This Day In History （请勿跟贴，谢谢！）

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June 21


1945:
Japanese defenses crushed on Okinawa.
On April 1, 1945, during World War II, some 60,000 U.S. troops landed on the west coast of Okinawa, regarded as the last stepping stone to be taken before the assault on the main islands of Japan. Although the Japanese employed 355 kamikaze air raids and the Yamato, the greatest battleship in the world (sunk on April 7), in defense of the island, U.S. ground forces met little opposition on the beaches, because the Japanese commander, Lieutenant General Ushijima Mitsuru, had decided to offer his main resistance inland, out of range of the enemy's naval guns. In the southern half of the island this resistance was bitterest and lasted until this day. Ushijima killed himself the next day.

1982:
John Hinckley, Jr., was ruled to be innocent by reason of insanity in the shooting of U.S. President Ronald Reagan.

1963:
Paul VI was elected pope of the Roman Catholic church.

1919:
Italian American architect Paolo Soleri was born in Turin, Italy.

1870:
The Tianjin (Tientsin) Massacre—a violent outbreak of Chinese xenophobic sentiment toward Westerners—erupted in Tianjin, China.

1834:
Cyrus McCormick received a patent for his 1831 invention of a reaper.
1813: The Battle of Vitoria was fought during the Peninsular War, breaking Napoleon's power in Spain.

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June 20


1567:
Casket Letters found.
The Casket Letters—which directly implicated Mary, Queen of Scots, in a plot with James Hepburn, 4th earl of Bothwell, to murder Mary's husband, Henry Stewart, Lord Darnley—were said to have been discovered this day in 1567.

1992:
A new constitution went into effect in Paraguay, signaling the end of military rule established in the 1950s by Alfredo Stroessner.

1940:
A new government was announced in Latvia following the Soviet Red Army's invasion of the country.

1928:
American jazz musician Eric Dolphy was born in Los Angeles.

1905:
American playwright and screenwriter Lillian Hellman was born in New Orleans, Louisiana.

1887:
German Dada artist and poet Kurt Schwitters was born in Hannover.

1789:
Locked out of their meeting hall at Versailles, the deputies of the Third Estate in France congregated on a nearby tennis court and took an oath not to separate until a written constitution had been established—the Tennis Court Oath.

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June 19


1953:
Rosenbergs executed for espionage.
After the failure of court appeals and of a worldwide campaign for mercy, husband and wife Julius and Ethel Rosenberg were put to death this day in 1953, becoming the first American civilians to be executed for espionage.

1963:
Soviet cosmonaut Valentina V. Tereshkova, the first woman to travel in space, returned to Earth in the spacecraft Vostok 6.

1961:
Great Britain recognized Kuwait's independence.

1944:
During World War II the Japanese Combined Fleet and the U.S. Fifth Fleet engaged in a major air-and-sea battle, the Battle of the Philippine Sea, which ended the next day with a U.S. victory.

1934:
The Federal Communications Commission was organized in the United States.

1903:
Lou Gehrig (the “Iron Horse”), one of the most durable players in American professional baseball and one of its great hitters, was born.

1867:
The emperor of Mexico, Maximilian, was executed by a firing squad.

1846:
Alexander Joy Cartwright arranged a baseball game between the New York Knickerbockers and the New York Nine at Hoboken, New Jersey—the first baseball game to use the set of rules on which today's game is based.

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July 18


1812:
War of 1812 begun.
On this day U.S. President James Madison signed a declaration of war against Great Britain, initiating the War of 1812, which arose chiefly from U.S. grievances over oppressive maritime practices during the Napoleonic Wars.

1983:
The first American woman to fly into outer space, Sally Ride, was launched with four other astronauts aboard the space shuttle Challenger.
1979: The SALT (Strategic Arms Limitation Talks) II treaty was signed by U.S. President Jimmy Carter and Soviet leader Leonid Ilich Brezhnev.

1940:
Broadcasting from London after France fell to the Nazis, French General Charles de Gaulle appealed to his compatriots to continue World War II under his leadership.

1815:
Napoleon was defeated in the Battle of Waterloo, ending 23 years of recurrent warfare between France and the other powers of Europe.

1429:
Joan of Arc led the French army against the English at Patay, France.

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July 17


1994:
Arrest of O.J. Simpson.
On this day in 1994, American gridiron football hero O.J. Simpson was charged with the murders of his ex-wife Nicole Simpson and her friend Ronald Goldman, though after a sensational trial he was acquitted the following year.

