1976 – Korean axe murder incident: 2 US soldiers tasked with cutting down a poplar tree blocking the view of UN observers are killed by North Koreans claiming it was planted by Kim Il-sung in the Korean Demilitarized Zone
0293BC – The oldest known Roman temple to Venus was founded, starting the institution of Vinalia Rustica (grape harvest festival)
1418 – Competition announced to design the dome of Florence Cathedral, main competitors Lorenzo Ghiberti and Filippo Brunelleschi (supported by Cosimo de’ Medici)
1572 – Wedding in Paris of the Huguenot King Henry IV of Navarre with Marguerite de Valois, in a supposed attempt to reconcile Protestants and Catholics
1587 – Virginia Dare became the first child to be born on American soil of English parents. The colony that is now Roanoke Island, NC, mysteriously vanished.
1587 – Saul Wahl is elected King of Poland (according to legend)
1612 – The Pendle witch trials begin, 11 people – 9 women and 2 men – are tried for practicing witch craft in one of UK’s most well documented and followed witch trials. The trial lasts for two days and 10 of the accused are found guilty and executed on August 20.
1634 – Urbain Grandier, accused and convicted of sorcery, burned alive in Loudun, France
1686 – Cassini reports seeing a satellite orbiting Venus
1735 – The “Evening Post” of Boston, MA, was published for the first time.
1775 – The Spanish established a presidio (fort) and the town came to be called Tucson, Arizona
1817 – Gloucester, Mass, newspapers tells of wild sea serpent seen offshore
1835 – Last Pottawatomie Indians leave Chicago
1846 – Gen. Stephen W. Kearney and his U.S. forces captured Santa Fe, NM.
1848 – Camila O’Gorman and Ladislao Gutierrez executed on orders by Argentine dictator Juan Manuel de Rosas.
1868 – Pierre Janssan discovers helium in solar spectrum during eclipse
1894 – The Bureau of Immigration was established by the U.S. Congress.
1903 – German engineer Karl Jatho allegedly flies his self-made, motored gliding airplane four months before the first flight of the Wright Brothers
1909 – Tokyo mayor Yukio Ozaki presents Washington, D.C. with 2,000 cherry trees, which President Taft decides to plant near the Potomac River.
1914 – The “Proclamation of Neutrality” was issued by U.S. President Woodrow Wilson. It was aimed at keeping the U.S. out of World War I.
1916 – Abraham Lincoln’s birthplace was made into a national shrine.
1917 – The Queen’s Hospital opens to provide pioneering plastic surgery for WWI soldiers, led by Harold Gillies in Sidcup, England
1919 – The “Anti-Cigarette League of America” was formed in Chicago IL.
1920 – Tennessee ratified the 19th Amendment to the U.S. Constitution. The Amendment guaranteed the right of all American women to vote.
1938 – The Thousand Islands Bridge was dedicated by U.S. President Franklin D. Roosevelt. The bridge connects the U.S. and Canada.
1940 – Canada and the U.S. established a joint defense plan against the possible enemy attacks during World War II.
1940 – Battle of Britain: The air battle known as “The Hardest Day” occurs; Luftwaffe lose approximately 69 aircraft and the RAF lose 68 in one of the largest ever air battles
1941 – Adolf Hitler orders a temporary halt to Nazi Germany’s systematic euthanasia of mentally ill and handicapped due to protests.
1943 – Final convoy of Jews from Salonika, Greece, arrives at Auschwitz
1950 – Julien Lahaut, the chairman of the Communist Party of Belgium is assassinated by far-right elements
1958 – Vladimir Nabokov’s novel “Lolita” was published, The highly controversial novel written by Russian-American novelist Vladimir Nabakov detailed an adult man’s obsession over 12-year-old Dolores Haze, who he secretly calls Lolita.
1963 – James Meredith graduated from the University of Mississippi. He was the first black man to accomplish this feat.
1966 – The first pictures of earth taken from moon orbit were sent back to the U.S.
1971 – Vietnam War: Australia and New Zealand decide to withdraw their troops from Vietnam.
1976 – Korean axe murder incident: 2 US soldiers tasked with cutting down a poplar tree blocking the view of UN observers are killed by North Koreans claiming it was planted by Kim Il-sung in the Korean Demilitarized Zone https://www.theatlantic.com/international/archive/2018/06/axe-murder-north-korea-1976/562028/
1977 – Steve Biko was arrested at a police roadblock under the Terrorism Act No 83 of 1967 in King William’s Town, South Africa. He would later die of the injuries sustained during this arrest bringing attention to apartheid
1984 – Triangle Oil Corp, above-ground storage tank at Jacksonville Fla, spills 2.5 m gallons of oil burned after lightning sparked a fire
1987 – Ohio health care worker Donald Harvey sentenced to triple life for poisoning 24 patients
1989 – Leading presidential hopeful Luis Carlos Galn is assassinated near Bogot in Colombia.
1990 – The first shots were fired by the U.S. in the Persian Gulf Crisis when a U.S. frigate fired rounds across the bow of an Iraqi oil tanker.
1991 – An unsuccessful coup was attempted in against President Mikhail S. Gorbachev. The Soviet hard-liners were responsible. Gorbechev and his family were effectively imprisoned for three days while vacationing in Crimea.
2000 – Federal jury found the US EPA guilty of discrimination against Dr. Marsha Coleman-Adebayo, under the Civil Rights Act of 1964, later inspiring passage of the No FEAR Act.
2004 – Donald Trump unveiled his board game (TRUMP the Game) where players bid on real estate, buy big ticket items and make billion-dollar business deals.
2005 – Indonesia suffers a Massive Power Outage, Thought to be one of the biggest power outages in recent history, the Java-Bali outage affected about 100 million people. Electricity was restored to most areas within 6 hours
2005 – Dennis Rader is sentenced to 175 years in prison for the BTK serial killings.
2012 – Al-Qaeda militants kill 14 people in an attack in Aden, Yemen
2017 – Civilian researchers led by Paul Allen re-discover the USS Indianapolis 18,000 feet below the Pacific surface, 72 years after it was sunk by Japanese torpedoes
2019 – Iceland holds a funeral for the first glacier lost to climate change at site of Okjökull glacier
2019 – US President Donald Trump confirms he is interested in buying Greenland for the US
2020 – Mali’s President Ibrahim Boubacar Keïta resigns amid a military coup condemned by the UN Security Council
2022 – Huge megalithic complex of more than 500 standing stones announced discovered at La Torre-La Janera, Huelva, southern Spain
REFERENCE: history.net, onthisday.com, thepeopleshistory.com, timeanddate.com, scopesys.com, on-this-day.com
