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These are some of many widely recognized historic events that occurred during the month of December, listed by year. Dates provided for earlier time events may be approximate. Select another month

609 BCE, December 25 - The first recorded solar eclipse in ancient Babylonia, which marked the beginning of systematic astronomical observations.

399 BCE, December 5 - The Greek philosopher Socrates is sentenced to death by drinking hemlock, following his trial in Athens.

333 BCE, December 1 - Alexander the Great decisively defeats the Persian king Darius III at the Battle of Issus, solidifying his control over Asia Minor.

218 BCE, December 2 - Hannibal, the Carthaginian general, wins a significant victory over the Roman Republic at the Battle of the Trebia during the Second Punic War.

121 BCE, December 15 - Gaius Gracchus, a Roman politician and reformer, is born. He would later become known for his attempts to enact land and citizenship reforms.

106 BCE, December 18 - The birth of Cicero, one of Rome's most famous orators, statesmen, and philosophers.

70 BCE, December 25 - The siege of Jerusalem by the Roman general Titus ends with the destruction of the Second Temple.

68 BCE, December 7 - The birth of the Roman poet Horace (Quintus Horatius Flaccus), known for his Odes and Satires.

65 BCE, December 8 - The birth of the Roman historian and author of "The History of Rome," Livy (Titus Livius).

45 BCE, December 31 - The Julian calendar is introduced by Julius Caesar, with January 1, 45 BCE, as its first day.

43 BCE, December 20 - The  Second Triumvirate in Rome, comprising Octavian, Mark Antony, and Lepidus is established, split ing the Roman world into three sets of provinces and giving each one of the rulers practically absolute power. 

43 BCE, December 23 - Gaius Oppius, a close friend and advisor to Julius Caesar, is born.

40 BCE, December 2 - The Treaty of Brundisium is signed, temporarily ending the Roman civil wars between Octavian and Antony.

40 BCE, December 15 - The birth of the Roman poet and philosopher, Seneca the Younger (Lucius Annaeus Seneca).

21 BCE, December 30 - The Roman poet and author of the "Metamorphoses," Ovid (Publius Ovidius Naso), is born.

17 BCE, December 25 - The Roman emperor Augustus celebrates the Ludi Saeculares, a secular games event, marking the end of a saeculum (a generation) and the beginning of a new one.

6 BCE, December 27 - The Roman emperor Augustus officially adopts his stepson and heir, Tiberius, as his son.

4 BCE, December 25 - The traditionally celebrated birth of Jesus Christ, though the exact date remains a subject of debate among scholars.

3 BCE, December 25 - Herod the Great dies, according to some estimates, around this date. Herod is known for his role in the Nativity story.

1 CE, December 20 - The Roman Emperor Vespasian captures the city of Jerusalem, effectively ending the First Jewish-Roman War.

37 CE, December 20 - Roman Emperor Nero is born, eventually becoming known for his tyrannical rule and the Great Fire of Rome.

45 CE, December 3 - Roman Emperor Augustus celebrates the Ludi Saeculares, a secular games event, marking the end of a saeculum (a generation) and the beginning of a new one.

104 CE, December 30 - The death of Trajan, one of Rome's greatest emperors, and the accession of his successor, Hadrian.

352 CE, December 25 - Pope Julius I officially establishes December 25 as the date of the celebration of the birth of Jesus Christ, now known as Christmas.

357 CE, December 25 - Roman Emperor Constantius II decrees that the pagan festival of Sol Invictus coincides with Christmas, promoting Christianity.

540 CE, December 27 - The death of Chrysaphius, a eunuch advisor to the Byzantine Emperor Justinian I, who played a controversial role in the court.

546 CE, December 27 - The Gothic War, fought between the Eastern Roman Empire and the Ostrogoths, sees a significant battle at Taginae, resulting in a Byzantine victory.

557 CE, December 14 - Constantinople, the capital of the Byzantine Empire, is significantly damaged by a 6.4 magnitude earthquake. More

564 CE, December 20 - Saint Columba, an Irish missionary, dies, leaving a lasting legacy in spreading Christianity in Scotland.

674 CE, December 3 - The beginning of the construction of the Dome of the Rock in Jerusalem, an iconic Islamic shrine.

771 CE, December 25 - Charlemagne becomes the King of the Franks after the death of his brother Carloman I.

820 CE, December 24 - The Byzantine Empire defeats the forces of the Abbasid Caliphate at the Battle of Mehmetçik, marking a significant victory in the Byzantine-Arab Wars.

827 CE, December 20 - The Muslim scholar and polymath Al-Khwarizmi is born, known for his contributions to algebra and mathematics.

875 CE, December 21 - The Treaty of Verdun is signed, dividing the Carolingian Empire into three parts, marking the beginning of the Carolingian dissolution.

884 CE, December 25 - The Danelaw, a region of England under Viking control, sees a series of treaties between the Vikings and the Anglo-Saxons.

910 CE, December 13 - The Buddhist monk Fadeng begins a journey to India, which would later contribute to Chinese Buddhist scholarship.

955 CE, December 6 - Otto I, King of Germany, defeats the Magyars at the Battle of Lechfeld, halting their invasion of Western Europe.

963 CE, December 15 - Emperor Otto I of the Holy Roman Empire dies, and he is succeeded by his son Otto II.

990 CE, December 16 - The Byzantine emperor Basil II wins a decisive victory against the Bulgarians at the Battle of Spercheios.

999 CE, December 31 - Pope Sylvester II dies, marking the end of his papacy, during which he contributed to the advancement of science and mathematics in Europe.

999 CE, December 31 - The coronation of Stephen I as the first Christian king of Hungary, a significant event in the Christianization of the Hungarian people.

1000, December 25 - The coronation of Stephen I as the first Christian king of Hungary, marking the establishment of the Kingdom of Hungary and Hungary's conversion to Christianity.

1002, December 29 - King Æthelred the Unready orders the St. Brice's Day massacre, leading to the killing of many Danish settlers in England.

1006. December - The supernova SN 1006, one of the brightest stellar events recorded, appears in the southern skies after appearing earlier in the year in the north. Now we know that is a remnant of a so-called Type Ia supernova. This class of supernova is caused when a white dwarf pulls too much mass from a companion star and explodes, or when two white dwarfs merge and explode. In this case, the star whose death brightened the early medieval sky was 7200 light years away. That means the supernova really happened about 8.200 years ago, but it took until 1006 for the light of the cosmic explosion to reach Earth. More

1013, December 25 - Sweyn Forkbeard is proclaimed King of England after the English nobility submits to him. Sweyn had built a strong an imposing Danish North Sea empire, establishing control in Norway in 1000 and conquering England in 1013. He died there on February 1014, having ruled England for only five weeks. Sweyn's cause of death is unknown. 

1025, December 24 - The Byzantine Emperor Basil II dies, marking the end of the Macedonian Dynasty

1065, December 28 - Westminster Abbey, located in London, was consecrated and opened by Edward the Confessor and became the site of coronations and other ceremonies of national significance in England. More

1066, December 25 - William the Conqueror, Duke of Normandy, is crowned King of England at Westminster Abbey, following the Norman conquest.

1135, December 1 - The death of King Henry I of England, leading to a period of civil war known as "The Anarchy."

1147, December 24 - The start of the Second Crusade, as European forces begin their journey to the Holy Land.

1154, December 19 - Henry II of England is crowned as king, beginning the Angevin Empire.

1170, December 29 - The murder of Thomas Becket, the Archbishop of Canterbury, in Canterbury Cathedral.

1214, December 27 - The University of Oxford receives its royal charter from King Henry III of England.

1240 December 6 - After an eight-day siege, a Mongol army led by Batu Khan occupies and destroys Kyiv. Out of 50,000 people in the city, only 2,000 survive. The victory allowed Batu Khan to proceed westward into Central Europe. 

1257, December 9 - The Treaty of Paris is signed, ending a conflict between King Louis IX of France and King Henry III of England.

1271, December 24 - Kublai Khan issues a decree that allows Marco Polo to become an emissary of the Mongol Empire.

1287,  December 14 - A heavy storm over the North Sea generated surging waves that collapsed a thin land barrier, flooding the Zuiderzee inlet and causing more than 50,000 casualties. The flood, called the St. Lucia flood, has been rated as one of the most destructive floods in recorded history. The event also created direct sea access for the village of Amsterdam, allowing its development into a major port city.

1294, December 18 - Pope Celestine V abdicates the papacy, becoming one of the few popes to voluntarily resign.

1305, December 5 - Pope Clement V moves the papal residence to Avignon, beginning the Avignon Papacy.

1392, December 18 - The Joseon Dynasty in Korea repels the Japanese invasion during the Battle of Wihwa Island.

1398, December 17 - Tamerlane (Timur) captures and sacks Delhi, leading to the massacre of its inhabitants.

1408, December 28 - The Council of Oxford condemns the teachings of John Wycliffe, a precursor to the Protestant Reformation.

1431, December 16 - Henry VI of England is crowned King of France in Paris, marking a significant moment in the Hundred Years' War.

1431, December 23 - Joan of Arc is captured by the Burgundians and sold to the English, leading to her trial and execution.

1455, December 30 - The Battle of Castillon marks the end of the Hundred Years' War between England and France.

1470, December 29 - The Battle of Wakefield takes place during the Wars of the Roses in England, resulting in a Lancastrian victory.

1492, December 6 - Christopher Columbus reaches the island of Hispaniola (modern-day Haiti and the Dominican Republic) during his first voyage to the Americas.

1497, December 19 - John Cabot, an Italian explorer sailing under the English flag, reaches the coast of what is now North America, likely Canada.

1520, December 10 - Martin Luther throws a copy of the Papal bull, Exsurge Domine (“Arise O Lord”) into a bonfire Upon the expiration of the 60-day period stipulated in the bull which had been promulgated on 15 June 1520 by Pope Leo X in response to the teachings of Martin Luther which opposed the views of the Catholic Church. Luther refused to recant and continued to rebuke the papacy. As a result, Luther was excommunicated on Jan 3, 1521. More

1524, December 24 - Portuguese explorer Vasco da Gama passes away in India during his second voyage to the East.

1531, December 9 - Our Lady of Guadalupe, one of the most important religious icons in Mexico, is believed to have appeared to Juan Diego.

1620, December 18 -  The Mayflower Pilgrims arrive at modern-day Plymouth Harbor, Massachusetts  after spending some time in Cape hook, known today as Provincetown Harbor, and proceed to get ready to establish the Plymouth Colony. More

1639, December 4 - The first documented recorded observation of a transit of Venus across the Sun is made by the English astronomer Jeremiah Horrocks from his home at Carr House in Much Hoole, near Preston in England.

1684, December 10 - Isaac Newton's manuscript "On the motion of bodies in an orbit"; (De Motu) which he had sent to Edmond Halley, is read to the Royal Society.at  in November 1684.  This manuscript gave important mathematical derivations relating to the three relations now known as "Kepler's laws of planetary motion" which before Newton's work had not been generally regarded as scientific laws). After further encouragement from Halley, Newton went on to develop and write his book Philosophiæ Naturalis Principia Mathematica (Principia) which includes nearly all of the manuscript content. More

1688, December 11 - The Glorious Revolution in England sees William of Orange and Mary II take the throne from James II.

1732,  December 19 - Benjamin Franklin publishes his Poor Richard's Almanack, a periodical, containing  affordable information, humor, ideas, advice and the proverbial wisdom, etc. for the populace. More

1768, December 10 - The Encyclopedia Britannica is first published and advertised for sale in Edinburgh, Scotland. It is the oldest continuously published and revised work in the English language. More

1773, December 16 - "The Boston Tea Party" Defiant colonists dump crates of tea into Boston Harbor. This was the culmination of a series of events which led the thirteen American colonies closer to independence. More

1776, December 19 - Thomas Paine’s publishes "The American Crisis" a new pamphlet that appeared in the Pennsylvania Journal that inspired a huge American military victory. Paine had written the words during the army’s retreat from New York: “These are the times that try men’s souls: The summer soldier and the sunshine patriot will, in this crisis, shrink from the service of their country; but he that stands it now, deserves the love and thanks of man and woman. Tyranny, like Hell, is not easily conquered; yet we have this consolation with us, that the harder the conflict, the more glorious the triumph,” More

1776, December 25 - General George Washington and 2,400 Continental soldiers cross the Delaware River in a treacherous storm for a surprise attack against Hessian mercenary forces at Trenton, New Jersey. More

1777, December 17 -  Benjamin Franklin engineers a major diplomatic victory when after nearly a year in France without making much visible progress, the French foreign minister, Charles Gravier, the Count of Vergennes, officially acknowledged the United States as an independent country. Franklin also convinced the French to provide financial and eventually military support to the revolutionary effort in America. A formal treaty with France was signed in Paris on February 6, 1778,. 

1777, December 31 - The British suffer heavy losses in the Battle of Princeton during the American Revolutionary War.

1787, December 7 - Delaware ratifies the Constitution of the United States Union becoming the 1st State to do so.

1787, December 12 - Pennsylvania ratifies the Constitution of the United States becoming the second State of the Union.

1787, December 18 - New Jersey ratifies the Constitution of the United States becoming the third State of the Union.

1790, December 15 - The United States Congress relocates to Philadelphia, Pennsylvania, from New York City.

1794, December 8 - The Great New Orleans Fire destroys 212 structures in the area now known as the French Quarter from Burgundy to Chartres Street, adjacent to the Mississippi River. Just 6 years before, 856 buildings had been destroyed in the First Great New Orleans Fire. More

1799, December 10 - The French revolutionary government declares the metric system to be the official system of weights and measures.

1803, December 20 - The United States officially takes possession of the Louisiana Territory from France in the Louisiana Purchase.

1804. December 20 - Napoleon and Joséphine were crowned Emperor and Empress of the French at Notre-Dame in Paris.  More

1814, December 24 - The Treaty of Ghent is signed, officially ending the War of 1812 between the United States and the United Kingdom.

1816, December 11 - Indiana is admitted into the United States Union becoming the 19th State.

1817, December 10 - Mississippi is admitted into the United States Union becoming the 20th State.

1818. December 3 - Illinois is admitted into the United States Union becoming the 21st State.

1819. December 14 - Alabama is admitted into the United States Union becoming the 22nd State of the Union.

1820 - Moses Austin asks the Spanish government for approval to establish an American Colony in Texas. Approval was granted but Moses Austin died a short time later and the project was taken over by his son Stephen Austin who continued his fathers project and by 1830 there were over 15,000 American settlers. More 

1823, December 2 -  President James Monroe proclaims a new U.S. foreign policy initiative during his annual address to Congress. The U.S. policy, which has become known as the “Monroe Doctrine.” forbade European interference in the American hemisphere but also asserted U.S. neutrality in regard to future European conflicts. More

1831, December 2 - Former U.S. President John Quincy Adams takes his seat in the U.S. House of Representatives, becoming the only former president to do so. Primarily the work of Secretary of State John Quincy Adams,

1831, December 27 - British naturalist Charles Darwin sets out from Plymouth, England, aboard the HMS Beagle on a five-year voyage to the Pacific Ocean including the Galapagos Island in South America and New Zealand. Darwin's discoveries while visiting such diverse places gave him the basis to develop his theory of evolution published in 1859, "On the Origin of Species by Means of Natural Selection." More 

1836, December 28 - Spain finally accepts Mexico’s permanent independence with the Santa Maria-Calatrava Treaty. Spain had previously attempted  to re-invade Mexico in 1829, leading to the Battle of Tampico where Antonio Lopez de Santa Anna, defeated the Spanish and became a war hero. 

1843, December 19 - Charles Dickens' classic novella "A Christmas Carol" is first published in London by Chapman & Hall and sold out by Christmas Eve. It was first published in America in 1844 by Carey & Hart in Philadelphia. Charles Dickens' beloved ghost story. was inspired by Dickens' childhood and his desire to address social issues. It continues to be a robust seller more than 180 years later.  More

1845, December 29 - Texas is admitted into the United States Union becoming the 28th State.

1846, December 28 - Illinois is admitted into the United States Union becoming the 29th State.

1863, December 13 - President Abraham Lincoln  announces a grant of amnesty for Emilie Todd Helm, his wife Mary Lincoln’s half sister, widow of a Confederate general. The pardon was one of the first given under Lincoln’s Proclamation of Amnesty and Reconstruction, announced the week before as part of the president’s plan for the reintegration of the South into the Union. Amnesty grant was available for former Confederates, except he highest officials of the Confederacy, to be granted amnesty if they took an oath to the United States. Lincoln's sister-in-law received the pardon, but never took the required oath.

