successful west-to-east navigation of Northwest Passage from Vancouver, British Columbia, Canada. 1941 – The Lithuanian Activist Front declares independence from the Soviet Union and forms the Provisional Government of Lithuania; it lasts only briefly as the Nazis will occupy Lithuania a few weeks later. 1942 – World War II: Germany's latest fighter aircraft, a Focke-Wulf Fw 190, is captured intact when it mistakenly lands at RAF Pembrey in Wales. 1944 – An F4 tornado tears through the Appalachian Mountains, killing over 100 people in West Virginia, particularly in the town of Shinnston. 1946 – The 1946 Vancouver Island earthquake strikes Vancouver Island, British Columbia, Canada. 1947 – The United States Senate follows the United States House of Representatives in overriding U.S. President Harry S. Truman's veto of the Taft–Hartley Act. 1951 – The ocean liner is christened and launched. 1956 – The French National Assembly takes the first step in creating the French Community by passing the Loi Cadre, transferring a number of powers from Paris to elected territorial governments in French West Africa. 1959 – Convicted Manhattan Project spy Klaus Fuchs is released after only nine years in prison and allowed to emigrate to Dresden, East Germany where he resumes a scientific career. 1960 – The United States Food and Drug Administration declares Enovid to be the first officially approved combined oral contraceptive pill in the world. 1961 – The Antarctic Treaty System, which sets aside Antarctica as a scientific preserve and limits military activity on the continent, its islands and ice shelves, comes into force. 1967 – Cold War: U.S. President Lyndon B. Johnson meets with Soviet Premier Alexei Kosygin in Glassboro, New Jersey for the three-day Glassboro Summit Conference. 1968 – Seventy-four people were killed and 150 others injured in a stampede at a football match between Boca Juniors and Club Atlético River Plate in Buenos Aires, Argentina."71 Soccer Fans Die in Stampede", Pittsburgh Post-Gazette, June 24, 1968, p1 1969 – Warren E. Burger is sworn in as Chief Justice of the United States Supreme Court by retiring Chief Justice Earl Warren. 1969 – IBM announces that effective January 1970 it will price its software and services separately from hardware thus creating the modern software industry. 1972 – Watergate scandal: U.S. President Richard M. Nixon and White House Chief of Staff H. R. Haldeman are taped talking about illegally using the Central Intelligence Agency to obstruct the Federal Bureau of Investigation's investigation into the Watergate break-ins. 1972 – Title IX of the United States Civil Rights Act of 1964 is amended to prohibit sexual discrimination to any educational program receiving federal funds. 1973 – A fire at a house in Hull, England, which kills a six-year-old boy is passed off as an accident; it later emerges as the first of 26 deaths by fire caused over the next seven years by serial arsonist Peter Dinsdale. 1985 – A terrorist bomb explodes at Narita International Airport near Tokyo, killing two and injuring four. An hour later, the same group detonates a second bomb aboard Air India Flight 182, bringing the Boeing 747 down off the coast of Ireland killing all 329 aboard. 1991 – Sonic the Hedgehog is released in North America on the Sega Genesis platform, beginning the popular video game franchise. 1994 – NASA's Space Station Processing Facility, a new state-of-the-art manufacturing building for the International Space Station, officially opens at Kennedy Space Center. 2001 – The 8.4 southern Peru earthquake shakes coastal Peru with a maximum Mercalli intensity of VIII (Severe). A destructive tsunami followed, leaving at least 74 people dead, and 2,687 injured. 2005 – American social news and discussion site Reddit is founded in Medford, Massachusetts by Steve Huffman and Alexis Ohanian. 2012 – Ashton Eaton breaks the decathlon world record at the United States Olympic Trials. 2013 – Nik Wallenda becomes the first man to successfully walk across the Grand Canyon on a tight rope. 2013 – Militants storm a high-altitude mountaineering base camp near Nanga Parbat in Gilgit–Baltistan, Pakistan, killing ten climbers and a local guide. 2014 – The last of Syria's declared chemical weapons are shipped out for destruction. 2016 – Brexit: The United Kingdom votes in a referendum to leave the European Union, by 52% to 48%. 2017 – A series of terrorist attacks take place in Pakistan, resulting in 96 deaths and wounding 200 others. 2018 – Twelve boys and an assistant coach from a soccer team in Thailand are trapped in a flooding cave, leading to an 18-day rescue operation.