1972:
The Watergate, an office-apartment-hotel complex in Washington, D.C., and the headquarters of the Democratic National Committee, was broken into by five men who were later arrested, prompting the Watergate Scandal that upended the administration of U.S. President Richard M. Nixon.

1944:
Iceland declared itself a republic.

1940:
The Soviet Red Army invaded Latvia, which led to the incorporation of the country into the U.S.S.R.

1930:
The United States imposed the protectionist Smoot-Hawley Tariff, raising the average tariff by some 20 percent and making worse an already beleaguered world economy.
1871:
James Weldon Johnson—a poet, diplomat, and anthologist of African American culture—was born.

1775:
In the Battle of Bunker Hill, American colonial revolutionaries clashed with British regulars during the Siege of Boston.

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June 16


1963:
First woman in space.
On this day in 1963, Soviet cosmonaut Valentina V. Tereshkova became the first woman to travel in space, having been launched into orbit aboard the spacecraft Vostok 6, which completed 48 orbits in 71 hours.

1976:
South African police fired on a group of Soweto students marching in protest against state plans to impose the Afrikaans language as a medium of instruction in black schools, igniting a massive popular uprising.

1933:
The Hundred Days period of U.S. President Franklin D. Roosevelt came to a close, with the bulk of his New Deal legislation passed.

1933:
The Federal Deposit Insurance Corporation (FDIC) was created under authority of the Federal Reserve Act of 1933.

1932:
The Lausanne Conference, held to liquidate Germany's payment of reparations to the former Allied and Associated powers of World War I, opened.

1917:
American publisher Katharine Graham, owner and publisher of The Washington Post and Newsweek magazine, was born in New York City.

1903:
The Ford Motor Company was founded by Henry Ford and 11 associate investors.

1874:
Arthur Meighen, leader of the Conservative Party and prime minister of Canada (1920–21, 1926), was born.

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June 15


1215:
Magna Carta sealed by King John.
Magna Carta—a charter of English liberties that occupies a unique place in the popular imagination as a symbol and a battle cry against oppression—was sealed this day, under threat of civil war, by King John in 1215.

1944:
During World War II, U.S. Marines attacked Saipan in the Mariana Islands.

1903:
American automobile-racing driver Barney Oldfield accomplished the first mile-a-minute performance in a car at Indianapolis, Indiana.

1861:
Austrian contralto Ernestine Schumann-Heink, one of the principal interpreters of the operas of Richard Wagner and Richard Strauss before the outbreak of World War I, was born.

1846:
The United States and Britain signed the Oregon Treaty, establishing the border between Canada and the United States at latitude 49° N.

1844:
Charles Goodyear received a patent for the process of rubber vulcanization.

1775:
George Washington was named commander in chief of the colonies by the Continental Congress.

1752:
Benjamin Franklin flew a kite during a storm in Philadelphia to demonstrate the relationship between electricity and lightning.

1389:
The Battle of Kosovo, fought between the armies of the Serbian prince Lazar and the forces of the Ottoman sultan Murad I, concluded with an Ottoman victory.

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June14


1940:
First prisoners at Auschwitz.
On this day in 1940, the first transport of Polish political prisoners arrived at Auschwitz, which became Nazi Germany's largest concentration, extermination, and slave-labour camp, where more than one million people died.

1982:
The surrender of the large Argentine garrison at Port Stanley to the British military concluded the Falkland Islands War, which was fought for the control of the Falkland Islands (Islas Malvinas) and its dependencies—territory long disputed by the warring nations.

1963:
The manned Soviet spacecraft Vostok 5 was launched, and two days later Vostok 6 was sent into orbit, carrying Valentina V. Tereshkova, the first woman cosmonaut.

1928:
Che Guevara—a theoretician and tactician of guerrilla warfare, a prominent communist figure in the Cuban Revolution (1956–59), and a guerrilla leader in South America—was born.

1807:
Napoleon won the Battle of Friedland, leading to a treaty with Alexander I of Russia.
1800: Napoleon and his troops defeated the Austrians in the Battle of Marengo, securing his military and civilian authority in Paris.

1777:
The Continental Congress approved the Stars and Stripes as the first national flag of the United States.

1658:
The French and English defeated Spanish forces near Dunkirk (then in the Spanish Netherlands) in the Battle of the Dunes.

1645:
The parliamentary New Model Army led by Oliver Cromwell defeated the royalists under Prince Rupert in the Battle of Naseby.

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June 13



2000:
Historic meeting between North and South Korean leaders.