1865, December 6 -  The 13th amendment, abolishing Slavery becomes part of the U.S. Constitution as the State of Georgia became the 27th State to ratify it. More

1865, December 24 - The KKK is founded in Pulaski, Tennessee,  More

1867, December 4 - The Patrons of Husbandry, better known as the Grange is founded by Oliver Hudson Kelley. The Grange went on to become and influential political force in the western U. S. States. More

1872, December 5 - The Mary Celeste, an American ship that mysteriously disappeared, is discovered adrift and deserted in the Atlantic Ocean off the Azores Islands. The ,Captain, his family, or the crew of the vessel were never found, and the reason for the abandonment of the Mary Celeste has never been determined. More  

1876, December 5 -  A fire at the Brooklyn Theater, which had been built five years earlier, began when a piece of scenery caught fire and fell on the stage. In about 10 minutes, the fire was out of control and the audience panicked. People clogged stairwells and trampled fellow patrons in an attempt to flee the spreading flames. It is estimated that at least 285 perished.. More

1877, December 6 - Thomas Edison successfully demonstrates the phonograph for the first time. Edison filed for a patent for the phonograph on December 24, 1877 and the patent was issued on February 19, 1878. The original phonograph was invented and patented by Edouard-Leon Scott in 1857. He called his device the phonautograph . His invention made a recording of sound waves on a glass plate, but it was not able to play back the sounds. More  

1881, December 8 - The popular Ring Theater catches fire. The official casualty estimate was that 384 people perished in the fire, although other estimates were that up to one thousand could have been killed. More

1884, December 6 - The construction of the Washington Monument is completed with the placement of an 8.9 inch tall, 100-ounce pyramid of solid aluminum atop the capstone. Inscribed on the capstone is the Latin phrase “Laus Deo”, meaning “Praise be to God.” The cornerstone had been laid 36 years earlier on July 4, 1848; the first stone was laid atop the unfinished stump on August 7, 1880;  and the completed monument was dedicated on February 21, 1885. it opened on October 9, 1888.  When completed, the Washington Monument surpassed the Cologne Cathedral (515') to be the tallest building in the world at 555 feet, 5.125 inches. More

1890, December 29 - The Wounded Knee Massacre, also known as the Battle of Wounded Knee takes place. Nearly three hundred Lakota people are massacred by soldiers of the United States Army. More

1891, December 21 - The First Basketball Game is played in Springfield, MA at the YMCA International Training School; which today is Springfield College. The game was created by Dr. James Naismith in response to a request to come up with a new game students could play indoors during the winter that would help keep track and field runners in shape and would be relatively safe to play and would have a small amount of physical contact so that the players would not get injured in this game. More

1894, December 29 - French army officer Alfred Dreyfus is convicted of treason in a highly controversial trial, sparking the Dreyfus Affair.

1895, December 28 - The world’s first commercial movie screening takes place at the Grand Cafe in Paris showing a series of short scenes from everyday French life and charged admission for the first time. The film was made by Louis and Auguste Lumiere, two French brothers who developed a camera-projector called the Cinematographe. They had unveiled their invention to the public in March 1895 with a brief film showing workers leaving the Lumiere factory. More

1896, December 30 - Philippine nationalist José Rizal is publicly executed by the Spanish Colonial government enraging and uniting Filipinos against Spain. Rizal came from a prosperous family, was educated in Manila and at the University of Madrid. A brilliant medical student, he became an ophthalmologist by profession, a writer and a key member of the Filipino Propaganda Movement, which advocated political reforms for the colony under Spain, although he never advocated Philippine independence. The night before his execution he wrote “Último adiós” (“Last Farewell”), a masterpiece of 19th-century Spanish verse. More

1898, December 10 - The Treaty of Paris is signed by representatives of Spain and the United States, concluding the Spanish-American War.

1900, December 14 -  Quantum Theory is born when German theoretical physicist Max Planck shares his hypothesis that  radiation energy is emitted, not continuously, but rather in discrete packets called quanta. The energy E of the quantum is related to the frequency ν by E = hν. The quantity h, now known as Planck’s constant, is a universal constant with the approximate value of 6.62607 × 10−34 joule-second. In 1905 Einstein extended Planck’s hypothesis to explain the photoelectric effect. More

1901, December 10 - The first awarding of five Nobel Prizes take place. Four of them were given out in Stockholm and one, the Peace Prize, in Christiania, as Oslo was then called. Alfred Nobel had died in San Remo, five years earlier. Since 1901, the Nobel Prizes have been presented to new laureates at ceremonies on December 10, the anniversary of Alfred Nobel’s death. More

1901, December 12 -  Guglielmo Marconi and his assistant, George Kemp, confirmed the reception of the first transatlantic radio signals from their test site in St. John, Newfoundland and Labrador, Canada.  With a telephone receiver and a wire antenna kept aloft by a kite, they heard Morse code for the letter "S" transmitted from Poldhu, Cornwall, England. Their experiments showed that radio signals extended far beyond the horizon, giving radio a new global dimension for communication in the twentieth century. More

1903, December 17 - Orville Wright makes the first powered, controlled, and sustained flight in Kitty Hawk, North Carolina as his brother Wilbur looks on. Orville Wright covered 120 feet in 12 seconds during the first flight of the day. The Wright brothers made four flights that day, each longer than the last More  

1907, December 6 - The Monongah coal mine disaster in West Virginia’s Marion County. An explosion in a network of mines owned by the Fairmont Coal Company in Monongah kills 362 coal miners, 171 of them Italian migrants. Others killed in the disaster included Russians, Greeks, and immigrant workers from Austria-Hungary. It was the worst mining disaster in American history. More

1908, December 28 - The Messina Earthquake, Europe's most powerful earthquake shook southern Italy. Centered in the Messina Strait, which separates Sicily from Calabria. The quake's magnitude equaled a 7.5 by today's Richter scale. Moments after a devastating tsunami formed, causing forty-foot waves to crash down on dozens of coastal cities. Most of southern Italy's cities lost as many as half their residents with the total death toll throughout Italy was estimated at nearly 200,000 More

1911,  December 14 - Roald Amundsen’s Norwegian polar team was the first to reach the geographic South Pole on December. Five weeks later, on January, 1904, the polar team led by Robert Falcon Scott was the second. Scott's party of five died on the return journey from the pole. More

1913, December 1 - The world's first moving assembly line debuted, at the Ford Model T car factory in Highland Park, Michigan. The innovation spearheaded by Henry Ford, revolutionized the auto industry. More 

1913, December 12 - The stolen “Mona Lisa” was recovered in Florence, Italy. The thief, Vincenzo Perugia, was  arrested. He claimed he was avenging Italy. More

1913, December 13 - President Woodrow Wilson signs the Federal Reserve Act into law, creating the Federal Reserve. More

1914, December 8 -  Battle of the Falkland Islands (WWI) The German naval forces led by Admiral Maximilian von Spee,  unsuccessfully attempts to raid the Falkland Islands bit is stopped by the British Navy commanded by Admiral Doveton Sturdee. 

1914. December 25 - The Christmas Truce of 1914. Although fighting continued in many parts of the Western Front, a rare heart-warming display of humanity in the history of human conflict takes place in some sections. By Christmas of that year there were millions of soldiers dug in trenches packed together and living in freezing conditions. On Christmas Eve German troops began unwrapping gifts from home and singing Christmas carols and soon the British and French troops joined in. Christmas greetings and well wishes were exchanged, and offers of a temporary ceasefire were communicated between the trenches. On Christmas morning, The troops began to greet one another, messages and gifts were exchanged and spontaneous games of football(soccer) were rumored to have happened. More

1916, December 18 - The WWI battle of Verdun ends. The engagement in which the French repulsed a major German offensive was one of the longest, bloodiest, and most-ferocious battles of the war, lasting for almost a year. French casualties amounted to about 400,000, German ones to about 350,000. Some 300,000 were killed. More

1916, December 30 - Grigori Rasputin, the Siberian self proclaimed mystic was murdered by Russian nobles and conservatives—who reportedly poisoned, shot, and then drowned the Siberian mystic—to halt his influence over Empress Alexandra and the royal family. More

1917, December 6 - Finland declares independence from Russia, leading to the Finnish Civil War.

1917, December 7 - The United States  declares war on Austria-Hungary. More

1917, December 9 - Jerusalem surrenders to British troops. The mayor of Jerusalem, Hussein Salim al-Husseini,  delivers the Ottoman Governor's letter surrendering the city to Brigadier General C.F. Watson, of the 180th Brigade. Two days later General Edmund Allenby, commander of the British “Egyptian Expeditionary Force,” understanding the symbolic sensitivity of Jerusalem to both its residents and religious adherents the world over, entered Jerusalem, on foot. More

1917, December 26 - President Wilson issues a declaration that he had nationalized the railroad system under the Federal Possession and Control Act. Wilson appointed his son-in-law, Treasury Secretary William McAdoo, as administrator for the United States Railroad Administration. After the end of WWI in the railroads became private property once again on March 2020.

1920, December 16 - An earthquake, believed to be the world’s second deadliest of the twentieth century, hits China’s remote Gansu Province leading to the deaths of more than 200,000 people and causing severe destruction over an area of 20,000 square kilometers. More

1921, December 6 - The Irish Free State,  is declared, with representatives of the two states signed the Anglo-Irish Treaty, ending a five-year Irish struggle for independence from Britain but still remaining part of the British Commonwealth, symbolically subject to the king. The Irish Free State later severed ties with Britain and is now called the Republic of Ireland. Neither the Free State or the current Republic of Ireland included today's Northern Ireland. More

1922, December 30 - The Union of Soviet Socialist Republics ( USSR) is established with its capital in Moscow, The  Communist Party, led by Marxist revolutionary Vladimir Lenin took control of the government. The Union eventually incorporated 15 republics and constituted the largest country (in area) in the world until its dissolution in 1991.

1923, December 19, The Ku Klux Klan (KKK) terrorizes the University of Dayton, a Catholic Institution, by exploding 12 bombs throughout the campus and setting on fire an 8-foot cross. Several hundred Klansmen were routed by hundreds of neighborhood residents who joined students in chasing them off. The growing Catholic presence in Dayton during the 1920s drew the hostility of the Ku Klux Klan. More about the attack - More about the KKK

1932, December 5 - German physicist Albert Einstein is granted a visa to enter the United States, fleeing Nazi Germany.

1933, December 5 - The 21st Amendment is passed, ending the prohibition of alcohol in America by repealing the 18th amendment which had been as passed thus becoming Prohibition, the only Constitutional amendment to be repealed in United States history.

1936, December 11 - The abdication of King Edward VIII formally approved. Edward VIII had abdicated after failing to win acceptance for his desire to marry American divorcée Wallis Warfield Simpson. He became the only British sovereign to voluntarily resign the crown. 

1937, December 13 - The Massacre of Nanjing (Eng. Nanking) also known as the Rape of Nanjing takes place. A six week carnage as the Japanese Imperial Army marches into China's then capital city of Nanjing and murders 300,000 out of 600,000 civilians and soldiers in the city. It is believed to be the single worst atrocity during the World War II era. Beijing became the national capital when China became the People's Republic of China on Oct. 1, 1949. More

1941, December 7 - The attack on Pearl Harbor by the Japanese Empire leads to the United States' entry into World War II. The attack was preceded by months of negotiations between the U.S. and Japan over the future of the Pacific. Japanese demands included that the U.S. end its sanctions against Japan, cease aiding China in the Second Sino-Japanese war, and allow Japan to access the resources of the Dutch East Indies. More than 2,400 U.S. servicemen were killed in the attack. More 

1941, December 8 - The United States enters World War II a day after the attack on Pearl Harbor, as Congress declares war against Imperial Japan.

1941, December 11 - Adolf Hitler declares that Germany is at war with the United States following the Japanese attacks on the U.S., British, and Dutch positions in the Pacific and in East Asia. In a major shake-up of the military high command, Adolf Hitler assumes the position of commander in chief of the German army. Nine days later, on December 19,  Adolf Hitler assumed the position of commander in chief of the German army. 
1941, December 17 -  Admiral Husband E. Kimmel is relieved of his fleet command following the the Japanese surprise attack on Pearl Harbor and his rank is reverted to the rank of Rear Admiral. He retired in March 1942. Rear Admiral Kimmel died at Groton, Connecticut, on 14 May 1968. More

1941, December 18 - Battle of Hong Kong . Japan attacks the Island of Honk Kong as a continuation of an attack on the British Colony which started on December 7. A Japanese force of around 35,000 strong was faced by a defending force of 13,500 British, Indian, Canadian, and local troops. Hong Kong surrendered on Christmas Day 1941 and Hong Kong entered a period of Japanese rule that lasted for three years and eight months. More

1941, December 26 - President Franklin D. Roosevelt signs into law a bill establishing the fourth Thursday in November  as the Federal Thanksgiving Day holiday ending the confusion that had taken place since 1939 when FDR had changed the official Thanksgiving to the second to last Thursday of the month since there were five Thursdays and the last Thursday of the month was the last day of the month and there was a worry that it would shorten the Christmas shopping season. Only 32 states had issued similar proclamations while 16 states refused to accept the change creating confusion. More 

1942, December 2 - Physicist Enrico Fermi produces the world's first self-sustaining, controlled nuclear chain reaction, setting the stage for a variety of advancements in nuclear science. The experiment took place under Fermi's direction at the University of Chicago's football stadium. Enrico Fermi was born in Rome in 1901 and had resided in Italy until 1938, the year he had been awarded the Nobel Prize in Physics. More

1944, December 15 - A single-engine aircraft Noorduyn C-64 “Norseman” airplane carrying trombonist and Band leader Glenn Miller  disappears over the English Channel. The Army Air Force Major was an unauthorized passenger aboard the flight and he was preparing to move his Army Air Forces Band (Special) from England to France for a congratulatory performance for American troops that had recently helped to liberate Paris. More  

1944, December 16 - The German army launches a counteroffensive intended to cut through the Allied forces and turn the tide of the war in Hitler's favor. The German offensive was code-named Wacht am Rhein (the “Watch on the Rhine”), but is better known in the United States as the “Battle of the Bulge". More 

1944, December 27 - President Franklin Roosevelt, asserting wartime emergency powers, orders his secretary of commerce to seize the  plants and facilities of Montgomery Ward which was in the middle of a labor strike affecting the flow of war supplies. Montgomery Ward appealed the government action in Federal Court, but lost. More

1945, December 5 - Flight 19, a Navy Aircraft squadron disappears in the Bermuda Triangle. Thee squadron consisted of five TBM Avenger torpedo bombers which departed the U.S. Naval Air Station at Fort Lauderdale, Florida, for a routine navigational training flight with Lt. Charles C. Taylor acting as the flight's leader.  All 14 Naval Aviators on the flight were lost, as were all 13 crew members of a Martin PBM Mariner flying boat that subsequently launched from Naval Air Station Banana River to search for Flight 19. More

1945, December 9 - The United Nations International Children's Emergency Fund (.UNICEF) is established. More 

1948, December 10 - The Universal Declaration of Human Rights (UDHR) is proclaimed by the United Nations General Assembly in Paris. A milestone document in the history of human rights, it sets out, for the first time, fundamental human rights to be universally protected as a common standard of achievements for all peoples and all nations. More

1949, December 8 - Unable hold ground against Mao Zedong forces, the Chinese Nationalists depart for the island of Taiwan and  establish their new capital. Nationalist leader Chiang Kai-shek joined them on the following day. This action marked the beginning of the “two Chinas” phase and it wasn't until 1979 when the United States officially recognized the People’s Republic of China. More 

1950, December 16 - President Harry S. Truman Proclaims the "Existence of a National Emergency", stating that “the increasing menace of the forces of communist aggression spreading throughout the globe via North Korean forces requires that the national defense of the United States be strengthened as speedily as possible,” The U.S. forces had seemed on the verge of victory in Korea. but in November, hundreds of thousands of communist Chinese troops. joined the fight and broke through the American lines driving them back just days after General Douglas MacArthur declared an “end the war offensive. More

1952, December 5th - Lethal smog covers the city of London for five days. It was caused by a combination of industrial pollution and high-pressure weather conditions bringing  London to a near standstill and resulting in thousands of deaths. Four years later, the UK Parliament passed the Clean Air Act marking a turning point in the history of environmentalism. More

1954, December 2 - Censure of Senator Joseph McCarthy - The U.S. Senate votes to censure Senator Joseph McCarthy, who had led the fight in Congress to root out suspected Communists from the Federal Government. The censure described his behavior as "contrary to senatorial traditions". Senator Joseph R. McCarthy had been a little-known junior senator from Wisconsin until February 1950 when he claimed to have a list of 205 card-carrying Communists and members of a spy ring employed in the U.S. Department of State. McCarthy was never able to prove his sensational charge. More  

1955, December 1 - Rosa Parks refuses to give up her seat on a bus in Montgomery, Alabama, sparking the Montgomery Bus Boycott and the civil rights movement. More

1955, December 5 - The Montgomery Bus Boycott ends after the U.S. Supreme Court rules that racial segregation on public buses is unconstitutional.

1956, December 22 - The First gorilla is born in captivity. The newborn female, weighing in at approximately 4 pounds western lowland gorilla, was born in the Columbus Zoo and was named Colo, a combination of Columbus and Ohio. Colo lived her entire life at the Columbus Zoo, she died on Jan. 17, 2017, one month after her 60th birthday celebration. At the time of her death, Colo was the oldest gorilla ever on record. More  

1958, December 1 - A fire at Our Lady of the Angels Catholic elementary school in Chicago's Humboldt park community results in the death of 92 children and 3 nuns. The oldest part of the building was built in 1910 and due to a "grandfather clause" in the city's fire code, the building officially met safety standards, even though it did not have the safety features required of modern buildings at that time. Thousands of older school buildings were brought up to code in the year following the fire.

