313 – The Edict of Milan, signed by Constantine the Great and co-emperor Valerius Licinius granting religious freedom throughout the Roman Empire, is posted in Nicomedia.
1525 – Martin Luther marries Katharina von Bora, against the celibacy rule decreed by the Roman Catholic Church for priests and nuns.
1625 – King Charles I of England marries Henrietta Maria of France, Princess of France
1740 – Georgia provincial governor James Oglethorpe begins an unsuccessful attempt to take Spanish Florida during the Siege of St. Augustine.
1774 – Rhode Island becomes the first of Britain’s North American colonies to ban the importation of slaves.
1777 – American Revolutionary War: Marquis de Lafayette lands near Charleston, South Carolina, in order to help the Continental Congress to train its army.
1784 – Henry Middleton, American politician, 2nd President of the Continental Congress (b. 1717) died.
1863 – Lucy, Lady Duff-Gordon, English fashion designer (d. 1935) was born. She is also remembered as a survivor of the sinking of Titanic in 1912, and as the losing party in the precedent-setting 1917 contract law case of Wood v. Lucy, Lady Duff-Gordon, in which Judge Benjamin N. Cardozo wrote the opinion for New York’s highest court, the New York Court of Appeals
1893 – Grover Cleveland notices a rough spot in his mouth and on July 1 undergoes secret, successful surgery to remove a large, cancerous portion of his jaw; operation not revealed to US public until 1917, nine years after the president’s death.
1898 – Yukon Territory is formed, with Dawson chosen as its capital.
1910 – Mary Whitehouse, English activist, founded the National Viewers’ and Listeners’ Association (d. 2001) was born.
1917 – World War I: the deadliest German air raid on London during World War I is carried out by Gotha G bombers and results in 162 deaths, including 46 children, and 432 injuries.
1927 – Aviator Charles Lindbergh receives a ticker-tape parade down 5th Avenue in New York City.
1933 – This was one of the worst years of the Great Depression in the 1930s and homeowners got some relief as Congress gave the nod to the Home Owners Refinancing Act as part of the larger NEW DEAL initiative to get America moving again from President Franklin Roosevelt. The act provided mortgage assistance to homeowners or would-be homeowners by providing them money or refinancing existing mortgages, over the next few years the “Home Owners’ Loan Corporation” had refinanced nearly 1 in 5 urban homes in the country. What is often forgotten is most mortgages back then were for much shorter duration often from 10 to 15 years term. ( What the “Home Owners Loan Corporation” did was to offer longer period 20 to 25 years typically which made the payments much lower).
1944 – Ban Ki-moon, South Korean diplomat, 8th Secretary-General of the United Nations was born.
1944 – World War II: German combat elements – reinforced by the 17th SS Panzergrenadier Division – launch a counterattack on American forces near Carentan.
1944 – Germany launches 10 of its new V1 rockets doodlebugs which were pilot less, jet-propelled planes capable of unleashing a ton of cruise missile explosives against Britain. Over time the Germans increased the number of doodlebugs to nearly 100 per day which fell over London
1944 – World War II: Germany launches a V1 Flying Bomb attack on England. Only four of the eleven bombs actually hit their targets.
1949 – Dennis Locorriere, American singer-songwriter and guitarist (Dr. Hook & The Medicine Show) was born.
1951 – Howard Leese, American guitarist and producer (Bad Company and Heart) was born.
1966 – The United States Supreme Court rules in Miranda v. Arizona that the police must inform suspects of their rights before questioning them.
1967 – U.S. President Lyndon B. Johnson nominates Solicitor-General Thurgood Marshall to become the first black justice on the U.S. Supreme Court.
1969 – Governor of Texas Preston Smith signs a bill into law converting the former Southwest Center for Advanced Studies, originally founded as a research arm of Texas Instruments, into the University of Texas at Dallas.
1970 – Rivers Cuomo, American singer-songwriter and guitarist (Weezer, Avant Garde, and Homie) was born.
1970 – “The Long and Winding Road” becomes the Beatles’ last US Number 1 song.
1971 – Vietnam War: The New York Times begins publication of the Pentagon Papers.
1977 – Convicted Martin Luther King Jr. assassin James Earl Ray is recaptured after escaping from prison three days before.
1981 – At the Trooping the Colour ceremony in London, a teenager, Marcus Sarjeant, fires six blank shots at Queen Elizabeth II.
1983 – Pioneer 10 becomes the first man-made object to leave the central Solar System when it passes beyond the orbit of Neptune (the furthest planet from the Sun at the time).
1994 – A jury in Anchorage, Alaska, blames recklessness by Exxon and Captain Joseph Hazelwood for the Exxon Valdez disaster, allowing victims of the oil spill to seek $15 billion in damages.
1996 – The Montana Freemen surrender after an 81-day standoff with FBI agents.
1997 – A jury sentences Timothy McVeigh to death for his part in the 1995 Oklahoma City bombing.
2002 – The United States withdraws from the Anti-Ballistic Missile Treaty.
2002 – Two 14-year-old South Korean girls are struck and killed by a United States Army armored vehicle, leading to months of public protests against the US.
2005 – A jury in Santa Maria, California acquits pop singer Michael Jackson of molesting 13-year-old Gavin Arvizo at his Neverland Ranch.
2007 – The Al Askari Mosque is bombed for a second time.
2008 – Tim Russert, American journalist and lawyer (b. 1950) died.
2013 – The US Supreme Court has ruled the human DNA cannot be patented in a unanimous decision. The ruling also stated that artificially copied genes could be claimed as intellectual property. The ruling came after a firm in Utah patented two genes linked to breast and ovarian cancer.