1910 – The first Father’s Day was celebrated in Spokane, Washington.
0240 BC – Eratosthenes estimated the circumference of the Earth using two sticks.
0936 – Louis IV [Louis of Overseas], crowned King of France
1269 – King Louis IX of France decrees all Jews must wear a yellow badge in public or be fined 10 livres of silver
1464 – French King Louis XI forms postal service
1586 – English colonists sailed away from Roanoke Island, NC, after failing to establish England’s first permanent settlement in America.
1603 – Merga Bien arrested for witchcraft in Fulda, Germany, part of Fulda witch trials. She and about 250 people later burned at the stake.
1610 – Samuel de Champlain and his French army defeat the Mohawk people at the Battle of Sorel in New France, present-day Sorel-Tracy, Quebec
1778 – Washington’s troops finally leave Valley Forge
1790 – French Revolution: The National Assembly issues a decree abolishing the titles, orders and other privileges of the French nobility
1829 – Robert Peel introduces the Metropolitan Police Act 1829 into Parliament to establish a unified police force for London, world’s 1st modern police force
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 – Union General Gordon Granger declares slaves are free in Texas, now the date the end of slavery is celebrated across the US as Juneteenth
1910 – The first Father’s Day was celebrated in Spokane, Washington.
1911 – In Pennsylvania, the first motion-picture censorship board was established.
1913 – Natives Land Act, Act No 27, passed in South Africa: confines Africans to hopelessly overcrowded reserves and deprives them of rights to purchase land outside the native reserves
1917 – During World War I, King George V ordered the British royal family to dispense with German titles and surnames.
1933 – France granted Leon Trotsky political asylum.
1934 – The U.S. Congress established the Federal Communications Commission (FCC). The commission was to regulate radio and TV broadcasting (later).
1941 – US President Franklin Roosevelt signs the Two Ocean Navy Expansion Act
1941 – Soviet anthropologist Michael Gerasimov opens tomb of Timurid Empire founder Timur and allegedly finds the inscription that whoever opens the tomb shall “unleash an invader more terrible than I.” Three days later Germany invades Russia.
1944 – World War II: First day of the 2 day Battle of the Philippine Sea, US naval forces defeat 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.
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.
1968 – 50,000 people marched on Washington, DC. to support the Poor People’s Campaign.
1976 – US Viking 1 goes into Martian orbit after 10-month flight from Earth
1982 – The body of God’s Banker, Roberto Calvi is found hanging beneath Blackfriars Bridge in London
1987 – The U.S. Supreme Court struck down the Louisiana law that required that schools teach creationism.
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.
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.
2012 – A man is beheaded for witchcraft and sorcery in Saudi Arabia
2017 – Russia warns the US it will target US and allied aircraft over Syria after US fighter shoots down Syrian warplane
2019 – US Nxivm sex cult leader Keith Raniere found guilty in New York court of racketeering, sex trafficking and child pornography
2019 – US Senators receive a classified briefing on possible UFO sightings by the US Navy
REFERENCE: history.net, onthisday.com, thepeopleshistory.com, timeanddate.com, scopesys.com, on-this-day.com