On this day in 2000, South Korean President Kim Dae Jung met North Korean leader Kim Jong Il in a summit that marked the first meeting between heads of the two countries, helping earn Kim Dae Jung the Nobel Peace Prize.

1971:
The New York Times began publishing the “Pentagon Papers”—a series of articles based on a study of the U.S. role in Indochina from World War II until May 1968.

1967:
Thurgood Marshall was nominated as justice to the U.S. Supreme Court by President Lyndon B. Johnson.

1966:
The U.S. Supreme Court ruled in favour of Ernesto Miranda in Miranda v. Arizona, affirming that constitutional guarantees against self-incrimination include restrictions on police interrogation of an arrested suspect.

1913:
Hudson Stuck and Harry Karstens led a mountaineering party to the south peak, the true summit of Mount McKinley, becoming the first people to ascend North America's highest peak (6,194 metres [20,320 feet]).
1897: Finnish track athlete Paavo Nurmi—who dominated long-distance running in the 1920s, capturing nine gold medals in three Olympic Games (1920, 1924, 1928)—was born.

1878:
The Congress of Berlin met to sign the Treaty of Berlin to replace the Treaty of San Stefano, which had been signed by Russia and Turkey (March 3, 1878) at the conclusion of the last of the Russo-Turkish wars.

323:
The king of Macedonia, Alexander the Great, died in Babylon.

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June 12


1991:
Election of Boris Yeltsin.
On this day in 1991, Boris Yeltsin was easily elected president of Russia (then part of the Soviet Union) in the republic's first direct, popular elections, and he was president of independent Russia until the eve of 2000.

1991:
A series of major explosions began inside Mount Pinatubo, a volcano in western Luzon, Philippines—its first eruption in 600 years.

1941:
American jazz pianist, composer, and bandleader Chick Corea was born in Chelsea, Massachusetts.

1924:
George Bush, vice president of the United States (1981–89) and 41st president of the United States (1989–93), was born.
1898: The Philippines, under revolutionary leader Emilio Aguinaldo, declared its independence from Spain.

1776:
The constitutional convention of the colony of Virginia adopted the Virginia Declaration of Rights, a model for the Bill of Rights later added to the U.S. Constitution.

1707:
Bahādur Shāh I won the Mughal throne of India by defeating his brother ʿAẓam Shāh at the Battle of Jajau.

1701:
The Act of Settlement, the law that continues to regulate the succession to the throne of the United Kingdom, was passed by Parliament.

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June 11

2001:
Oklahoma City bomber executed.
Timothy McVeigh—convicted of the bombing of a federal building in Oklahoma City on April 19, 1995, which killed 168 people in what was then the worst terrorist attack in the U.S.—was executed this day in 2001.

1950:
Capping a dramatic recovery from a near-fatal automobile accident, American golfer Ben Hogan won the U.S. Open.

1927:
American aviator Charles A. Lindbergh was awarded the Distinguished Flying Cross by U.S. President Calvin Coolidge.

1898:
The Guangxu emperor of China issued his first reform decree initiating the Hundred Days of Reform, an imperial attempt at renovating the Chinese state and social system.

1742:
The empress Maria Theresa of Austria decided to make peace with Prussian King Frederick II, ceding almost all of Silesia to him in the Treaty of Breslau, which marked the end of the First Silesian War.

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June 10


1865:
Richard Wagner's Tristan und Isolde premiered.
Tristan und Isolde, the earliest example of what Richard Wagner called “music drama,” was first performed this day in 1865 in Munich, Germany, and became the greatest German opera of the late 19th century.

1940:
Italy declared war against France and Great Britain, entering World War II.

1868:
Serbian Prince Michael III was assassinated, derailing the Balkan League's plans for a coordinated rebellion against the Ottomans and destroying the league.

1847:
The Chicago Tribune, one of the leading daily American newspapers and long the dominant, sometimes strident, voice of the Midwest, began publication.

1819:
Gustave Courbet, French painter and leader of the Realist movement, was born in Ornans.

1772:
Rhode Islanders in the American colonies boarded and sank the British revenue cutter Gaspee in Narragansett Bay.
1190: Holy Roman Emperor Frederick I (Frederick Barbarossa) drowned while trying to cross the Saleph River on the Third Crusade to the Holy Land.

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June 09


1983:
Landslide reelection victory for Margaret Thatcher.
British Conservative Prime Minister Margaret Thatcher, buoyed by victory in the Falkland Islands War and by deep divisions within the opposition Labour Party, was easily reelected to a second term in office this day in 1983.