Births
Pre-1600 47 BC – Caesarion, Egyptian king (died 30 BC) 1385 – Stephen, Count Palatine of Simmern-Zweibrücken (died 1459) 1433 – Duke Francis II of Brittany (died 1488) 1456 – Margaret of Denmark, Queen of Scotland (died 1486) 1489 – Charles II of Savoy, Italian nobleman (died 1496) 1534 – Oda Nobunaga, Japanese warlord (died 1582) 1596 – Johan Banér, Swedish field marshal (died 1641)
1601–1900 1616 – Shah Shuja, Mughal prince (died 1661) 1625 – John Fell, English churchman and influential academic (died 1686) 1668 – Giambattista Vico, Italian jurist, historian, and philosopher (died 1744) 1683 – Étienne Fourmont, French orientalist and sinologist (died 1745) 1711 – Giovanni Battista Guadagnini, Italian instrument maker (died 1786) 1716 – Fletcher Norton, 1st Baron Grantley, English lawyer and politician, Solicitor General for England and Wales (died 1789) 1750 – Déodat Gratet de Dolomieu, French geologist and academic (died 1801) 1763 – Joséphine de Beauharnais, French wife of Napoleon I (died 1814) 1799 – John Milton Bernhisel, American physician and politician (died 1881) 1800 – Karol Marcinkowski, Polish physician and activist (died 1846) 1824 – Carl Reinecke, German pianist, composer, and conductor (died 1910) 1843 – Paul Heinrich von Groth, German scientist (died 1927) 1858 – William Ernest Johnson, British philosopher, logician and economic theorist (died 1931) 1859 – Édouard Michelin, founder of Michelin (died 1940) 1860 – Albert Giraud, Belgian poet and librarian (died 1929) 1863 – Sándor Bródy, Hungarian author and journalist (died 1924) 1877 – Norman Pritchard, Indian-English hurdler and actor (died 1929) 1879 – Huda Sha'arawi, Egyptian feminist and journalist (died 1947) 1884 – Cyclone Taylor, Canadian ice hockey player and politician (died 1979) 1888 – Bronson M. Cutting, American publisher and politician (died 1935) 1889 – Anna Akhmatova, Ukrainian-Russian poet and author (died 1966) 1889 – Verena Holmes, English engineer (died 1964) 1894 – Harold Barrowclough, New Zealand military leader, lawyer and Chief Justice (died 1972) 1894 – Alfred Kinsey, American entomologist and sexologist (died 1956) 1894 – Edward VIII, King of the United Kingdom (died 1972) 1898 – Winifred Holtby, English novelist and journalist (died 1935) 1899 – Amédée Gordini, Italian-born French race car driver and sports car manufacturer (died 1979) 1900 – Blanche Noyes, American aviator, winner of the 1936 Bendix Trophy Race (died 1981)
1901–present 1901 – Ahmet Hamdi Tanpınar, Turkish author, poet, and scholar (died 1962) 1903 – Paul Martin Sr., Canadian lawyer and politician (died 1992) 1904 – Quintin McMillan, South African cricketer (died 1938) 1905 – Jack Pickersgill, Canadian civil servant and politician, 35th Secretary of State for Canada (died 1997) 1906 – Tribhuvan of Nepal (died 1955) 1907 – Dercy Gonçalves, Brazilian actress and singer (died 2008) 1907 – James Meade, English economist and academic, Nobel Prize laureate (died 1995) 1909 – David Lewis, Russian-Canadian lawyer and politician (died 1981) 1909 – Georges Rouquier, French actor, director, and screenwriter (died 1989) 1910 – Jean Anouilh, French playwright and screenwriter (died 1987) 1910 – Gordon B. Hinckley, American religious leader, 15th President of The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints (died 2008) 1910 – Milt Hinton, American bassist and photographer (died 2000) 1910 – Bill King, English yachtsman, naval commander and author (died 2012) 1910 – Lawson Little, American golfer (died 1968)