4000 BC – Approximate domestication of the horse in the Eurasian steppes near Dereivka, central Ukraine (hypothesis only)
193 – Didius Julianus, ship owner/emperor of Rome (193), murdered at 61
1215 – Beijing, then under the control of the Jurchen ruler Emperor Xuanzong of Jin, is captured by the Mongols under Genghis Khan, ending the Battle of Beijing.
1495 – Friar John Cor records the first known batch of Scotch whisky.
1533 – Anne Boleyn is crowned Queen of England.
1568 – 18 nobles beheaded in Brussels for treason and heresy by Duke of Alva and authority of Council of Troubles
1571 – John Story, English Catholic martyr, executed at Tyburn by being hung, drawn and quartered
1660 – Mary Dyer is hanged for defying a law banning Quakers from the Massachusetts Bay Colony.
1774 – Boston Port Bill: British government orders Port of Boston closed
1779 – Benedict Arnold, a general in the Continental Army during the American Revolutionary War, is court-martialed for malfeasance.
1789 – 1st US congressional act becomes law (on administering oaths)
1792 – Kentucky is admitted as the 15th state of the United States.
1794 – The battle of the Glorious First of June is fought, the first naval engagement between Britain and France during the French Revolutionary Wars.
1796 – Last of Britain’s troops withdraws from US
1796 – Tennessee is admitted as the 16th state of the United States.
1801 – Brigham Young, Whitingham Vermont, American religious leader (Mormon church) Birthed
1812 – War of 1812: The U.S. President James Madison asks the Congress to declare war on the United Kingdom.
1813 – James Lawrence, the mortally-wounded commander of the USS Chesapeake, gives his final order: “Don’t give up the ship!”
1815 – Napoleon promulgates a revised Constitution after it passes a plebiscite.
1830 – Sahajanand Swami, believed to be an incarnation of god by his followers, leaves his mortal body. (b. 1781)
1831 – James Clark Ross discovers the Magnetic North Pole.
1843 – Henry Faulds, Scottish physician and missionary, developed fingerprinting (d. 1930) was born.
1855 – The American adventurer William Walker conquers Nicaragua.
1857 – Charles Baudelaire’s Fleurs du mal (Flowers of Evil) is published.
1861 – American Civil War, Battle of Fairfax Court House (June 1861): the first land battle of the American Civil War after the Battle of Fort Sumter, producing the first Confederate combat casualty.
1862 – American Civil War, Peninsula Campaign: the Battle of Seven Pines (or the Battle of Fair Oaks) ends inconclusively, with both sides claiming victory.
1868 – James Buchanan, American lawyer and politician, 15th President of the United States (b. 1791) died.
1868 – The Treaty of Bosque Redondo is signed, allowing the Navajos to return to their lands in Arizona and New Mexico.
1880 – US census at 50,155,783
1890 – The United States Census Bureau begins using Herman Hollerith’s tabulating machine to count census returns.
1900 – British army occupiers Pretoria South-Africa
1921 – Race riot in Tulsa Oklahoma (21 whites & 60 blacks killed)
1921 – Nelson Riddle, Oradell NJ, musical conductor (Batman, Frank Sinatra) Born
1926 – Andy Griffith, American actor, singer, producer, and screenwriter (d. 2012) was born.
1926 – Marilyn Monroe, (Norma Jean Mortenson) American model, actress, and singer (d. 1962) was born.
1927 – Lizzie Borden, American accused murderer (b. 1860) died.
1934 – Pat Boone, American singer-songwriter and actor was birthed.
1937 – Morgan Freeman, American actor and producer was born.
1941 – World War II: the Battle of Crete ends as Crete capitulates to Germany.
1943 – British Overseas Airways Corporation Flight 777 is shot down over the Bay of Biscay by German Junkers Ju 88s, killing the actor Leslie Howard and leading to speculation that its shooting down was an attempt to kill the British Prime Minister Winston Churchill.