1967:
Israeli forces attacked the Golan Heights in southwestern Syria.

1942:
On this day the residents of the village of Lidice (now in the Czech Republic) were rounded up, most to be massacred the next day in reprisal for the assassination of Reinhard Heydrich, deputy leader of the Nazi paramilitary group SS, by Czech underground fighters.

1940:
German tank forces under Major General Erwin Rommel crossed the Seine River in a push to the Atlantic coast of France during World War II.

1891:
American composer and lyricist Cole Porter was born in Peru, Indiana.

1870:
English writer Charles Dickens, generally considered the greatest Victorian novelist, died at Gad's Hill near Chatham, Kent.

1815:
The Final Act of the Congress of Vienna, comprising several agreements separately negotiated among various participants for the reorganization of Europe in the aftermath of the Napoleonic Wars, was signed by representatives of Austria, France, Great Britain, Portugal, Prussia, Russia, and Sweden.

1781:
English engineer George Stephenson, the principal inventor of the railroad locomotive, was born.

1358:
The Jacquerie, a revolt of French peasants against abuses inflicted upon them by the nobility of northeastern France, suffered a critical defeat at Meaux.

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June 08




1504:
Michelangelo's David installed in Florence.
Believed to have been installed this day in 1504 in the cathedral of Florence was Michelangelo's statue of David, commissioned in 1501 and considered the prime statement of the Renaissance ideal of perfect humanity.

2002:
Serena Williams defeated her sister Venus Williams to win the French Open tennis title.

1966:
The National Football League and the American Football League announced a merger, which became effective in 1970.
1916: Biophysicist Francis Crick, who along with James Dewey Watson and Maurice Wilkins received the 1962 Nobel Prize for Physiology or Medicine for their determination of the molecular structure of deoxyribonucleic acid (DNA), was born in Northampton, England.

1867:
Francis Joseph was crowned king of Hungary.

1191:
At the time of the Third Crusade, Richard I joined the Crusaders in Acre, having conquered Cyprus on his way there.

632:
Muhammad, the founder of the religion of Islam and of the Muslim community, died in Medina.

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June 07


1929:
Lateran Treaty ratified.
Through the Lateran Treaty—signed February 11, 1929, by Benito Mussolini for Italy and by Pietro Gasparri, cardinal secretary of state, for the papacy and ratified this day in 1929—Vatican City became a sovereign state.

1970:
British novelist, essayist, and social and literary critic E.M. Forster died in Coventry, Warwickshire, England.

1917:
Poet Gwendolyn Brooks, whose work depicted the everyday life of urban African Americans and who was the first African American poet to win the Pulitzer Prize (1949), was born.

1832:
Authored by Prime Minister Charles Grey, 2nd Earl Grey, the Reform Act of 1832 came into effect—the first of the British parliamentary bills that expanded the electorate for the House of Commons and rationalized the representation of that body.

1576:
English navigator Martin Frobisher, seeking a Northwest Passage to the Pacific Ocean, departed England, and weeks later he reached Labrador and Baffin Island and discovered the bay that now bears his name.

1520:
Henry VIII of England and Francis I of France and their entourages gathered at the Field of the Cloth of Gold near Calais, France.

1494:
The Treaty of Tordesillas—an agreement between Spain and Portugal aimed at settling conflicts over lands newly discovered or explored by Christopher Columbus and other late 15th-century voyagers—was signed.

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June 06


1944:
Normandy Invasion begun.
Led by U.S. General Dwight D. Eisenhower, an Allied armada of ships, planes, and landing craft and some 156,000 troops began the invasion of northern France from England this day in 1944—the famous “D-Day” of World War II.

1982:
Israel invaded Lebanon and subsequently defeated the Palestine Liberation Organization (PLO), the Syrian armed forces, and assorted leftist Lebanese groups.
1968: U.S. Senator Robert F. Kennedy died of a bullet wound from assassin Sirhan Sirhan.

1934:
The Securities and Exchange Commission (SEC)—a U.S. regulatory agency—was established.

1925:
The automobile manufacturer Chrysler Corporation was incorporated.

1844:
George Williams originated the Young Men's Christian Association (YMCA) in London.

1622:
Pope Gregory XV created the Congregation for the Propagation of the Faith for the organization and direction of the missions of the Roman Catholic Church to the non-Christian world.