1958, December 9 - The John Birch Society (JBS) is founded by Robert W. Welch Jr. More

1958, December 21 - Charles de Gaulle is elected president of France's Fifth Republic. An insurrection that had broken out in Algiers threatened to bring civil war to France. He was given extraordinary powers to resolve the political crisis and the  extraordinarily divisive and bloody War in Algiers. After several tumultuous years de Gaulle resigned on April 28, 1969, following his defeat in a second referendum. More 

1959, December 1 - The Antarctic Treaty is signed in Washington by the twelve nations that had been active during the IGY (Argentina, Australia, Belgium, Chile, France, Japan, New Zealand, Norway, South Africa, United Kingdom, United States and USSR). More

1960, December 4 - A magnitude 9.5 earthquake, the most powerful ever recorded, strikes Chile, resulting in widespread destruction and loss of life.

1960, December 7 - Ivory Coast (Côte d'Ivoire) gains independence from French colonial rule.

1960, December 11 - French forces capture the Algerian city of Oran, effectively ending the Algerian War of Independence.

1960, December 14 - Organization of Petroleum Exporting Countries (OPEC) is officially established in Baghdad, Iraq.

1960, December 15 - Richard Pavlick attempts to assassinate then-U.S. President-elect John F. Kennedy in Florida.

1960, December 11 - Adolf Eichmann, a Nazi war criminal living in Argentina is found guilty and sentenced to die, after a trial in Israel. Eichmann was abducted by an Israeli command unit from Argentina, where he was living and  was taken to Israel to be tried. More

1960, December 16 - The United Nations General Assembly adopts the Universal Declaration of Human Rights, marking a significant moment in human rights history.

1960, December 16 -  A United DC-8 and a TWA Super Constellation  collide over New York City, killing 134 people on the planes and on the ground. More 

1960, December 18 - Charles de Gaulle is reelected as the President of France.

1960, December 28 - An uprising against Portuguese colonial rule in Angola, known as the Baixa de Cassanje revolt, begins.

1961, December 2 - Fidel Castro declares that he is a Marxist-Leninist and Cuba becomes a communist state.

1961, December 6 - Independence is granted to Kuwait, ending British protection.

1961, December 9 - Tanganyika (now part of Tanzania) gains independence from British colonial rule.

1961, December 17 -  A circus fire in the city of Niterói, Brazil causes more than 500 deaths. The tent was housing a sold-out performance of over 3000 by the Gran Circus Norte-Americano was the worst fire disaster to occur in Brazil. 

1961, December 18 - India annexes the territories of Goa, Daman, and Diu, ending Portuguese colonial rule in the region.

1962, December 10 - The Nobel Peace Prize is awarded to Linus Pauling for his work in campaigning against nuclear weapons testing.

1962, December 14 - Mariner 2, an American space probe, becomes the first spacecraft to successfully fly by Venus.

1962, December 17 - The United States lifts its economic embargo on Cuba, allowing the sale of certain goods.

1962, December 20 - The New York City Board of Estimate votes to build the World Trade Center in Lower Manhattan.

1962, December 25 - An earthquake and tsunami in Northern Chile result in significant loss of life and destruction.

1963, December 1 - The Intercontinental Ballistic Missile (ICBM) Hotline is established between the United States and the Soviet Union.

1963, December 7 - The United States launches the communication satellite Syncom 3, which broadcasts the first live transatlantic television program.

1963, December 10 - The United Nations General Assembly adopts the Declaration on the Elimination of All Forms of Racial Discrimination.

1963, December 10 - Zanzibar (now part of Tanzania) gains independence from British colonial rule.

1963, December 12 - Kenya becomes fully independent from British rule. A year later, Kenya became a republic (with Kenyatta as its first president and Oginga Odinga as vice president). More

1963, December 17 - The Clean Air Act is signed into law in the United States, aiming to reduce air pollution. The Clean Air Act empowered federal and state agencies to research and regulate air pollution, marking a major expansion of government efforts to fight back against the damage being done to the climate. More

1963, December 19 - Twenty months after the Berlin Wall went up, more than 700,000 West Berliners take advantage of a long-awaited chance to see their loved ones on the other side of the Wall.  The agreement signed two days earlier on December, 17 allowed West Berliners to visit their relatives in the other part of the city over Christmas. An estimated 1.2 million cross over to the East between 19 December and 5 January. More

1964, December 10 - Dr. Martin Luther King Jr. receives the Nobel Peace Prize for his nonviolent civil rights activism. More

1964, December 2 - The U.S. Senate passes the Gulf of Tonkin Resolution, granting President Lyndon B. Johnson broad authority to use military force in Vietnam.

1964, December 10 - Dr. Martin Luther King Jr. is awarded the Nobel Peace Prize for his leadership in the American civil rights movement.

1964, December 11 - The South African Rivonia Trial concludes with the sentencing of Nelson Mandela and other anti-apartheid activists to life in prison.

1964, December 15 - Canada adopts the new national flag, the Maple Leaf, replacing the Red Ensign.

1965, December 4 - NASA's Gemini 7 and Gemini 6 spacecraft achieve the first space rendezvous, flying within 1 foot of each other.

1965, December 7 -  Roman Catholic Pope Paul VI and Orthodox Patriarch Athenagoras I, lift the mutual excommunications that led to the split of the two churches in 1054 in the Great Schism. Today, the two branches of Christianity remain distinct expressions of a similar faith.

1965, December 13 - Singapore gains independence from Malaysia and becomes a sovereign nation.

1965, December 22 - Apartheid in South Africa is further entrenched with the passing of the Suppression of Communism Act.

1965, December 30 - Ferdinand Emmanuel Marcos Sr.is first  inaugurated as the 10th President of the Philippines. . He ruled under martial law from 1972 until 1981. He was deposed in 1986. His rule was infamous for its corruption and brutality. More

1966, December 1 - The West Coast Port Dispute, a labor strike, begins on the U.S. West Coast, affecting shipping and trade.

1966, December 4 - The United Nations General Assembly recognizes the independence of Barbados and Guyana.

1966, December 25 - The first Kwanzaa celebration is held, a week-long holiday honoring African heritage in African American culture.

1966, December 30 - The Beatles' manager, Brian Epstein, secures a contract for the band to produce animated television shows.

1966, December 31 - The estimated population of the world reaches 3.45 billion, according to the United Nations.

1967, December 3 - The first successful human heart transplant is performed by South African surgeon Dr. Christiaan Barnard. More

1968, December 9 -  Douglas Engelbart, gives a landmark computer demonstration  at the  Association for Computing Machinery / Institute of Electrical and Electronics Engineers (ACM/IEEE)—Computer Society's Fall Joint Computer Conference in San Francisco". The presentation demonstrated for the first time many of the fundamental elements of modern personal computing: windows, hypertext, graphics, efficient navigation and command input, video conferencing, the computer mouse, word processing, dynamic file linking, revision control, and a collaborative real-time editor. The name "The Mother of All Demos" was retroactively applied to the landmark computer demonstration. More

1968, December 21 - Apollo 8, the first manned the first manned mission to the moon and the first to launch of the Saturn V rocket lifts off with astronauts Frank Borman, James Lovell, Jr. and William Anders aboard. It entered lunar orbit on Christmas Eve, Dec. 24, 1968. The Apollo 8 mission proved the performance of the command and service module.  On July 20 of the following year, The Apollo 11 spaceflight was the first to land humans on the Moon; Commander Neil Armstrong and Lunar Module Pilot Buzz Aldrin More   

1969, December 2 - The Boeing 747 jumbo jet makes its first passenger flight. It carried 191 people, 110 of them reporters and photographers, from Seattle, to New York City.

1971, December 2 - The United Emirates (UAE) is formed following the completion of treaties with Great Britain. The United States recognized the United Arab Emirates the next day. The uniting Sheikdoms were Abu Dhabi, Dubai, Sharja, Ajman, Umm al-Qaiwain and Fujairah. Ras al-Khaimah joined two months later. The UAE is the third-largest oil producer in the Gulf after Saudi Arabia and Iran. The United Arab Emirates is a member state of the League of Arab States. More

1972, December 7 - Apollo 17, the final Apollo moon mission, launches from Kennedy Space Center, Florida with the last three astronauts to travel to the moon;  Eugene A. Cernan, Commander, Harrison H. Schmitt and Ronald E. Evans. They splashed down safely in the Pacific Ocean on December 19. More 

1973, December 2 - The first mobile phone call is made by Martin Cooper, a Motorola executive, in New York City.

1973, December 15 - The American Psychiatric Association reverses its longstanding position and declares that homosexuality isn't a mental illness. More

1973, December 28 - U.S. President Richard Nixon signs the Endangered Species Act, which obligates federal and state governments to protect all species threatened with extinction that fall within the borders of the United States and its outlying territories. More 

1975, December 17 - Lynette “Squeaky” Fromme is sentence to life for the assassination attempt on President Gerald Ford. She was released from Federal prison  on August 14, 2009. 

1978, December 11 - The Lufthansa cargo terminal at JFK Airport is taken over by six masked armed men in the pre-dawn hours. Arriving employees are held at gunpoint and within one hour the robbers left with nearly $6M in U.S Dollars and jewelry, the largest cash robbery on US soil at the time. The robbery became to be known as the Lufthansa heist. 

1978, December 15 - Following months of secret negotiations, the United States and the People’s Republic of China (PRC) announced that they would recognize one another and establish official diplomatic relations. As part of the agreement, the United States recognized the Government of the People’s Republic of China as the sole legal government of China, and declared it would withdraw diplomatic recognition from Taiwan (also known as the Republic of China [ROC]). More

1978, December 25 - Vietnam invades Cambodia, leading to the eventual downfall of the Khmer Rouge regime.

1979, December 24 - The Soviet Union invades Afghanistan, beginning the Soviet-Afghan War. More

1980, December 8 - John Lennon, Rock star and former Beatle is assassinated in New York City outside his New York City apartment building. Lennon was an English singer-songwriter, musician and political activist. He was 40 years old when he died. More

1980, December 9 - The World Health Assembly declares smallpox, a serious infectious disease, eradicated (eliminated). No cases of naturally occurring smallpox have happened since. More

1980, December 12 - Leonardo Da Vinci's manuscript known as the Leicester Codex is sold in auction to American oil tycoon Armand Hammer for $5.1M . The manuscript written circa 1508, contained 72 loose pages with over 300 notes and drawings. Thomas Coke, the first earl of Leicester, bought the manuscript in 1717 and installed it among his impressive collection of art at his family estate in England. The manuscript was placed in auction by the then current Earl of Leicester. Hammer placed it in his private art collection. In 1994 it was bought by Bull Gates for $30.8M More 

1984, December 3 - The world’s worst industrial disaster, a toxic gas leak at a Union Carbide pesticide plant in Bhopal, India , killing at least 5,000 people. After the gas disaster, Union Carbide ceased operations and left India, leaving behind toxic waste that continues to pollute the groundwater and soil. To this day, the site remains unremedied, and the pollution continues to harm the local community. More 

1984, December 19 - Prime Minister, Margaret Thatcher and Chinese Premier Zhao Ziyang sign an agreement committing Britain to return Hong Kong to China in 1997 after 155 years of British rule, in return for terms guaranteeing a 50-year extension of its capitalist system. At midnight on July 1, 1997, Hong Kong was peaceably handed over to China in a ceremony attended by numerous international dignitaries. More

1987, December 8 - U.S. President Ronald Reagan and Soviet General Secretary Mikhail Gorbachev sign the Intermediate-Range Nuclear Forces Treaty (INF Treaty). More

1987, December 9 - The Intifada begins in the Israeli-occupied Gaza Strip twenty years after Israeli conquered the Gaza Strip and the West Bank and permanently annexed East Jerusalem. Israeli settlers had moved into the occupied territories, seizing Arab land. By December 1987, 2,200 armed Jewish settlers occupied 40 percent of the Gaza Strip, while 650,000 impoverished Palestinians were crowded into the other 60 percent, making the Palestinian portion of the tiny Gaza Strip one of the most densely populated areas on earth. More 

1988, December 1 - Benazir Bhutto becomes the first female leader of a Muslim nation in modern history. She served two terms as prime minister of Pakistan, in 1988–90 and 1993–96. In December 2007 Bhutto was assassinated while campaigning for parliamentary elections. Bhutto’s husband, Asif Ali Zardari became president of Pakistan in 2008.

1988, December 7 - The Armenian earthquake. A 6.9 earthquake in Spitak, Armenia kills an estimated 60,000 people and leaves 130,000 injured. and up to 500,000 homeless. More 

1988, December 21 - Pan Am Flight 103 is destroyed by a terrorist bomb over Lockerbie, Scotland. The Boeing 747, took off from London, bound for New York City.  As it was climbing on its northerly flight path, it exploded over the town of Lockerbie , Scotland.  All 259 passengers and crewmembers were killed plus 11 people on the ground in Lockerbie. More

1989, December 2 - The Cold War officially ends with a summit meeting between U.S. President George H.W. Bush and Soviet leader Mikhail Gorbachev.1991 CE, December 26 - The dissolution of the Soviet Union is officially declared, ending the existence of the USSR.

1989, December 16 - A terrorist bomb mailed to his home, kills Federal Judge Robert Vance in Alabama. Two days later a second bomb killed civil rights Attorney Robert Robertson in Georgia. Two other bombs were discovered before they exploded. A massive investigation ensued involving the FBI and several other law enforcement agencies.  In June 1991, a federal jury convicted Walter LeRoy Moody, Jr. on charges related to the bombings. He was executed in 2018. More

1989, December 20 - The United States invades Panama under orders from President residency of George H. W. Bush. The primary purpose of the invasion was to depose the de facto ruler of Panama, General Manuel Noriega who had longstanding ties to United States intelligence agencies but the relations had deteriorated. Noriega was wanted by U.S. authorities for racketeering and drug trafficking.  Noriega was captured, brought to the U.S. tried and convicted. He was eventually returned to Panama where he died in 2017.The United Nations General Assembly and the Organization of American States both condemned the invasion as a violation of international law. More

1990, December 1 - The Chunnel Breakthrough - In a mostly ceremonial event, British miner Graham Fagg and his French counterpart Philippe Cozette made history when hey broke through the last piece of rock separating the French and British side of the Chunnel,132 feet (100 meters) below the English Channel,  connecting the two ends of an underwater tunnel linking Great Britain with the European mainland for the first time since the Ice Age. The official opening of the Chunnel took place In a May 6, 1994 in a ceremony presided over by England’s Queen Elizabeth II and French President Francois Mitterrand. More

1991, December 8 - The leaders of Russia, Ukraine, and Belarus sign the Belavezha Accords, effectively dissolving the Soviet Union. The Accords and other signed documents were ratified by the Supreme Soviet of the RSFSR on Dec. 12, 1991. At the same time Russia dissolved the Union Treaty of 1922. More

1991, December 21 -  The Belavezha Accords were joined by Azerbaijan, Armenia, Kazakhstan, Kyrgyzstan, Moldova, Tajikistan, Turkmenistan, Uzbekistan. In the city of Alma-Ata (Kazakhstan), the heads of these countries, along with Belarus, Russia and Ukraine, signed the Declaration on the establishment of the Commonwealth of Independent States (CIS) on an equal footing. In December 1993 the Accords on the establishment of the CIS were joined by Georgia. Three former Soviet republics, Latvia, Lithuania and Estonia, did not join the CIS. More 

1991, December 25 - The Supreme Soviet of the RSFSR approved the Law of the RSFSR "On renaming of the state of the Russian Soviet Federated Socialist Republic", which took effect immediately. The new name of the state was the Russian Federation (Russia) Effective dissolving the USSR. The Soviet flag was lowered from the Kremlin and then replaced by the tricolor Russian Federation flag. More

1992, December 3 - The first text message is sent from a computer by Neil Papworth, a 22-year-old software programmer from the UK working for Vodaphone  to his colleague Richard Jarvis. The message was “Merry Christmas.”  One year later in 1993, Nokia introduced an SMS feature with a distinctive ‘beep’ to signal an incoming message. More 

1992, December 4 - U.S. President George H.W. Bush, orders about 25.000 U.S. troops to Somalia as part of an agreement with the UN to protect aid workers. The military operation encounter difficulties from the start due to the absence of a national Somali leadership and the daily fighting in the streets of the capital city of Mogadishu. Weeks later, the new U.S. president, Bill Clinton, ordered the number of U.S. troops to be reduced as other UN forces come in. In October 1993, soon after an incident at Mogadishu where 18 U.S. soldiers lost their lives and  two U.S. two helicopters were shut down, Clinton orders all U.S. combat troops to be out of Somalia by March 31. A year later UN troops were also withdrawn, leaving the country engulfed in clan warfare. More

1992, December 6 - The Babri Mosque in Ayodhya, India, is demolished by Hindu nationalists, leading to communal violence.