1946 – Ion Antonescu, “Conducator” (leader) of Romania during World War II, is executed.
1947 – Ron Wood, rock guitarist (Faces, Jeff Beck Group, Rolling Stones) Born
1948 – Tom Sneva, US auto racer (Indianapolis 500-1983) Born
1948 – Sonny Boy Williamson, [John Lee], blues player, dies at 34
1949 – Mike Levine, rock keyboardist/bassist (Triumph) born
1955 – Tony Snow, American journalist, 26th White House Press Secretary (d. 2008) was born.
1958 – Charles de Gaulle comes out of retirement to lead France by decree for six months.
1960 – Paula Hitler, sister of Adolf Hitler. (b. 1896) dies
1965 – Curly Lambeau, first coach of the Green Bay Packers, dies of a heart attack at 67
1967 – Sgt. Pepper’s Lonely Hearts Club Band by the Beatles is released.
1968 – Helen Keller, American author and activist (b. 1880) died.
1972 – Iraq nationalizes Iraq Petroleum Company’s (IPC) concession owned by British Petroleum, Royal Dutch-Shell, Compagnie Francaise des Petroles, Mobil and Standard Oil of New Jersey
1973 – Eight OPEC countries raise price of petroleum by 11.9 percent
1973 – George Harrison’s “Living in the Material World” goes gold
1973 – Heidi Klum, Bergisch Gladbach, North Rhine-Westphalia, German supermodel – born
1974 – Alanis Nadine Morisette, vocalist (Jagged Little Pill) born
1974 – The Heimlich maneuver for rescuing choking victims is published in the journal Emergency Medicine.
1975 – Ron Wood replaces Mick Taylor as Rolling Stone guitarist
1977 – Russia charges “Jewish rights activist” Anatoly Shcharansky with treason
1978 – The first international applications under the Patent Cooperation Treaty are filed.
1980 – Cable News Network (CNN) begins broadcasting.
1987 – Rashid Karami, 10 time premier of Lebanon, dies in bomb attack at 65
1990 – George H. W. Bush and Mikhail Gorbachev sign a treaty to “end” chemical weapon production.
1991 – David Ruffin, vocalist (The Temptations), dies of drug overdose at 50
1996 – Ray Combs, TV host (Family Feud), commits suicide at 40
1996 – Woody Harrelson is arrested in Lee County, Kentucky, after he symbolically planted four hemp seeds to challenge the state law which did not distinguish between industrial hemp and marijuana
1997 – LA Dodger Wilton Guerrero’s bat breaks, revealing it is corked
1999 – Christopher Cockerell, English engineer, invented the hovercraft (b. 1910) died.
2001 – Hank Ketcham, American cartoonist, created Dennis the Menace (b. 1920) died.
2005 – The Dutch referendum on the European Constitution results in its rejection.
2005 – The longest oil/natural gas explosion in the Houston, Texas area occurs in Crosby, Texas. The drill was owned by the Louisiana Oil and Gas Company.
2007 – Jack Kevorkian is released from prison after serving eight years of his 10-25 year prison term for second-degree murder in the 1998 death of Thomas Youk, 52, of Oakland County, Michigan.
2007 – Smoking is banned from United Kingdom’s public places.
2008 – A fire at the backlot of Universal Studios Hollywood destroys several icons from movies, such as Courthouse Square, the clock tower from Back to the Future, and the King Kong exhibit on the studio tour.
2008 – Yves Saint Laurent, French fashion designer (b. 1936) dies
2009 – Air France Flight 447 crashes into the Atlantic Ocean off the coast of Brazil on a flight from Rio de Janeiro to Paris. All 228 passengers and crew were killed.
2009 – General Motors files for chapter 11 bankruptcy. It is the fourth largest United States bankruptcy in history.
2014 – Ann B. Davis, American actress (Alice – the Brady Bunch), dies from a subdural hematoma from a fall at 88