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June 05


1965:
First American space walk.
On this day in 1965, Edward H. White II emerged from the orbital spacecraft Gemini 4 during its third orbit and floated in space for about 20 minutes, thus becoming the first American astronaut to walk in space.

1967:
The Six-Day War, the third of the Arab-Israeli wars, began.

1947:
In an address at Harvard University, U.S. Secretary of State George C. Marshall advanced the idea of the Marshall Plan, a European self-help program to be financed by the United States.

1944:
In World War II, Allied forces entered Rome.

1939:
Canadian politician Joe Clark, who in 1979 became the country's youngest prime minister, was born.

1883:
English economist, journalist, and financier John Maynard Keynes, best known for his revolutionary economic theories (Keynesian economics) on the causes of prolonged unemployment, was born.

1849:
The absolute monarchy in Denmark was abolished and replaced by a new constitution that established a constitutional monarchy with a parliament, as well as freedom of the press, religious freedom, and the right to hold meetings and form associations.

1723:
Social philosopher and political economist Adam Smith was baptized in Kirkcaldy, Fife, Scotland.

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June 04


2003:
Martha Stewart indicted.
On this day in 2003, American entrepreneur and domestic lifestyle innovator Martha Stewart was indicted on criminal charges in relation to a stock sale, and in 2004 she was convicted and sentenced to five months in prison.

1970:
The Kingdom of Tonga achieved independence within the British Commonwealth.
1942: Japan was repulsed by the United States at the Battle of Midway in World War II.

1940: During World War II the evacuation of Dunkirk, France, came to an end, having saved 198,000 British and 140,000 French and Belgian troops.

1920:
The Treaty of Trianon was signed by representatives of Hungary on one side and the Allied powers on the other, concluding World War I.

1833:
British Field Marshal Garnet Joseph Wolseley, 1st Viscount Wolseley, whose most brilliant campaign involved seizing the Suez Canal and, after a night march, surprising and defeating ʿUrābī Pasha at Al-Tall al-Kabīr (September 13, 1882), was born.

1796:
Napoleon Bonaparte commanded the Siege of Mantua, which resulted in the exclusion of Austrians from northern Italy.

1783:
Joseph-Michel and Jacques-蓆ienne Montgolfier launched an unmanned hot-air balloon, the first public demonstration of the discovery that hot air in a large lightweight bag rises.

1070:
The method for creating Roquefort cheese was discovered in Roquefort, France.

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June 3


1989:
Prodemocracy protest in Tiananmen Square crushed by Chinese military.
On this day in 1989, the Chinese government called in the military to put down a prodemocracy demonstration staged by more than 100,000 people in Tiananmen Square in Beijing, resulting in hundreds of deaths.

1932:
American baseball great Lou Gehrig hit four consecutive home runs in one game.

1926:
American poet Allen Ginsberg, a central figure in the Beat movement, was born in Newark, New Jersey.

1904:
American physician and surgeon Charles Richard Drew, a pioneer in the preservation of blood plasma and a lifelong critic of official decisions to separate the blood of whites and blacks in blood banks, was born in Washington, D.C.

1864:
Considered one of the worst Northern defeats of the American Civil War, the second Battle of Cold Harbor (Virginia), which would result in the loss of about 7,000 Union soldiers under General Ulysses S. Grant, began.

1808:
Jefferson Davis, who became the president of the Confederate States of America, was born in Christian county, Kentucky.

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June 02

1953:
Elizabeth II crowned queen.
On this day in 1953, 27-year-old Elizabeth II, the elder daughter of King George VI, was crowned queen of the United Kingdom at Westminster Abbey, having taken the throne upon her father's death in February 1952.

1997:
A jury in Denver, Colorado, found Timothy McVeigh of the militia movement guilty of murder and conspiracy in the deaths of 168 people in the 1995 Oklahoma City bombing, and he was executed in June 2001.

1946:
In the aftermath of World War II, the people of Italy passed a referendum to replace the governing monarchy with a republic.

1940:
Constantine II, king of Greece from 1964 to 1974, was born in Psikhikó, near Athens.

1886:
Frances Folsom, age 21, married U.S. President Grover Cleveland in the White House and became the youngest first lady in American history.

1865:
Confederate soldiers yielded to Federal troops in Galveston, Texas, marking one of the final land operations of the American Civil War.

1840:
English novelist and poet Thomas Hardy, who set much of his work in Wessex, an imaginary county in southwestern England, was born.

1740:
The Marquis de Sade, the French nobleman known for his erotic and perverse writings, was born in Paris.