1993, December 2 - Colombian drug lord Pablo Escobar is killed in a shootout with authorities.

1995, December 14 - The Dayton Agreement is signed, ending the Bosnian War with the goal of achieving peace in the Balkans.

1995, December 20 - The NATO-led Implementation Force (IFOR) is deployed to Bosnia to insure compliance to the Dayton Agreement as NATO assumes peacekeeping duties. More 

1996, December 10 - South African President Nelson Mandela signs a new constitution that completes a transition from a long period of white minority rule (apartheid) to full-fledged #ref44040" class="md-crosslink" data-show-preview="true" style="box-sizing: border-box; color: var(--link-color); text-decoration: var(--link-decoration); font-family: Georgia, serif; font-size: 16px; font-style: normal; font-variant-ligatures: normal; font-variant-caps: normal; font-weight: 400; letter-spacing: normal; orphans: 2; text-align: start; text-indent: 0px; text-transform: none; widows: 2; word-spacing: 0px; -webkit-text-stroke-width: 0px; white-space: normal; background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255);">democracy. More 

1997, December 3 - The Kyoto Protocol, an international treaty to combat climate change, is adopted.

1998, December 16 - President Clinton orders air attack on Iraq and the United States joined by Britain begin operation "Desert Fox" as a reaction to Saddam Hussein's refusal to cooperate with UNSCOM's inspectors and to degrade Iraq's ability to produce weapons of mass destruction as well as to diminish" the Iraqi threat to its neighbors. More

1998, December 19 - The U.S. House of Representatives impeaches President Bill Clinton on charges of perjury and obstruction of justice.

1999, December 20 - Macau is handed back to China by Portugal, marking the end of Portuguese colonial rule.

1999, December 31 - The Panama Canal is transferred from U.S. control to Panamanian ownership.

2000, December 12 - The United States Supreme Court releases its 5-4 decision in the case of Bush v. Gore with Justice Sandra Day O’Connor providing the "swing vote".  The Court decision effectively ended the Florida recount of the presidential election and lead to the election of George W. Bush as President of the United States. Bob Gore won the popular vote by 537,179 votes but Bush won 271 Electoral votes versus 266 for Gore, who conceded the following day. More

2001, December 2 - The Enron Corporation files for bankruptcy.  Eventually it came to light, that some of Enron aggressive accounting practices allowed claiming future unrealized gains from some trading contracts into current income and the transferring of troubled operations to so-called special purpose entities (SPEs), kept the assets off Enron’s books, making its losses look less severe than they really were. Enron’s collapse, cost investors billions of dollars, wiped out over 5,600 jobs and liquidated over $2 billion in pension plans. It also triggered the collapse of Arthur Anderson which had served not only as Enron’s auditor but also as a consultant to the company. More about Enron - #toc-where-are-they-now">More about the executives

2001, December 11 - China joins the World Trade Organization (WTO) after 15 years of negotiations.

2001, December 22 - 2001 “Shoe bomber” Richard Reid attempts to detonate bombs on a Paris to Miami flight, just months after the 9/11 attacks. More

2003, December 13 - Saddam Hussein, the former dictator of Iraq, is captured by U.S. forces near Tikrit. after 9 months of hiding.

2004, December 26 -The Sumatra-Andaman earthquake in the Indian Ocean and resulting Tsunami kill approximately 230,000 people, making it one of the deadliest disasters in modern history. More

2006, December 30 - Saddam Hussein, former president of Iraq, is executed after being convicted in 2004 of crimes against humanity. More

2007, December 27 - Former Pakistani Prime Minister Benazir Bhutto is assassinated in Rawalpindi. More

2009, December 1 - The Lisbon Treaty, which reformed the European Union's institutions, comes into force.

2010, December 17 - The outbreak of the Arab Spring begins when Mohamed Bouazizi, a Tunisian street vendor, sets himself on fire in protest, sparking widespread demonstrations.

2011, December 18 - The last convoy of U.S. troops leaves Iraq, officially marking the end of the Iraq War. Violence continued and in fact worsened over the subsequent years. As of the end of 2024, the U.S. still has a military presence of about 2,500 personnel in Iraq as part of the Combined Joint Task Force-Operation Inherent Resolve effort. Talks continue on Security cooperation. More

2012, December 4 - Typhoon Bopha, known in the Philippines locally as Pablo makes landfall three times in the Philippines in spreading destruction across 30 provinces. In all, 5.4 million people were affected, and at least 2,000 died or were reported missing. More

2012, December 14 - Twenty first graders from Sandy Hook Elementary School in Newtown, Connecticut and six school employees are killed by Adam Lanza before turning a gun on himself. Earlier the same day, he killed his mother at the home they shared. More.

2013, December 5 - The death of Nelson Mandela, former President of South Africa and anti-apartheid icon.

2014, December 17 - The United States and Cuba announce plans to normalize diplomatic relations after decades of tension.

2015, December 12 - The Paris Agreement on climate change is adopted by 196 countries during the COP21 summit.

2016, December 19 - The assassination of Andrei Karlov, the Russian ambassador to Turkey, in Ankara.

2017, December 6 - The United States officially recognizes Jerusalem as the capital of Israel, sparking controversy and protests.

2018, December 1 - Former U.S. President George H.W. Bush passes away at the age of 94.

2019, December 19 - The United States House of Representatives impeaches President Donald Trump on charges of abuse of power and obstruction of Congress.

2020, December 14 - The first doses of the COVID-19 vaccine are administered in the United Kingdom, marking the beginning of vaccination campaigns worldwide.

2020, December 24 - The United Kingdom and the European Union reach a post-Brexit trade deal, averting a no-deal scenario.

2020, December 28 - The United States Congress passes the Consolidated Appropriations Act, 2021, providing economic relief amid the COVID-19 pandemic.

2021, December 4 - British businessman Richard Branson becomes the first person to reach space aboard a Virgin Galactic suborbital spaceplane.

2021, December 31 - The United Kingdom officially completes its transition out of the European Union, fully implementing Brexit.

Note: Sources for the Historical Content shown, include research and reviews of relevant Online History Resources or printed material. When possible, we show a link to a source which provides additional or unique perspective about the event. We do our best to provide accurate information but would appreciate being notified if any incorrect information is found. You may do so by using this link: Feedback

"In pursuit of knowledge, the evolution of humanity ranks with the origins of life and the universe. And yet, except when an exciting find hits the headlines, paleoanthropology and its related fields have gained far less scientific support and funding – particularly for scientists and institutions based in the African countries where so many landmark discoveries have occurred". More at The Conversation ➜ 

Julius Caesar is believed to have said “Alea iacta est", expressing his irreversible commitment, as he led his army across the Rubicon River in Northern Italy, defying the Roman Senate’s authority and initiating a civil war. More

Leonardo Pisano Bigollo, also known as Leonardo of Pisa, or simply Fibonacci, (“Filius Bonacci - the son of ”Bonacci") was not the first to think of the sequence and pattern of counting made up of numbers that sum the previous two numbers before them — 1, 1, 2, 3, 5, 8, 13 — and so on. But he was the first to bring it to the European world and bring awareness to its importance in the furthering of science.  The sequence is now used in computing, stock trading, architecture and design. In 1202, Fibonacci published “Liber Abaci” (The Book of Calculation) introducing Europe not only to his now-famous sequence but also to the Hindu-Arabic base 10, numeral system, which by the 15th century replaced the Roman numeral system, revolutionized math, and is in use today in most of the world although some countries still rely on their traditional numeral system for specific purposes.

The sequence itself first appeared in Indian Mathematics, known as Virahanka numbers, and was connected with Sanskrit prosody. The number sequence is also tied to the golden ratio and the golden triangle, both of which appear again and again in nature, as does the sequence itself. It is in the most fundamental of things, from the petals of the yellow chamomile to the complex and seemingly random branching of a tree’s limbs. These are just a few. The Fibonacci sequence is everywhere. Video

November 23 is the date chosen by some to celebrate as Fibonacci day, because when the date is written in the mm/dd format (11/23), the digits forms a Fibonacci sequence: 1,1,2,3. Fibonacci was a very important mathematician and that date may remind us to take the opportunity to marvel at the way math pervades everything around us. The Fibonacci sequence can be used to calculate the proportions of countless things on Earth and beyond, such as animals, plants, weather patterns, and even galaxies. Pause to observe your surroundings and you’ll start to notice the familiar spiral all around you. Leonardo Bonacci was born to an Italian merchant and customs official working in in North Africa, modern-day Algeria, It was there when living with his father, that Fibonacci learned Hindu-Arabic numerals. It is believed that Fibonacci died sometime between 1240 and 1250 in Pisa, Italy. More

Note: Fibonacci' Liber abaci book, contains the respectful quote: "If by chance I have omitted anything more or less proper or necessary, I beg forgiveness, since there is no one who is without fault and circumspect in all matters".

"On 29 October 1969, two scientists established a connection between computers some 350 miles away and started typing a message. Halfway through, it crashed. They sat down with the BBC 55 years later"......"I was on the phone with Bill when we tried this. I told him I typed the letter L. He told me he had received the letter L and echoed it back. I told him that it printed. Then I typed the letter O. Again, it worked fine. I typed the letter G. Bill told me his system had crashed, and he would call me back"..... Read more at The BBC ➜

Pablo Picasso's masterpiece, Guernica was painted in 1937 when he was commissioned by the Spanish Republican government to create a mural for the Spanish Pavilion at the Paris International Exposition. The inspiration for this piece came in the most unexpected and tragic way. On April 26, 1937, the town of Guernica, in Vizcaya, was bombed for about two hours during the Spanish Civil War by warplanes of the Nazi Germany Condor Legion, commanded by Colonel Wolfram von Richthofen, in support of the Nationalistic Spanish rebels led by Francisco Franco. The horrific carpet bombing attack was the first of its kind in history and reportedly an opportunity to test out new weapons and tactics.
Picasso completed the work quickly on June 4 1937, a grey, black and white painting, on a canvas 11 ft 5 in tall and 25 ft 6 in across, which portrays the suffering brought by violence and chaos. Prominently featured in the composition are a gored horse, a bull, screaming women, a dead baby, a dismembered soldier, and flames.captured the horror and desolation caused by the war.

In 1939, after being displayed in parts of Europe before WWII broke out, the painting was sent to New York on a tour for the benefit of the Spanish Refugee Committee. When World War II broke out later that year, Picasso requested that Guernica, as well as a number of other of his works, be held at the Museum of Modern Art (MoMA) on extended loan. Most of his works were returned to Europe after the war, however Picasso  asked that Guernica stay at the MoMA until the “reestablishment of public liberties” in Spain. The death of Picasso in 1973 and objections by Picasso's heirs who questioned Spain’s democratic credentials delayed Guernica's return to Spain until September 10, 1981 after being in the custody of New York's Museum of Modern Art (MoMA) for more than four decades.
Once landed in Madrid, the work was initially installed in the Casón del Buen Retiro, which was specially adapted to exhibit it under special security conditions, with armored glass protection. This location had a special significance since it was part of the Prado Museum of which Picasso was director. Later, in July 1992, the work made a final trip to the Museo Nacional Centro de Arte Reina Sofía.

"Republican presidential candidate Donald Trump has expressed his intention, if elected to a second term, to use the U.S. armed forces to suppress domestic protests. The New York Times reports that Trump’s allies are marshaling legal arguments to justify using National Guard or active-duty military troops for crowd control." More at The Conversation ➜

These are some of many widely recognized historic events that occurred during the month of August, listed by year. Dates provided for earlier time events may be approximate. Select another month

3114 BCE, August 11- The mythical start date of the Mesoamerican Long Count calendar. A a non-repeating base-20 and base-18 calendar used by several pre-Columbian Mesoamerican cultures, most notably the Maya. The Long Count calendar identifies a day by counting the number of days passed since the mythical creation date of August 11, 3114 BCE in the proleptic Gregorian calendar or September 6 on the Julian calendar. The Long Count calendar was widely used on monuments. More

63 BCE, August - The Roman general Gnaeus Pompeius Magnus (Pompey the Great) captures Jerusalem, bringing it under Roman control.

30 BCE, August 10 - Cleopatra VII, the last ruler of Ptolemaic Egypt, kills herself on either 10 or 12 August, in Alexandria, when she was 39 years old, following the defeat of her forces against Octavian, the future first emperor of Rome. According to popular belief, she died by allowing an Egyptian cobra to bite her, but others believe she either poisoned herself or was murdered. The location of Cleopatra's tomb is unknown. According to historians Suetonius and Plutarch, the Roman leader Octavian permitted their burial together after he had defeated them. Mark Antony, had stabbed himself with a sword, a few days before on August 1.

29 BCE, August - Octavian (later known as Augustus) celebrates three days of triumph in Rome, marking the end of the Final War of the Roman Republic.

70 CE, Augusr 29 - Jerusalem falls to Roman forces, marking the collapse of the Jewish state.

79, August 24 - Vesuvius, an active volcano in southern Italy, erupts and destroys the cities of Pompeii, Stabiae, Oplontis and Herculaneum and several other settlements. Although exact toll is unknown, more than 1,000 people are thought to have died in the eruption. The eruption ejected a cloud of stones, ashes and volcanic gases to a height of 21 miles (33 km). Vesuvius is the only volcano on Europe's mainland to have erupted in the last hundred years. It is regarded as one of the most dangerous volcanoes in the world because 3 Million people live near enough to be affected by an eruption, with at least 600,000 in the danger zone. There has been Speculation that the eruption happened later than August, based on findings of autumnal fruits and heating braziers discovered in the ruins. More

325, August 25 - The First Council of Nicaea ends. The Council was a meeting of Christian bishops convened in the Bithynian city of Nicaea (now İznik, Turkey) by the Roman Emperor Constantine I. It was specifically called to make a decision about Arianism—the belief that God created Jesus, and that Jesus was not eternal or one with God. Arianism was growing in popularity, even among church leaders threatening to tear the church apart. More 

379, August 9 - The Visigoths defeat a large Roman army led by Valens, the Roman emperor of the East, at the Battle of Adrianople (also known as the Battle of Hadrianopolis), in present-day Turkey. The battle was an overwhelming victory for the Visigoths ending with two-thirds of the Roman army, including Emperor Valens overrun and slaughtered. More

410, August 24 - The Visigoths, led by King Alaric, sack the city of Rome, marking the first time in almost 800 years that the city falls to an enemy force.

1057, August 15 - Malcolm Canmore slains King Macbeth of Scotland at the Battle of Lumphananand. His father, King Duncan I, had been murdered by Macbeth 17 years earlier. Following the battle  Macbeth's stepson, Lulach, was crowned King, before being killed by Malcolm who then recovered the Scottish throne as Malcolm III.  All the kings of Scotland since Malcolm himself and all the kings of England since the accession of Henry II descend from Malcolm and his English wife Margaret, the grandchild of Edmund Ironside.  More

1204, August 1 - The Fourth Crusade concludes with the sack of Constantinople, leading to the division and weakening of the Byzantine Empire.

1209, August 15 - The Massacre at Béziers takes place during the Albigensian Crusade, where the Catholic Crusaders sack the city of Béziers in southern France.

1214, August 24 - The Battle of Bouvines occurs during the Fourth Crusade, where the forces of Philip II of France defeat an alliance of European powers led by Emperor Otto IV.

1227, August 15 - 31  - Genghis Khan, (actually named Borjigin Temujin), the founder and Great Khan of the Mongol Empire, dies in Mongolia some time in late August. 1227. At the time of his death, the Mongol Empire was 2.5 times larger by territory than the Roman Empire. A study published in 2003 in The American Journal of Human Genetics suggested that Genghis Khan DNA can be found in one in 200 men today. The cause of his death is shrouded in mystery and it is now believed that it was caused by the bubonic plague.

1248, August 15 - The Seventh Crusade, led by King Louis IX of France, reaches Egypt and begins the siege of Damietta.

1258, August 29 - The Mongol Empire, under the leadership of Hulagu Khan, captures and sacks the city of Baghdad, leading to the fall of the Abbasid Caliphate.

1261, August 15 - The Byzantine Empire recaptures the city of Constantinople from the Latin Empire, marking the end of the Fourth Crusade.

1270, August 25 - The Eighth Crusade, led by King Louis IX of France, departs from Aigues-Mortes, France, with the goal of conquering Tunis.

1281, August 15 - The Mongol-led Yuan Dynasty of China successfully repels a second invasion attempt by the Japanese forces in the Battle of Kōan.

1291, August 1 - Swiss National Day - Alliance against the Holy Roman Empire in 1291.

1291, August 20 - The Siege of Acre ends, resulting in the fall of the Crusader Kingdom of Jerusalem and the complete expulsion of European Christian forces from the Holy Land.

1305, August 7 - William Wallace, Scottish leader of the resistance against English rule, is captured by English forces near Glasgow.

1314, August 23-24 - The Battle of Bannockburn takes place, where Scottish forces led by Robert the Bruce defeat the English army, securing Scottish independence.

1346, August 26 - The Battle of Crécy occurs during the Hundred Years' War, where the
English army, led by Edward III, defeats the French forces.

