1865 – 2,000 Union troops arrived in Galveston Bay, Texas. The army announced that the more than 250,000 enslaved black people in the state, were free by executive decree. This day came to be known as “Juneteenth,” by the newly freed people in Texas.
0240 BC – Eratosthenes estimated the circumference of the Earth using two sticks.
0936 – Louis IV [Louis of Overseas], crowned King of France
1179 – The Norwegian Battle of Kalvskinnet outside Nidaros. Earl Erling Skakke is killed, and the battle changes the tide of the civil wars.
1269 – King Louis IX of France orders all Jews found in public without an identifying yellow badge to be fined ten livres of silver.
1306 – The Earl of Pembroke’s army defeats Robert the Bruce’s Scottish army at the Battle of Methven
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
1754 – Albany Congress held by 7 British colonies & Iroquois indians
1778 – U.S. General George Washington’s troops finally left Valley Forge after a winter of training.
1816 – Battle of Seven Oaks between Northwest Company and Hudson Bay Company, near Winnipeg, Manitoba, Canada
1821 – The Ottomans defeated the Greeks at the Battle of Dragasani.
1829 – Robert Peel introduces the Metropolitan Police Act 1829 into Parliament to establish a unified police force for London, the city’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 – The emancipation of slaves was proclaimed in Texas.
1865 – 2,000 Union troops arrived in Galveston Bay, Texas. The army announced that the more than 250,000 enslaved black people in the state, were free by executive decree. This day came to be known as “Juneteenth,” by the newly freed people in Texas. https://nmaahc.si.edu/explore/stories/historical-legacy-juneteenth
1867 – Maximilian I of the Mexican Empire is executed by a firing squad in Quertaro, Quertaro
1870 – After all of the Southern States are formally readmitted to the United States of America, the Confederate States of America ceases to exist.
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.
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).
1939 – In Atlanta, GA, legislation was enacted that disallowed pinball machines in the city.
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.
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 U.S. Senate passes the Civil Rights Act of 1964, 18 Senators unsuccessfully launched a filibuster to prevent passage of the law against discrimination based on race, color, religion, sex, or national origin. Richard Russel stated, “We will resist to the bitter end any measure or any movement which would have a tendency to bring about social equality and intermingling and amalgamation of the races in our (Southern) states.” The bill was signed into law on July 2, 1964.
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.
1971 – Mayor declares state of emergency in Columbus Ga, racial disturbance
1973 – The Case-Church Amendment prevented further U.S. involvement in Southeast Asia.
1978 – Garfield was in newspapers around the U.S. for the first time.
1981 – The European Space Agency sent two satellites into orbit from Kourou, French Guiana.
1982 – In one of the first militant attacks by Hezbollah, David S. Dodge, president of the American University in Beirut, is kidnapped
1983 – Lixian-nian was chosen to be China’s first president since 1969.
1987 – The U.S. Supreme Court struck down the Louisiana law that required that schools teach creationism.
1987 – ETA commits one of its most violent attacks, in which a bomb is set off in a supermarket, Hipercor, killing 21 and injuring 45
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.
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.
2006 – Prime ministers of several northern European nations participate in a ceremonial “laying of the first stone” at the Svalbard Global Seed Vault in Spitsbergen, Norway.
2012 – A man is beheaded for witchcraft and sorcery in Saudi Arabia
2013 – 48 people are killed by armed bandits in Zamfara State, Nigeria
2017 – Brexit negotiations begin between United Kingdom and the European Union in Brussels
2017 – Russia warns the US it will target US and allied aircraft over Syria after US fighter shoots down Syrian warplane
2018 – Canada’s Senate votes to legalize recreational marijuana use, first major economy to do so
2019 – UN says over 70 million people in the world are displaced, asylum seekers or refugees around the world, their highest-ever number in 70 years
2022 – US Center for Disease Control recommends Covid-19 vaccines for kids aged 6-months to 5 years
REFERENCE: history.net, onthisday.com, thepeopleshistory.com, timeanddate.com, scopesys.com, on-this-day.com