1350, August 14 - The St. Mary Magdalene's flood devastates the Netherlands, England, and
Germany, causing significant loss of life and destruction.

1396, August 17 - The Battle of Nicopolis takes place, marking the final major crusade of the Middle Ages and resulting in a victory for the Ottoman Empire over an alliance of European forces.

1485, August 22 - The Battle of Bosworth Field. The last significant battle of the Wars of the Roses, the civil war between the houses of Lancaster and York that extended across England. The battle was won by an alliance of Lancastrians and disaffected Yorkists. Their leader Henry Tudor, Earl of Richmond, became the first English monarch of the Tudor dynasty by his victory and subsequent marriage to a Yorkist princess. His opponent Richard III, the last king of the House of York, was killed during the battle. Historians consider Bosworth Field battle one of the defining moments of English history. More

1492, August 3 - Christopher Columbus sets sail from Palos de la Frontera, Spain, with three ships, Niña, Pinta and Santa Maria. Searching for a westerly route to the Far East. Instead, on October 12th, he lands in the Bahamas, thinking it was an outlying Japanese island. More

1498, August 1 - Explorer Christopher Columbus lands on South America at the Paria Peninsula in present-day Venezuela. He Thinking it was an island, he claims it for Spain and christened it "Isla Santa". 

1521, August 13 - Spanish conquistador Hernándo Cortés succeeds in bringing about the fall of Tenochtitlan, the capital of the Aztec Empire after over two months of fighting. Cortes' conquests began with Cuba in 1511, Mexico’s Bay of Campeche in 1519, and then deeper into Mexico.

1526, August 29 - Ottoman Sultan, Suleiman the Magnificent, defeats the Hungarian forces at the Battle of Mohács in 1526, establishing Ottoman control in the region for over 150 years. Sultan Suleiman I inherited the throne of the Ottoman Empire at the age of 26. He was the only son of Selim I, who conquered Mecca, Medina, Jerusalem and Alexandria. More

1572, August 24 - Thousands of Protestant Huguenots are massacred in France by Catholics, in what became known as the St. Bartholomew's Day Massacre. More

1583, August 5 - Sir Humphrey Gilbert, a British navigator and explorer takes possession of the area around St. John’s harbor, Newfoundland in the name of the Queen. He was later lost at sea in a storm off the Azores on his return trip to England.

1619, August 20 -  First enslaved Africans arrive in Virginia; Two English pirate ships, the Treasurer and White Lion. each carrying 20-30 African slaves land in the Jamestown colony within four days of each other. The slaves had been taken from a Portuguese slave ship, the San Juan Bautista, carrying 350 African slaves in route to Veracruz, Mexico.
Virginia’s first enslaved people spoke Bantu languages, and their homelands were the kingdoms of Ndongo and Kongo. They are the first recorded Africans to arrive in England's mainland American colonies. marking the beginning of what evolved into a legalized system of slavery that lasted two and a half centuries. More

1753, August 4 - George Washington becomes a Master Mason n his hometown of Fredericksburg, Virginia. He was twenty one years old. More

1776, August 2 - Most of the 55 members of the Continental Congress signed the parchment copy of the Declaration of Independence in Philadelphia. More

1782, August 7 -  General George Washington announces the Badge of Military Merit. The Badge was designed by Washington in the form of a purple heart, it was intended as a military order for soldiers who exhibited, "not only instances of unusual gallantry in battle, but also extraordinary fidelity and essential service in any way". It is believed that only three people received the Badge of Military Merit during the American Revolutionary War, In 1932, the United States War Department  authorized the new Purple Heart Medal, officially considered the "successor decoration" to the Badge of Military Merit. More

1784, August 14 - Russians led by Grigorii Shelikhov established the first permanent Russian outpost in Alaska on Kodiak Island at Three Saints Bay. More 

1789, August 26 - The Declaration of the Rights of Man and of the Citizen is adopted in France, laying the groundwork for the French
Revolution.

1791, August 19 - Benjamin Banneker, the son of a free Black American woman and a formerly enslaved African man from Guinea, writes a letter to Thomas Jefferson, then-Secretary of State. On the letter, Banneker criticizes Jefferson’s hypocritical stance on slavery in respectful but unambiguous terms, using Jefferson’s own words to make his case for the abolition of slavery. Jefferson brief  response thanked him for the letter, expressed his ambivalence about slavery ("…no body [sic] wishes more sincerely than I do to see such proofs as you exhibit in your letter, that nature has given to our black brethren, talents equal to those of the other colours of men") and endorsed Banneker’s accomplishments. More 

1792, August 10 - Louis XVI of France and his wife, Marie-Antoinette are imprisoned and the French monarchy is effectively overthrown, as the French Revolution (1787–99) continues. They were both executed by guillotine in 1793.

1792, August 29 - In one of the worst maritime disasters, 900 men drowned on the British battleship Royal George. A gust of wind allowed water to flood into open gun ports as the ship was being repaired. The ship sank within minutes.

1794, August 26 - President George Washington leads a militia force of 12,950 men towards Western Pennsylvania to subdue the Whiskey Rebellion, warning locals "not to abet, aid, or comfort the Insurgents aforesaid, as they will answer the contrary at their peril." More

1809, August 10 - Ecuador Independence Day - Celebration of the first Ecuadorian patriot uprising against Spanish rule and original proclamation of independence. The movement failed and the leaders of the movement were executed. On 1822 Ecuador won independence from Spain as part of the confederation of Gran Colombia on the decisive Battle of Pichincha. The confederation of Gran Colombia was comprised of what is now the countries of Panama, Colombia, and Venezuela. On May 13, 1830, Ecuador seceded and became a separate independent republic.

1814, August 24 - During the War of 1812, British forces capture Washington, D.C. and burn down the White House, the Capitol, and other public buildings along with a number of private homes. The burning was in retaliation for the earlier American burning of York (Toronto). Shortly before the arrival of the British forces, an iconic portrait of George Washington is removed from the White House walls, to prevent it being looted by British troops. First lady, Dolley Madison is credited for saving the portrait. The portrait was actually a copy of Gilbert Stuart's original. President Madison served the rest of his term residing at the city’s Octagon House. It was not until 1817 that the newly elected president James Monroe moved back into the reconstructed building.

1821, August 10 - Missouri is admitted into the Union becoming the 24th State

1821, August 24 - Spain recognizes Mexico independence with the signing of the Treaty of Córdoba, Spain finally recognized the independence of the First Mexican Empire. More

1825, August 6 - Bolivia declaration of Independence.

1825, August 25 - Uruguay Independence day from the Empire of Brazil. Declaration of independence and union with the United Provinces of the Río de la Plata.

1833, August 28 - Slavery is abolished throughout the British Empire, including in the British colonies of the Caribbean and North America.

1838, Slavery is abolished in Jamaica where it had been introduced in 1509.

1844, August 8 - Brigham Young is chosen to lead the Mormon Church. More 

1846, August 10 - The act establishing the Smithsonian Institution  for "the Increase and Diffusion of Knowledge among Men," is passed by the U.S. Congress and signed into law by President James K. Polk. The Institution was founded with funds from the Englishman James Smithson (1765–1829) according to his wishes “under the name of the Smithsonian Institution, an establishment for the increase and diffusion of knowledge.” A bequest to a country that he had never visited. The Smithsonian Institution is now the world's largest museum, education, and research complex. More

1876, August 1 -  Colorado is admitted into the Union and becomes the 38th State

1856, August 23 - Eunice Newton Foote makes first public scientific mention of the upcoming "Greenhouse effect". Her paper , titled “Circumstances Affecting the Heat of the Sun’s Rays,” was presented at a meeting of the American Association for the Advancement of Science (AAAS). Foote' s short paper included a prescient conclusion; “An atmosphere of that gas (Carbon Dioxide) would give to our earth a high temperature,” describing the phenomenon we now call the greenhouse effect, the main cause of climate change. More

1858, August 16 - The first successful transatlantic telegraph line is completed. Queen Victoria of the United Kingdom sends a telegraph  to U.S. President James Buchanan. Near-instantaneous communication between Europe and North America. Become a reality.  

1861, August 5 - The Revenue Act is signed by President Lincoln imposing the first federal income tax. The action was prompted by the financial requirements of the Civil War. At first, Congress placed a flat 3-percent tax on all incomes over $800,and later modified this principle to include a graduated tax. Congress repealed Lincoln’s tax law in 1871, but in 1909 passed the 16th Amendment, which set in place the federal income-tax system used today. Congress ratified the 16th Amendment in 1913. More

1862, August 22 - Abraham Lincoln replies to Horace Greeley's New York Tribune editorial entitled “The Prayer of Twenty Millions". More

1864, August 5 - Battle of Mobile Bay -- Admiral David G. Farragut, leads a fleet of fourteen wooden ships and four ironclads and delivers a much needed victory for the Union and immortalizes the phase "Damn the torpedoes! - Full speed ahead!” Farragut became the first U.S. Navy’s full admiral. At the time of his death in 1870, he had served a total of 59 years in uniform. More

1864, August 22 - The International Committee of the Red Cross (ICRC), created in 1863 comes into being as the draft convention submitted to the Geneva Convention for the Amelioration of the Condition of the Wounded and Sick of Armies in the Field, conference is adopted by 12 nations at meeting.  "The ICRC is an independent, neutral organization ensuring humanitarian protection and assistance for victims of armed conflict and other situations of violence." More 

1865, August 2 - James I. Waddell, Commander of the CSS Shenandoah learns the war is over from the bark Barracouta. More 

1866, August 20 - President Johnson issued a proclamation announcing the end of the American Civil War: "And I do further proclaim that the said insurrection is at an end and that peace, order, tranquility, and civil authority now exists in and throughout the whole of the United States of America." The proclamation  officially closed a costly, bloody, and deadly chapter in its nation's history that started at Fort Sumter several years and incurred the loss of 620,000 Union and Confederate soldiers. More 

1873, August 24 - Mount of the Holy Cross was first photographed by William Henry Jackson. Stories had circulated for years of a mountain with a large cross etched in its side. Jackson climbed the western slope of the Rocky Mountains with more than 100 pounds of photography equipment and captured his most famous photograph. He later painted the iconic image in watercolor. More 

1875, August 24 -  Matthew Webb, an English  Merchant Marine Captain swimmer and stuntman, becomes the first recorded person to swim the English Channel for sport without the use of artificial aids. Webb swam from Dover to Calais in less than 22 hours., becoming a celebrity. He went on to perform many stunts in public. He died in 1883 trying to swim the Niagara Gorge below Niagara as part of a publicity stunt.

1879, August 28 - Zulu King Cetshwayo, the last king of the independent Zulu nation was captured by the British during the Zulu war and taken into custody. Two years later he was allowed to travel to London and met Queen Victoria. He was permitted to return to South Africa to rule a portion of the former Zulu kingdom in 1883. More 

1880, August14 - The construction of the Cologne Cathedral ( Kölner Dom), the largest Gothic church in northern Europe is finally completed after having been started 642 years earlier in 1248. It is now the city's major landmark. More

1883,  August 26 - Krakatoa eruption. One of the most catastrophic volcanic eruptions in recorded history takes place on the Indonesian island of Krakatoa (Krakatau). The first eruption sends a cloud of gas and debris into the air and it is followed by increasingly powerful explosions culminating in a gigantic blast around 10 am on August 27, sending ash and debris 50 miles into the air blanketing 300,000 square miles (800,000 square kilometers) and plunging the area into darkness for two and a half days. The explosions were heard 2,000 miles away. Tidal waves 120 ft. high killed 36,000 persons on nearby islands, while five cubic miles of earth were blasted into the air up to a height of 50 miles. More

1890, August 6 -  New York executed William Kemmler. It was the first time ever a state used the electric chair to carry out an execution. States have carried out 158 executions by electric chair since 1973. Tennessee was the most recent state to use the electric chair, taking place in 2020. More

1896, August 16 - Gold was discovered in Rabbit Creek, a tributary of the Klondike River in Canada's Yukon Territory, resulting in the Great Klondike Gold Rush. More

1898, August 12 - A cease-fire agreement to stop the hostilities in the Spanish - American War was signed. Spain formally agreed to to the cession of Cuba, Puerto Rico and Manila in the Philippines to the United States pending a final peace treaty. The war officially ended four months later, when the U.S. and Spanish governments signed the Treaty of Paris on December 10, 1898. More 

1911, August 20 - A telegram reading “This message sent around the world” is sent by the New York Times to test how fast a commercial message could be sent around the world.  it traveled over 28,000 miles and was relayed by 16 different operators. It arrived back at The Times only 16.5 minutes later. The building where the message originated is now called One Times Square and is best known for where the ball drops on New Year’s Eve. More

1911, August 21 - The Louvre announces the theft of the Mona Lisa. painted by Leonardo da Vinci in 1507. It was recovered two years later in Italy on December 1913. More  

1911, August 29 - Ishi, believed to be the last surviving member of the Native American Yahi Tribe is found outside a slaughterhouse near Oroville. More

1914, August 1 - World War I starts. Germany declares war on Russia on August 1 and on France on August 3. Austria-Hungary, with German encouragement, had declared war on Serbia on 28 July. Russia's support of Serbia brought France into the conflict.  Germany's violation of Belgian neutrality and British fears of German domination in Europe brought Britain and its empire into the war on 4 August. More

1914, August 4 - President Woodrow Wilson declared U.S. neutrality as World War erupts .  The conflict eventually became a matter of principles: whether to uphold the freedom of the seas, to make the world safe for democracy in the face of autocracy, or to establish a new world order ensuring permanent peace and governed by rational law. The United States declared war on Germany on April 6, 1917. More 

1914, August 5 -  The first electric traffic signal is installed in Cleveland, Ohio at the corner of East 105th Street and Euclid Avenue. It was shaped like a birdhouse and had just green and red lights, with a buzzer that indicated when the light was about to change. A police officer named Lester Wire came up with the idea that revolutionized traffic engineering. He later sold the patent to General Electric. In 1923, inventor Garrett Morgan patented the three-position traffic signal, which is where we get today’s yellow light. More

1914, August 15 - The Panama Canal had its inaugural passage when the U.S. vessel  USS Ancon, passed through its gates and it opened to traffic, In the 1880s, the French  attempted to build the canal to connect the Pacific and Atlantic oceans. the project  was halted because of poor planning, a breakout of disease among the crew, and financial problems that drove the contractor’s company to bankruptcy in 1889. More

1914, August 15 - Japan issues an ultimatum to Germany demanding the withdraw of its warships from Chinese and Japanese waters and to hand over Tsingtao. This was refused and on  August 23, 1914 Japan declared war on Germany.  More

1914, August 26 - The WW1 Battle of Tannenberg between the Germans and the Russians begins. The German forces, led by Paul von Hindenburg and Erich Ludendorff, handed Russia a crushing defeat resulting in the destruction of the Russian Second Army, with 120,000-170,000 soldiers killed, injured, or captured by the German 8th Army . More

1916, August  - 27 Romania declares war on Austria-Hungary. and enters WW1 on the side of the Allies. The decision was motivated primarily by the desire to claim the region of Transylvania and its majority ethnic Romanian population from the Austro-Hungarian Empire.

1917, August 14 - China ends its neutrality and declares war on Germany and Austria-Hungary during World War I. 

1918, August 30 - Soviet leader Vladimir Lenin is shot by Fanya Kaplan, a member of the Social Revolutionary party. Lenin was seriously wounded but survived the attack which was the third assassination attempt on his life. More

1919, August 11 - Germany's Weimar constitution was passed by the National Assembly. The design of a new Democratic constitution began in late 1918, following the abdication of Kaiser Wilhelm II and the collapse of the monarchy. The Weimar Republic, Germany's 12-year experiment with democracy, came to an end 12 years later when the Nazis came to power in January 1933 and established a dictatorship. More

1919, August 19 - Afghan Independence Day (Afghan Victory Day) It commemorates the Anglo-Afghan Treaty of 1919

1920, August 18 - The 19th Amendment to the U.S. Constitution, granting women the right to vote is ratified as Tennessee, by a vote of 50 to 49, becomes the 36th State to do so. The deciding vote came from Harry T. Burn, a 24 year old, who supported suffrage but but was under political pressure to vote no. In his pocket was a letter from his mother, Febb Burn, urging him to vote for the amendment. On August 26, the amendment was formally adopted into the Constitution by proclamation of Secretary of State Bainbridge Colby. More

1923, August 2 -  President Warren G. Harding died suddenly in San Francisco while on a Western speaking tour. He was succeeded the next day by Calvin Coolidge.

1926, August 6 - Gertrude Ederle becomes first woman to swim English Channel. She swam across the Channel in 14 hours and 34 minutes, beating the men's record by two hours. More 

1931, August 25 - A dike along China' Lake Gaoyou is breached during major floods in the Yangtze Valley. The floods covered an area  approximately the size of New York, New Jersey, and Connecticut combined. All together the floods which lasted from June to the end of August and flooded areas of central and eastern China including densely populated cities like Wuhan and Nanjing. The death toll of the floods ranges between 422,000 - 4,000,000, depending on the source. The 1931 China flood is known as one of the world's deadliest disasters. More

1934, August 2 - Adolf Hitler becomes absolute dictator of Germany under the title of Fuhrer, or “Leader after German President Paul von Hindenburg death. More

1934, August 11 - The first batch of 137 prisoners arrives at Alcatraz, arriving by railroad from the United States Penitentiary in Leavenworth, Kansas, to Santa Venetia, California. In 1850, a presidential order set aside the island for possible use as a United States military reservation. and the U.S. Army had used the island for more than 80 years. In 1933, the island was transferred to the U.S. Department of Justice for use by the Federal Bureau of Prisons to open a maximum-security, minimum-privilege penitentiary to deal with the most incorrigible inmates in Federal prisons. More

1934, August 19 -  Hitler becomes President of Germany; 89.9 percent of German voters approved granting Chancellor Adolf Hitler additional powers, including the office of president.

1935. August 14 - President Roosevelt signed the Social Security Act to provide for the general welfare by establishing a system of Federal old-age benefits, and by enabling the several States to make more adequate provision for aged persons, blind persons, dependent and crippled children, maternal and child welfare, public health, and the administration of their unemployment compensation laws; to establish a Social Security Board; to raise revenue; and for other purposes. More

1936, August 1 - Hitler declares the Berlin Olympics, the eleventh Olympiad of the modern era, to be open.

1939, August 2 - Albert Einstein writes a letter to President Franklin D. Roosevelt regarding the possibility of atomic weapons. Six years later, on August 6, 1945, the first Atomic Bomb, developed by the U.S., was dropped on the Japanese port of Hiroshima.

1941, August 12 - FDR and Churchill meet for the first time as leaders of their respective nations on board naval vessels anchored in Placentia Bay, off the coast of Newfoundland, Canada. The document released as a result of the meeting is referred to as "The Atlantic Charter." It was not an official document, but rather a joint statement expressing the war aims of the two countries--one technically neutral and the other at war.  More

1942, August 4 - The United States signed the Mexican Farm Labor Agreement with Mexico. An executive order called the Mexican Farm Labor Program established the Bracero Program. This series of diplomatic accords between Mexico and the United States permitted millions of Mexican men to work legally in the United States on short-term labor contracts. The Bracero Program ended  on December 31, 1964. More

1942, August 7 - American forces land on the Solomon Islands of Guadalcanal, Tulagi, and Florida. on the morning of August 7,1942. After some fierce fighting, the US Marines cleared Tulagi and Florida by August 9. The main forces on Guadalcanal met little resistance on their way inland to secure the airfield at Lunga Point,  Almost immediately, however, Japanese naval aircraft attacked transport and escort ships, and Japanese reinforcements arrived in the area. More 

1942, August 11 - Hollywood actress Hedy Lamarr and composer with composer George Antheil were awarded a patent for a  “frequency hopping, spread-spectrum communication system” designed to make radio-guided torpedoes harder to detect or jam.
 Lamarr and Antheil donated their patent to the US Navy and never realized any money from their invention which was the simplest version of a radio transmission technique , known today as spread-spectrum technique, which refers to any method that widens the frequency band of a signal. The technique would eventually find its way into other cutting-edge technologies like wireless phones, Global Positioning Systems, Bluetooth and Wi-Fi. More

1942, August 19-25 - The Dieppe Raid, an Allied amphibious assault on the German-occupied port of Dieppe, France, ends in a heavy defeat and high casualties.

1943, August 1 - A race riot takes place in Harlem, New York City, lasting two days, after a white police officer, James Collins, shot and wounded Robert Bandy, an African American soldier; and rumors circulated that the soldier had been killed. More

1943, August 17 - During World War II in Europe, the Allies completed the conquest of the island of Sicily after 38 days and U.S. General George S. Patton and his 7th Army arrive in Messina several hours before British Field Marshal Bernard L. Montgomery and his 8th Army, completing the Allied conquest of Sicily. There were more than 24,000 American, British, and Canadian casualties on Sicily. More

1944, August 1 - The Warsaw Uprising starts. The Polish Home Army), a non-Communist underground resistance movement, led by Polish General Tadeusz Bor-Komorowski, takes action to liberate the city from the German occupation and reclaim Polish independence, encouraged by the appearance of the Soviet Red Army along the east bank of the Vistula River. and the perceived weakness of the German military. However the Red army made no efforts to aid the rebels in Warsaw and by October 2, 1944, the Germans had suppressed the uprising, deporting civilians to concentration and forced-labor camps and reducing Warsaw to ruins. After the Germans eventually left, the Red Army came into Warsaw and established a Communist regime. More

1944, August 23 - Romania King Michael announces that Romania had unilaterally ceased all military actions against the Allies, accepted the Allied armistice offer and joined the war against the Axis powers. As no formal armistice offer had been extended yet, the Red Army occupied most of Romania as enemy territory prior to the signing of the Moscow Armistice of September 12, 1944.

1944, August 25 - Paris is liberated and the four-year Nazi occupation of the city comes to an end as the Free French 2nd Armored division under General Jacques-Philippe Leclerc enters the city and takes the German garrison capturing the German general Choltitz’s prisoner. His captors took Choltitz to French General Leclerc where the men signed a formal surrender document and Paris was finally liberated. German general Dietrich von Choltitz had spared Paris from the destruction ordered by Hitler. More 

1945, August 2 - The Potsdam Conference, held in Potsdam, Germany between the "Big Three: Britain, The Soviet Union and the United States  comes to an end without resolution on key issues. The conference was held to negotiate the terms for the end of World War II. Even though the Allies remained committed to fighting a joint war in the Pacific, mutual distrust stemming from differing views of what a postwar world should look, like led to disagreements on several key issues between the Soviet Union and the West, set the stage for the Cold War. More

1945, August 6 - The United States drops an atomic bomb on the Japanese city of Hiroshima. The bomb dropped by the American B-29 bomber Enola Gay, detonated about 1,800 ft. above ground, killing over 105,000 persons and destroying the city. Another estimated 100,000 persons later died as a result of radiation effects.

1945, August 8 - Soviet Russia declared war on Japan and sent troops into Japanese-held Manchuria.

1945, August 9 - The United States drops an atomic bomb on the Japanese city of Nagasaki. An American B-29 bomber headed for the city of Kokura, but because of poor visibility then chose a secondary target, Nagasaki. The bomb detonated killing an estimated 70,000 persons and destroying about half the city.

1945, August 14 - Believing that continuation of the war would only result in further loss of Japanese lives, delegates of Emperor Hirohito accepted Allied surrender terms originally issued at Potsdam on July 26, 1945, with the exception that the Japanese Emperor's sovereignty would be maintained. The formal surrender ceremony occurred later, on September 2, 1945, on board the USS Missouri in Tokyo Bay.

1945, August 15 - South Korea and North Korea celebrate this day as their National Liberation Day as the Korean peninsula was freed from Japanese rule.

1945, August 17 - Proclamation of Indonesian Independence from the Empire of Japan and the Netherlands.

1947, August 7 - Norwegian scientist Thor Heyerdahl and five companions sail the Kon-Tiki, raft  from Peru to the islands east of Tahiti. Heyerdahl was interested in demonstrating the possibility that ancient people from the Americas could have colonized Polynesia; to do so, he constructed the raft from locally available balsa logs at Callao, Peru, and in three and a half months traversed some 4,300 miles (6,900 km) of ocean. The Kon-Tiki has been preserved in a museum in Oslo, Norway.

1947, August 14 - Pakistan achieved independence one day prior to Indian independence. India was partitioned, and an East and West Pakistan were created from Muslim majority areas.

1947, August 15, India was declared independent from British colonialism, and the reins of control were handed over to the leaders of the Country. 

1948, August 3 - During a hearing before the House Un-American Activities Committee, Whittaker Chambers, American writer and intelligence agent, accuses former State Department official Alger Hiss of being a communist and a spy for the Soviet Union. Hiss denied the accusation but was eventually tried and convicted of perjury. More

1949, - The Soviet Union successfully tested their first nuclear device, called RDS-1 or “First Lightning” (codenamed “Joe-1” by the United States), at Semipalatinsk.  As the Cold War intensified, both the Soviet Union and the United States embarked upon efforts to rapidly develop and grow their respective nuclear arsenals. The US launched its hydrogen bomb program in the early 1950s and the USSR followed suit and initiated their own hydrogen bomb program. More

1950, Aug 25 -  President Harry S. Truman issues an executive order putting America’s railroads under the control of the U.S. Army, Truman said that “governmental seizure [of the railroads] is imperative” to protect American citizens as well as “essential to the national defense and security of the nation.” Truman acted in anticipation of an imminent strike by railroad workers, two months after the United Nations, led by the United States, had intervened in Korea to repel an invasion by communist-led North Korea. More 

1951, Aug 30, - The United States and the  Philippines sign a Mutual Defense Treaty. More

1952, August 11 - Hussein was proclaimed king of Jordan succeeding to the throne three months before his 17th birthday. A three-man regency council made up of the prime minister and heads of the Senate and the House of Representatives was appointed until he became 18. He was enthroned on 2 May 1953, the same day that his cousin Faisal II assumed his constitutional powers as king of Iraq. More

1953, August 19 - A U.S. CIA and UK supported coup d'état by the Iranian military topples the democratically elected government of Prime Minister Mohammad Mosaddegh. It favored strengthening the monarchical rule of the shah, Mohammad Reza Pahlavi and all but insuring access to Iranian oil by the U.S. and the U.K. Sixty years later, in 2013, the National Security Archive released declassified CIA documents on the United States' role in the controversial operation. Although American and British involvement, had long been public knowledge, the released documents were the CIA's first formal acknowledgement that the agency helped to plan and execute the coup and participated in smoothing over the aftermath. More

1954, August 24 - Congress passed the Communist Control Act of 1954 (CCA) as an amendment to the McCarran Internal Security Act of 1950 “to outlaw the Communist Party, to prohibit members of Communist organizations from serving in certain representative capacities, and for other purposes.” Many of the CCA provisions impinged upon a number of constitutional rights and were removed over time. More

1957, August 31 -  Malayan Declaration of Independence from the United Kingdom.

1958, August 3 - The USS Nautilus, the first U.S. nuclear submarine, reaches the geographic North Pole traveling 1000 miles under sea from Point Barrow, Alaska and then on to Iceland, pioneering a new and shorter route from the Pacific to the Atlantic and Europe. More 

1959, August 14 - The first satellite image of Earth is captured by Explorer 6. 1959.  The crude picture of the earth’s surface and cloud cover was taken from a distance of 17,000 miles from earth. The photo, received in Hawaii, took nearly 40 minutes to transmit. Explorer 6 was launched on August 7, 1959. More

1959, August 21 - Hawaii is admitted to the union becoming the 50th State.

1960, August 1 -  Benin's Independence day. (Previously Dahomey) Effective date of the agreement with France signed on 11 July creating the independent Republic of Dahomey.

1960, August 3, Niger Independence Day - Effective date of the agreement with France signed on 11 July.

1960, August 5 - Burkina Faso Independence Day. Effective date of the agreement with France signed on 11 July and creation of the independent Republic of Upper Volta. On 4 August 1984, it changed its name to Burkina Faso.

1960, August 7 - Ivory Coast Independence Day Effective date of the agreement with France signed on 11 July

1960, August 11 - Chad's Independence day. Effective date of the agreement with France signed on 12 July

1960, August 15 - Republic of the Congo Independence Day -  Effective date of the agreement with France signed on 12 July.

1960, August 17 - Gabon independence day, officially the Gabonese Republic recognized, ending French colonial rule.

1961, August 13 - East Germany begins to seal off around Berlin. First, a wire barrier was constructed and a few days later the wire was replaced by a six-foot-high, 96-mile-long wall of concrete blocks. It hoped this measure would put an end to the mass exodus to Berlin. More

1962, August 4 - Nelson Mandela, Apartheid opponent, was arrested by security police in South Africa. He was tried and sentenced to five years in prison. In 1964, he was retried for sabotage , high treason and conspiracy to overthrow the government He was sentenced to life in prison. A worldwide campaign to free him began in the 1980s and resulted in his release on February 11, 1990, at age 71 after 27 years in prison. In 1993, Mandela shared the Nobel Peace Prize with South Africa's President F.W. de Klerk for their peaceful efforts to bring a nonracial democracy to South Africa. In April 1994, black South Africans voted for the first time in an election that brought Mandela the presidency of South Africa. More

1962, August 6 - Jamaica achieved independence after centuries of British and Spanish rule.

1962, August 31 - Trinidad and Tobago independence day. Effective date of the Trinidad and Tobago Independence Act 1962.

1963, August 5 - The Limited Nuclear Test Ban Treaty was signed by the United States, Great Britain, and the Soviet Union. After Senate approval, the treaty that went into effect on October 10, 1963, banned nuclear weapons testing in the atmosphere, in outer space, and under water. More

1963, August 28 - Martin Luther King Jr. delivers his iconic "I Have a Dream" speech during the March on Washington for Jobs and Freedom. Over 250,000 persons attended the Civil Rights rally in Washington, D.C. More

1963, August 30 - The hotline between Washington and Moscow came into operation 10 months after the Cuban Missile Crisis. The first implementation used Teletype equipment. It changed to fax machines in 1986 and in 2008 to a secure computer link over which secured messages are exchanged. More

1964, August 2 - The Gulf of Tonkin incident occurs, leading to increased U.S. involvement in the Vietnam War. August 7, 1964 - Following an attack on two U.S. destroyers the U.S. Congress approved the Gulf of Tonkin Resolution, granting President Lyndon B. Johnson authority "to take all necessary measures to repel any armed attack against the forces of the United States and to prevent further aggression."

1964, Aug 4 - The bodies of three lynched civil rights workers (James Chaney, Michael Schwerner, and Andrew Goodman) were found in Neshoba County, Mississippi. They had been tortured and murdered by the KKK with help from the deputy sheriff near Philadelphia. M in .after disappearing more than a month before. More

1965, Aug 6 -  The Voting Rights Act of 1965 was signed into law by President Lyndon B. Johnson. The Act suspended literacy, knowledge and character tests which were designed to keep African Americans from voting in the South. It also authorized the appointment of Federal voting examiners and barred discriminatory poll taxes. Congress renewed the in 1975, 1984 and 1991.

1965, August 9 -  Proclamation of Singapore independence from Malaysia

1965, August 11 – 16: - Six days of riots began in the Watts area of Los Angeles, triggered by an incident between a white member of the California Highway Patrol and an African American motorist. Thirty-four deaths were reported and more than 3,000 people arrested. Damage to property was estimated at $40 million.

1967, August 30 - The U.S. Senate confirms  the appointment of Thurgood Marshall to the U.S. Supreme Court. Marshall became the first African American to be confirmed as a Supreme Court justice. More

1968, August Supreme Court 20 - The Soviet Union led Warsaw Pact troops invade Czechoslovakia to crack down on reformist trends in Prague. Although the Soviet Union's action successfully halted the pace of reform in Czechoslovakia, it had unintended consequences for the unity of the communist bloc. More

1969, August 17 - Hurricane Camille made landfall late in the evening along the Mississippi Gulf Coast near Waveland, MS. Camille is one of only four Category 5 hurricanes ever to make landfall in the continental United States. The combination of winds, surges, and rainfalls caused 256 deaths (143 on the Gulf Coast and 113 in the Virginia floods) and $1.421 billion in damage. Three deaths were reported in Cuba. More 

1969, August18 - The Woodstock three day outdoor music festival celebrates its final night. The audience was estimated at more than 450,000 and it was the largest and most memorable of dozens of outdoor music festivals that took place between 1967 and 1969, an era that began with the Monterey Pops Concert, Monterey, California, on June 16-18, 1967, and ended tragically, with the Altamont Racetrack Concert, at Altamont, California, which was marked by violence.

1969, August 30 - North Vietnam's president, Ho Chi Minh response to President Nixon's letter is received at the White House three days before Ho Chi Minh death in Hanoi from a heart attack on September 2, 1969 at the age of 79. More 

1974, August 7 - French high-wire artist Philippe Petit walks between the Twin Towers at 1,350 feet above ground with no net. More

1974, August 9 – Richard M Nixon resigns the presidency as a result of the Watergate scandal. Facing possible impeachment by Congress, he became the only U.S. President ever to resign. Gerald Ford automatically assumed the presidency, taking the oath of office in the East Room of the White House and becoming the 38th U.S. President. This made him the only person to become the nation's chief executive without being elected to the presidency or the vice presidency. More

1975, August 3 - A  707 passenger flight chartered by the national airline of Morocco, Royal Air Maroc, flying in heavy fog crashed into a mountain on approach to Agadir Inezgane, Airport in Morocco. All 188 passengers and crew on board were killed. The cause of the crash was determined to be pilot error. More

1975, August 8 - The term "Global Warming" is used for the first time in a science publication. The article by geochemist Wallace Broecker of Columbia University's Lamont-Doherty Geological Observatory: "Climatic Change: Are We on the Brink of a Pronounced Global Warming?" More

1980, August 14-15 - The Solidarity movement in Poland, led by Lech Walesa, signs the Gdansk Agreement with the communist government, marking a significant milestone in the fight for workers' rights. Solidarity opposed Communist rule and was outlawed the following year. Seven years later, the re-legalization of Solidarity occurred and the government agreed to hold partially free parliamentary elections. Solidarity candidates scored stunning victories, paving the way for the downfall of Communism there. More

1981, August 13 -  President Reagan signs the Economic Recovery Tax Act of 1981 (ERTA), the 185-page that fulfilled his campaign promise to cut taxes. The act helped accelerate economic growth but it is blamed for being a major contributor to the growth of Income inequality in the U.S. which is now at heights not seen for a century. More

1983, August 21 - Filipino opposition leader Benigno S. Aquino, Jr., was assassinated at the Manila airport while leaving his plane. Public outcry ultimately led to the collapse of the government of Ferdinand E. Marcos and the inauguration of Corazon C. Aquino, widow of the slain man, as president.

1985, August 2 -  Delta Air Lines Flight 191 crashes at Dallas/Fort Worth International Airport. The National Transportation Safety Board's (NTSB) determined that the cause of the Lockheed L-1011 TriStar airplane crash was wind-shear associated with an intense thunderstorm downdraft that occurred at the north end of the airport along runway 17. Today we know this intense, localized downburst as a microburst, a weather phenomenon that was not well understood at the time of the accident. Of the 163 persons aboard, 134 passengers and crewmembers were killed at the scene in addition to one person hit on the ground. Two passengers died more than 30 days after the accident as a result of their injuries. More

1985, August 12 - Japan Air Lines Flight 123 flight from Tokyo to Osaka, Japan crashes in the area of Mount Takamagahara, 62 miles from Tokyo. The Boeing 747  suffered a severe structural failure and decompression 12 minutes into the flight  and crashed 32 minutes later after flying under minimal control for that time. 520 people died in the accident. All four survivors were seriously injured. The root cause of the explosive decompression was attributed to an improperly executed repair to the airplane's aft pressure bulkhead that was completed several years prior to the accident. The crash of Flight 123 is the deadliest single-aircraft accident in aviation history. More

1986, August 22 - A volcanic eruption under Lake Nyos in Cameroon caused deadly fumes which killed more than 1,500 persons. More

1987, August 16 -  A DC-9 Super 82 on Northwest Flight 255 crashes minutes aftertakeoff at Detroit Metropolitan Airport in Michigan. The flight was headed to California with a Phoenix stopover.  A four-year-old girl was the sole survivor of the accident,156 people died. The crash was caused by pilot error. More 

1987, August 28 - The Ray Brothers’ family home in Arcadia, Florida burns down. It was almost certainly a case of arson fueled by fear and ignorance. The three boys- Ricky, Robert and Randy- were born with hemophilia and were 10, 9 and 8 at the time. They had been diagnosed positive with HIV in 1986 and were not allowed to attend school following their positive test results. Their home was burned to the ground a week after a court ruled the following year that they had every legal right to attend. The Ricky Ray Hemophilia Relief Fund Program act was enacted by the Health and Human Services Department on November 23, 2001 More

1990, August 2 - Iraq invades Kuwait, leading to the Gulf War and international intervention to liberate Kuwait from Iraqi occupation as President George H.W. Bush orders Operation Desert Shield on August 7, 1990, which was in turn followed by the international coalition against Iraq launched as Operation Desert Storm in January 1991. More 

1990, August 12 - The largest-ever Tyrannosaurus rex skeleton is discovered on a cliff near Faith, South Dakota. The 65-million-year-old specimen is dubbed Sue, after its discoverer fossil hunter Susan Hendrickson. South Dakota. More

1991, August 19 - Soviet hardline Communists staged a coup, temporarily removing Mikhail Gorbachev from power. The coup failed within 72 hours as democratic reformer Boris Yeltsin rallied the Russian people. Yeltsin then became the leading power in the country. The Communist Party was soon banned and by December the Soviet Union itself disintegrated. More

1991, August 24 - Ukraine declares independence from the Soviet Union, leading to its dissolution later that year.

1991, August 27 - Moldovia declares its independence from the Soviet Union.

1991, August 31 - Kyrgyzstan Kyrgyzstan declares independence from the Soviet Union and a democratic government is established. 

1998, August 7 - The U.S. Embassies in Nairobi, Kenya and Dar es Salaam, Tanzania are bombed with truck bombs. The terrorist attacks killed 224 people, among them, 12 Americans, and wounded more than 4,500. The U.S. accuses Saudi exile Osama bin Laden, of masterminding the bombings. On August 20, U.S. President Bill Clinton ordered cruise missiles launched against bin Laden’s terrorist training camps in Afghanistan and to a pharmaceutical plant in Sudan, believed to be manufacturing and distributing chemical weapons. More

1998, August 17 - The United States launches cruise missile strikes against suspected Al-Qaeda targets in Afghanistan and Sudan in
retaliation for the 1998 embassy bombings.

1999, August 17 - The catastrophic magnitude 7.6 Izmit earthquake struck the Kocaeli Province of Turkey, causing extensive damage and approximately 17,000 deaths. Named for the quake’s proximity to the northwestern city of İzmit, It is widely remembered as one of the deadliest natural disasters in modern Turkish history. More

2000, August 12 - The Russian nuclear submarine Kursk sinks to the bottom of the Barents Sea while on a naval exercise inside the Arctic Circle. The entire 118-strong crew perished According to the Russian navy, it had not been carrying nuclear warheads. The cause of the disaster remains unknown although it was attributed to an accidental torpedo explosion. The wreck was brought up from the seabed by a Dutch salvage team more than a year after the accident. More

2002, - August 5 - The turret of the Civil War ironclad USS Monitor is lifted out of the Atlantic Ocean off the coast of Hatteras N.C. The historic warship sank on December 31 1862 during a storm as it was being towed around Cape Hatteras on its way to Beaufort, North Carolina, to join a fleet being assembled for an attack on Charleston. Many of the sailors were rescued, but 16 of its crew members perished, More

2003, August 14 - A major power blackout affects parts of the northeastern and midwestern United States, as well as Ontario, Canada, leaving millions without electricity. More

2005, August 29 - Hurricane Katrina makes landfall in Louisiana, causing catastrophic damage and flooding in New Orleans and other parts of the Gulf Coast.  Katrina was one of the five deadliest hurricanes to ever strike the United States. Hurricane Katrina was responsible for 1,833 fatalities and approximately $108 billion in damage in 2005 dollars. More

2006, August 24 - The International Astronomical Union (IAU) redefines the definition of a planet, resulting in the demotion of
Pluto to the status of a "dwarf planet."

2008, August 8 - The opening ceremony of the Beijing Olympics takes place, marking the first time China hosts the Olympic
Games.

2011, August 5 - NASA's Juno spacecraft launches on a mission to study the planet Jupiter

2011, Aug 5 - Standard & Poor’s credit rating agency downgrades the United States debt from its highest rating of AAA to a lesser AA+ rating, marking the first-ever decline of credit worthiness for the U.S. The agency cited America’s $14 trillion outstanding debt and an ineffective political leadership to address the debt reduction. This downgraded rating remains in effect as of January 1, 2023.

2014, August 9 - The shooting of Michael Brown in Ferguson, Missouri, sparks protests and civil unrest, leading to a national conversation on racial tensions and police violence in the United States.

2016, August 5-21 - The Summer Olympics are held in Rio de Janeiro, Brazil, showcasing athletes from around the world.

2017, August 21 - A total solar eclipse, visible across a large portion of the United States, captivates millions of people.

2019, August 5 - India revokes the special autonomous status of Jammu and Kashmir, escalating tensions between India and Pakistan over the disputed region.

2020, August 4 - A massive explosion at the port of Beirut in Lebanon causes widespread devastation and loss of life.

Note: Sources for the Historical Content shown, include research and reviews of relevant Online History Resources or printed material. When possible, we show a link to a source which provides additional or unique perspective about the event. We do our best to provide accurate information but would appreciate being notified if any incorrect information is found. You may do so by using this link: Feedback

These are some of many widely recognized historic events that occurred during the month of July, listed by year. Dates provided for earlier time events may be approximate. Select another month

46 BC, July 2 - Julius Caesar defeats Pompey the Great at the Battle of Dyrrhachium during the Roman Civil War.

64 CE, 64 July 18 - The Great Fire of Rome begins during the reign of Emperor Nero, lasting for several days and resulting in significant destruction.

365, July 21 - Crete earthquake - An estimated 8.5 magnitude underseas earthquake and resulting Tsunami causes widespread destruction in central and southern Macedonia (Modern Greece), Africa northern Libya, Egypt, where the city of Alexandria was severely damaged, Cyprus, Sicily and Hispania (Spain). On Crete, nearly all towns were destroyed. More  

 711, July 19 - The Umayyad conquest of Hispania begins as Muslim forces under Tariq ibn Ziyad land at Gibraltar. the Islamic Arabs and Moors of Berber descent in northern Africa crossed the Strait of Gibraltar onto the Iberian Peninsula, and in a series of raids they conquered Visigothic Christian Hispania.

 756, July 28 - The Papal States are established as Pepin the Short, King of the Franks, donates land to Pope Stephen II, creating a temporal domain for the papacy.

 939, July 12 - The Battle of Simancas takes place between the Kingdom of León and the Caliphate of Córdoba, resulting in a victory for León and the decline of the Caliphate's power in the region.

 987, July 3 -  Hugh Capet is crowned King of France, marking the beginning of the Capetian dynasty.

1002, July 23 - The Holy Roman Emperor Otto III dies in his palace in Paterno, Italy, at the age of 21.

1009, July 15 - The Church of the Holy Sepulchre in Jerusalem is destroyed by Fatimid caliph Al-Hakim bi-Amr Allah.

1027, July 6 - Pope John XIX crowns Conrad II as the Holy Roman Emperor in Rome.

1054, July 16 - The Great Schism occurs: Michael Cerularius, Patriarch of Constantinople (now called Istanbul) was excommunicated from the Christian church based in Rome, Italy. The resulting split divided the European Christian church into two major branches: the Western Roman Catholic Church and the Eastern Orthodox Church. 

1060, July 22 - Henry I of France is crowned King of France in Reims.

1099, July 15 - The First Crusaders launch an assault on Jerusalem, ultimately leading to the capture of the city and the establishment of the Crusader states.

1100, July 31- King William II of England, also known as William Rufus, is killed in a hunting accident in the New Forest.

1203, July 17 - The Siege of Constantinople begins during the Fourth Crusade as Roman Catholic Crusaders, aboard a Venetian fleet, attack the city resulting in the Sack of Constantinople and the installation of Prince Alexius Angelus on the Byzantine throne. More

1209, July 22 - The Massacre at Béziers takes place during the Albigensian Crusade, with Crusaders led by Simon de Montfort sacking the city and killing thousands.

1215, July 15 - The signing of the Magna Carta takes place at Runnymede, England, marking a crucial step towards the limitation of monarchic powers.

1223, July 18 - Louis VIII of France is crowned as the King of France in Reims Cathedral.

1230, July 29 - The Treaty of San Germano is signed between Emperor Frederick II and Pope Gregory IX, ending the Papal-Imperial conflict.

1237, July 28 - The Battle of Posada takes place between the Mongol Empire and the Kingdom of Hungary, resulting in a Hungarian victory.

1242, July 5 - The Battle of Lake Peipus occurs between the Teutonic Knights and the Novgorod Republic, with the Novgorod forces emerging victorious.

1253, July 10 - Mindaugas is crowned as the first and only King of Lithuania, establishing the Kingdom of Lithuania.

1260, July 3 - The Battle of Ain Jalut occurs between the Mongol Empire and the Mamluk Sultanate, resulting in a decisive Mamluk victory and halting the Mongol expansion into the Middle East.

1290, July 18 - The Edict of Expulsion is issued in England, ordering the expulsion of all Jews from the country.

1307, July 22 - King Philip IV of France orders the arrest of the Knights Templar, marking the beginning of their persecution and eventual dissolution.

1392, July 17 - The Joseon Dynasty is established in Korea with the crowning of King Taejo as the first king of Joseon.

1389, July 15 - The Battle of Kosovo takes place between the Ottoman Empire and an alliance of Balkan states led by Serbia, resulting in a costly but inconclusive outcome.

1456, July 5 - The Siege of Belgrade (Nándorfehérvár) by Sultan Mehmet II begins. Hungarian forces led by John Hunyadi a Hungarian nobleman and warlord of Vlach lineage, defended the city, ultimately compelling the wounded Sultan Mehmet II to lift the siege and retreat. The battle had significant consequences, as it stabilized the southern frontiers of the Kingdom of Hungary for more than half a century and delaying the Ottoman advance in Europe.

1499, July 22 - The Swiss Confederation defeats the forces of the Holy Roman Empire at the Battle of Dornach. More

1536, July 9 - Anne Boleyn is executed in England for high treason.

1567, July 24 -  Abdication of Mary, Queen of Scots. After failing to quash a rebellion of Scottish peers, Mary was imprisoned in Loch Leven Castle and forced to abdicate in favor of her one-year-old son. More

1588, July 29 - The Spanish Armada is defeated. The Spanish fleet was led by the Duke of Medina Sidonia and its purpose was to  overthrow Elizabeth I, to reinstate Catholicism in England and to end England's support for the Dutch Republic to prevent attacks by English and Dutch privateers against Spanish interests in the Americas. The English fleet was under the command of Charles Howard, 2nd Baron Howard of Effingham. His second in command was Sir Francis Drake. The Spanish Armada defeat is considered one of England's greatest military achievements. More

1609, July 2 - The Dutch explorer Henry Hudson sails into what is now New York Harbor, later establishing Dutch claims to the region.

1620, July 22 - The Mayflower departs from England on its voyage to North America, carrying the Pilgrims who would establish the Plymouth Colony.

1643, July 2 - The Battle of Adwalton Moor takes place during the English Civil War, resulting in a decisive victoy for the Parliamentarian forces.

1652, July 4 - The Battle of Plymouth takes place during the First Anglo-Dutch War, with the English fleet under Admiral Robert Blake repelling a Dutch attack on Plymouth.

1663, July 3 - King Charles II of England grants a charter establishing the Carolina Colony, named in honor of his father, Charles I.

1664, July 23 - The Siege of New Amsterdam ends when the Dutch surrender to the English, who then rename the settlement New York.

1670, July 30 - The Hudson's Bay Company receives a royal charter from King Charles II, granting it exclusive trading rights in the Hudson Bay region of North America.

1688, July 10 - The Siege of Derry begins during the Williamite War in Ireland, as the predominantly Protestant city resists a Catholic Jacobite army.

1690, July 1 - The Battle of the Boyne takes place in Ireland, resulting in a victory for Protestant King William III over Catholic King James II and securing Protestant rule in Ireland.

1715, July 31 - The Urca de Lima and 9 other treasure ships on their way back to Spain from Havana were all lost in a hurricane off the Atlantic coast. More than 700 seamen, including the Spanish commander, drowned. More than $15 million worth of treasure sank to the bottom of the ocean. Spain managed to recover about $4 million of the treasure. The rest remained on the ocean floor for more than 250 years. More

1718, July 28 - The city of New Orleans is founded by French colonists under the direction of Jean-Baptiste Le Moyne de Bienville.

1742, July 26 - The Battle of Dettingen occurs during the War of the Austrian Succession, marking the last time a reigning British monarch, King George II, personally leads his troops in battle.

1769, July 16 - Fr. Junípero Serra founds Mission San Diego de Alcalá. This is the first of the California Missions.  Fr. Junipero Sierra founded eight more of the 21 California missions: Carmel, San Antonio, San Gabriel, San Luis Obispo, San Francisco (Mission Dolores). San Juan Capistrano, Santa Clara, and San Buenaventura,  Serra’s missions helped strengthen Spain’s control of Alta California.

1775, July 3 - George Washington takes command of the Continental Army at Cambridge, Massachusetts.

1775, July 26 - Benjamin Franklin is appointed first Postmaster General by the Continental Congress before the Declaration of Independence was even signed. More

1776, July 4 - The United States declares independence from Great Britain.

1777, July 31 -  The Marquis de Lafayette, a 19-year-old French nobleman, was made a major-general in the American Continental Army. His Masonic membership opened many doors in Philadelphia and Lafayette's advocates included the recently arrived American envoy to France, Benjamin Franklin, urged Congress to accommodate the young Frenchman who had offered to serve without pay.

1779, July 16 - The United States Congress establishes the Badge of Military Merit, later known as the Purple Heart, to honor soldiers wounded in battle.

1788, July 26 - New York ratifies the U.S. Constitution and becomes the 11th of the original 13 states to join the Union.

1789, July 14 - The Bastille is stormed by Paris mob. Many consider this event the start of the French Revolution. It is now commemorated in France as a national holiday. More

1790, July 16 - President George Washington signs the Residence Act bill which approved the creation of a national capital on the Potomac River. The bill declared that the exact location was to be selected by President Washington. The initial shape of the federal district was a square from land donated by Maryland and Virginia, measuring 10 miles (16 km) on each side and totaling 100 square miles (259 km2). More

1796, July 11 - The United States takes possession of Detroit from the British during the American Revolutionary War, in accordance with the terms of the Jay Treaty.

1797, July 7 - The U.S. House of Representatives notifies the Senate of the Impeachment of North Carolina's Senator William Blount for high crimes and misdemeanors. The Senate trial which did not begin until December,1798 ended on January 14, 1799, as the Senate dismissed the case on jurisdictional grounds, leaving many issues unsettled, most importantly the question, "was a senator a civil officer of the United States and therefore liable to impeachment?"  Although the Senate failed to voice its opinion on that matter, its dismissal of the Blount case set a precedent that still holds today—a U.S. senator cannot be impeached. More

1799, July 2 - The Rosetta Stone is found in the Egyptian village of Rosetta, providing a key to deciphering ancient Egyptian hieroglyphs. More

1803, July 4 - The Louisiana Purchase is announced in the United States.

1804, July 11 - Vice President Aaron Burr fatally shoots his long-time political antagonist Alexander Hamilton. Hamilton, a leading Federalist and the chief architect of America’s political economy, died the following day. More

1809, July 2 - Shawnee Chief Tecumseh calls on all Native peoples to unite and resist the growing loss land to the white settlers. proposing that if united,  the various tribes had enough strength to stop the white settlers. More

1810, July 20 - Colombian Declaration of Independence from Spain.

1811, July 5 - Venezuela declares its independence from Spain

1816, July 9 - Argentina declares its independence from Spain

1821, July 28 - Peru declares its independence from Spain.

1838, July 2 -  Enslaved Africans on the Cuban schooner Amistad rise up against their captors and gaining control of the ship, which had been transporting them to a sugar plantation at Puerto Principe, Cuba. More

1840, July 23 - The British North America was approved by the British Parliament. The Act, also known as the Act of Union it was and proclaimed on February 10, 1841, in Montreal. It abolished the legislatures of Lower Canada and Upper Canada and established a new political entity, the Province of Canada to replace them. More

1847, July 24 - Pioneer Day. Completing a treacherous thousand-mile exodus, an ill and exhausted Brigham Young and fellow members of the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-Day Saints arrived in Utah’s Great Salt Lake Valley. The Mormon, as they were commonly known, pioneers viewed their arrival as the founding of a Mormon homeland. hence Pioneer Day. More

1847, July 26 - Liberia declaration of Independence. More

1862, July 1 - President Abraham Lincoln signed the first income tax bill, establishing a 3% income tax on annual incomes of $600-$10,000 and a 5% tax on incomes over $10,000.

1863, July 1-3 - The Battle of Gettysburg takes place in Pennsylvania. The loss ended Confederate general Robert E. Lee’s ambitious second quest to invade the North and bring the Civil War to a swift end. With more than 50,000 estimated casualties, the three-day engagement was the bloodiest single battle of the conflict. More

1863, July 7 - Kit Carson begins his campaign against the Navajo that resulted in their removal from the Four Corners area to southeastern New Mexico. More

1866, July 30, The New Orleans Massacre:  a mob of ex-Confederates led an armed attack on a group of Louisiana Republicans and their African American supporters as they convened in the Mechanics Institute Building in New Orleans., site of a reconvened Louisiana Constitutional Convention 38 people were killed and 146 wounded. More

1867, July 1 - Canada Day, formerly known as Dominion Day, is the National Day of Canada. A federal statutory holiday, it celebrates the anniversary of Canadian Confederation which occurred on July 1, 1867, when the three separate colonies of the United Canadas, Nova Scotia, and New Brunswick were united into a single dominion within the British Empire called Canada.

1868, July 28 - The 14th Amendment to the U.S. Constitution, passed by the Senate in 1966, is officially adopted, having been ratified by the requisite number of states. The  Amendment granted citizenship to all persons "born or naturalized in the United States," including formerly enslaved people, and provided all citizens with “equal protection under the laws,” extending the provisions of the Bill of Rights to the states. More

1881, July 2 - President James A. Garfield was shot and mortally wounded as he entered a railway station in Washington, D.C. He died on September 19th. More

1881, July 19 - Sitting Bull and his people return to the United States from Canada to surrender. More

1890, July 3 -  Idaho is admitted into the Union becoming the 43rd State. 

1890, July 10 - Wyoming is admitted into the Union becoming the 44th State.

1893, July 1 - President Grover Cleveland undergoes a secret operation on a friend’s yacht to remove a cancerous growth from his mouth. The entire left side of his jaw was removed along with a small portion of his soft palate. Two weeks later, he was fitted with a rubber prosthesis which he wore until his death in 1908. The secrecy was mostly maintained for 24 years until  one of the doctors wrote an article describing what had transpired. More

1898, July 21 - Guam was ceded to the United States by Spain.

1898, July 25 - During the Spanish-American War, the U.S. invaded Puerto Rico, which was then a Spanish colony. In 1917, Puerto Rico became an unincorporated Territory of the U.S. and Puerto Ricans became American citizens. Partial self-government was granted in 1947 allowing citizens to elect their own governor. In 1951, Puerto Ricans wrote their own constitution and elected a non-voting commissioner to represent them in Washington. More

1900, July 19 - Italian King Umberto I was killed in Monza by Italian-American anarchist Gaetano Bresci. He was succeeded by his son, Victor Emmanuel III. More

1903, July 15 - Ernest Pfennig, a Chicago dentist, orders the first Original Model A Ford car. The car is delivered a week later on July 23, 1903. A total of1,750 cars were made from 1903 through 1904 and sold at an average price of $850 More 

1905, July 11 - The Niagara Movement, a group of 59 well know African American businessmen begin their three day meeting on the Canadian side of the Niagara Falls. W. E. B. Du Bois was named general secretary and the group split into various committees. They renounced Booker T. Washington's accommodation policies set forth in his famed "Atlanta Compromise" speech ten years earlier. The Niagara Movement's manifesto is, in the words of Du Bois, "We want full manhood suffrage and we want it now.... We are men! We want to be treated as men. And we shall win." The movement became  a forerunner of the NAACP. More 

1905, July 29 - The secret Taft-Katsura Agreement is signed in which the United States acknowledged Japanese rule over Korea and condoned the Anglo-Japanese alliance of 1902. At the same time, Japan recognized U.S. control of the Philippines. More

1908, July 26 - The Bureau of Investigation, forerunner of the FBI, is established. More

1911, July 24 - American archeologist Hiram Bingham reaches the ruins of Machu Picchu. Although widely credited with being the first westerner to reach the site, other reports indicate other Europeans had seen it before Bingham, but he was the one who revealed it to the world at large. Local Peruvians, including the expedition's guide, Melchor Arteaga knew of the site. Nine years before Bingham's expedition, Agustin Lizárraga, a local farmer searching for new land for agriculture with some family members came upon Machu Pichu and carved an inscription on a wall in the Temple of the Three Windows that said: "Agustín Lizárraga, July 14th 1902". More 

1914, July 28 - World War I outbreak of hostilities between Austria-Hungary and Serbia begin.

1914, July 31 - Treasury Secretary William Gibbs McAdoo closes the New York Stock Exchange to stop the European liquidation of American securities caused by the outbreak of WWI.  After several days of selloffs, about $3 billion (equivalent to $90 billion in 2023) of foreign portfolio investments had been sold. All of the world’s financial markets also closed. The Sock market remained closed for four months opening again on December 12, 1914. Bond trading had restarted on November 28, 1914. The liquidation of European-held securities transformed the United States from a debtor nation to a creditor nation for the first time in its history. More  

1915, July 24 - The  excursion boat S.S. Eastland, known as the "Speed Queen of the Great Lakes rolles over into the Chicago river at the wharf's edge. More than 2,500 passengers and crew members were on board that day – and 844 people lost their lives, including 22 entire families. More

1917, July 2 -  Following King Constantine I abdication, under pressure from the Allies, Greece  ends three years of neutrality by entering World War I alongside Britain, France, Russia and Italy. 

1917, July 17 - British King, George V, declares that he and all his descendants would be going by Windsor. Both in a “House of Windsor” capacity and as an official last name. Before George V picked Windsor, the royals were going by the “House of Saxe-Coburg and Gotha.” The change came about because of the strong anti-German sentiment following World War I. In 1960, Queen Elizabeth II and her husband Prince Philip announced the creation of a brand-new last name for their untitled descendants which honored both their families: Mountbatten-Windsor. But did not change the name of the House, which is still the House of Windsor.

1918, July 15 -  The Second Battle of the Marne  was the last major German offensive on the Western Front during the First World War. It lasted a year ending on July 18, 1919.

1918, July 16 - Russia’s last Imperial Family; Former Tsar Nicholas and Alexandra, and their five children, Olga, Tatiana, Maria, Anastasia and Alexey, were murdered by the Bolsheviks. More 

1919, July 27 - The Chicago race riot of 1919 begins. it was a violent racial conflict between white Americans and black Americans that lasted eight days. During the riot, 38 people died, 537 were injured and between 1,000 and 2,000 residents, most of them black, lost their homes. The riot is considered the worst of the scores of riots and civil disturbances across the United States during the "Red Summer" of 1919. More

1921, July 27 - The Insulin hormone is successfully isolated by Canadian doctors Frederick Banting and Charles Best. More

1921, July 28 - Hitler becomes Party Chairman and leader of the Nazis.

1924, July 6 - The German psychiatrist Hans Berger records the first EEG (Electroencephalogram) reading from a human by placing electrodes on the brain of a 17-year-old boy to capture its electrical activity. This marked the advent of a new era for neuroscience. More

1925, July 21 - The "Scopes Monkey trial", formally The State of Tennessee v. John Thomas Scopes, which had started on July 10. comes to an end. The trial publicized the Fundamentalist–Modernist controversy, which set Modernists, who said evolution was not inconsistent with religion, against Fundamentalists. The trial was deliberately staged in order to attract publicity to the small town of Dayton, Tennessee, where it was held. Scopes was found guilty and was fined $100 (equivalent to $1,700 in 2023), but the verdict was overturned on a technicality. More

1930, July 7 - Construction work  for the Hoover Dam begins after the appropriations were approved. The dam was dedicated in 1935 and the hydroelectric generators went online in 1937.  The Hoover Dam was built for a cost of $49 million (approximately $760 million adjusted for inflation). The power plant and generators cost an additional $71 million. The sale of electrical power generated by the dam paid back its construction cost, with interest, by 1987. More

1932, July 28 - The Bonus Army,  a group of 43,000 demonstrators – 17,000 veterans of U.S. involvement in World War I, their families, and affiliated groups gathered in Washington, D.C., to demand early cash redemption of their service bonus certificates. They were forcibly disbanded by the U.S. Army in Washington, D.C. 

1933, July 22 - Wiley Post completes a solo flight around the world in the Lockheed 5C Vega Winnie Mae. This record-breaking flight demonstrated several significant new aviation technologies. More

1936, July 17 - The Spanish Civil War begins.  In a matter of days, a well-planned military uprising splits the county in half, with one zone controlled by the government (known as Republicans, Loyalists, or Reds), and the other by the rebels (also referred to as Nationalists, Fascists, or Whites)  An estimated half million people perished during the civil war which lasted until 1939. Franco ruled Spain as a dictator for almost 40 years until his death in 1975.  More 

1937, June 2 - Amelia Earhart and Navigator Fred Noonan disappear on Round-the-World Flight. Earhart and Noonan never found Howland Island and they were declared lost at sea on July 19, 1937 following a massive sea and air search. More

1940, July 10 - The Battle of Britain begins as Nazi Germany launches air attacks on southern England. More

1941, July 7 - The Nazi invasion of the Soviet Union, code-named Operation Barbarossa, begins.

1941, July 26 - U.S. President Franklin D. Roosevelt issues Executive Order 8832, freezing Japanese assets in the United States and eleven days later, on August 1, declares an embargo on oil and gasoline exports to Japan, bringing commercial relations between the nations to an effective end. On December 7 the Japanese attacked Pearl Harbor. More at: WWII Museum and the The Independent Institute   

1942, July 28 - Stalin Issues Order No. 227: “Not a Step Back” The order, intended to galvanize the morale of the hard-pressed Red Army under German attack. More

1943, July 10 - American and British forces invade Sicily by air and sea. 

1943, July 12 - Battle of Kursk: Russia stops the German advance. More

1943, July 19,  Approximately 700 United States planes of the USAAF flew over Rome and dropped 9.000 bombs on the city. This raid was intended to only damage the freight yard and the steel factory in the San Lorenzo district of Rome, but it also struck apartments and the Papal Basilica, killing 1500 people. More

1943, July 24 - Operation Gomorrah begins. 791 British bombers took off under cover of darkness tow. ard Hamburg, Germany. The air fleet was composed of British Lancaster, Stirling, Wellington, and Halifax bombers flying in six waves. Each wave had between 100 to 120 aircraft hoping to concentrate as much destruction as possible.  More

1943, July 25 - Mussolini is deposed. The Fascist Grand Council ousted Mussolini from office and placed him under arrest two weeks after the Allied attack on Sicily. King Victor Emmanuel of Italy then ordered Marshal Pietro Badoglio to form a new government.

1943, July 28 - During World War II, a firestorm killed 42,000 civilians in Hamburg, Germany. after 2,326 tons of bombs and incendiaries were dropped by the Allies. 

1944, July 20 - German military leaders attempt to assassinate Adolf Hitler and take control of the government. Their plot fails. More

1945, July 16 - The first atomic bomb “ nicknamed “Gadget,” is successfully tested at the Trinity Site in Alamogordo, New Mexico. Gadget detonated with between 15 and 20 kilotons of force, slightly more than the Little Boy bomb dropped on Hiroshima. The Atomic Age had begun. More

1945, July 17 - The Potsdam Conference begins. Soviet leader Joseph Stalin, British Prime Minister Winston Churchill (replaced on July 26 by Prime Minister Clement Attlee), and U.S. President Harry Truman— start a multi day meeting in Potsdam, Germany, to negotiate terms for the end of World War II. During the conference, President Truman informed the Soviet leader that the United States had successfully detonated the first atomic bomb on July 16, 1945. Reportedly, Stalin, was already well-informed about the U.S. nuclear program thanks to the Soviet intelligence network. More 

1945, July 28 - A United States B-25 Mitchell bomber, on its way to LaGuardia Airport crashes into the the N.Y. Empire building near the 79th floor. The two pilots and one passenger aboard and 11 people in the building perished. More near the 

1945, July 30 - The USS Indianapolis is torpedoed by a Japanese submarine and sinks within minutes. Only 316 of the 1,196 men on board survived. The Indianapolis had just completed its major mission; the delivery to Tinian Island in the South Pacific of a key components of the atomic bomb that would be dropped a week later at Hiroshima. More

1947, July 18 - President Harry Truman signs the second Presidential Succession Act. The original act of 1792 had placed the Senate president pro tempore and Speaker of the House in the line of succession, but in 1886 Congress had removed them. The 1947 Executive order reinserted those officials but placed the Speaker ahead of the president pro tempore. In 1965, Senator Birch Bayh of Indiana and Representative Emanuel Celler of New York introduced joint resolutions in the Senate and House of Representatives aimed at clarifying and defining in the Constitution, the rules on Presidential succession and inability. Congress approved the 25th Amendment on 1965. The states completed ratification by February 10, 1967, and President Lyndon Johnson certified the amendment on February 23, 1967.

1947, July 26 - President Harry Truman signs The National Security Act of 1947 . The Act mandated a major reorganization of the foreign policy and military establishments of the U.S. Government and created many of the institutions that Presidents found useful when formulating and implementing foreign policy, including the National Security Council (NSC).

1948, July 20 - The second peacetime draft began with passage of the Selective Service Act of 1948 after the STSA expired. The new law required all men of age 18 to 26 to register. It also created the system for the "Doctor Draft", aimed at inducting health professionals into military service. More

1948, July 26 - President Harry S. Truman signs executive order 9981 banning segregation in the Armed Forces. More

1949, July 27 - The First test flight of the de Havilland DH 106 Comet, takes place. The Havilland, developed and manufactured by de Havilland in the United Kingdom, went on to become the world's first commercial passenger jet aircraft to reach production.
passenger cabin and was commercially promising at its debut in 1952. Within a year, three Comets were lost  after suffering catastrophic mishaps mid-flight. As a result, the Comet was extensively redesigned, with structural reinforcements and other changes. More  

1951,  July 27 - The Korean War armistice is signed, ending three years of fighting and establishing a demilitarized zone between North and South Korea. 1951. No peace treaty is signed .

1952, July 23 - The Egyptian army led by by Mohamed Naguib and Gamal Abdel Nasser launched a revolution toppling King Farouk in a coup d'état by the Free Officers Movement and, changing Egypt from a monarchy to a republic. The Revolution ushered in a wave of revolutionary politics in the Arab World, and contributed to the escalation of decolonization and the development of Third World solidarity during the Cold War. More

1952, July 25 - Puerto Rico becomes a U.S. commonwealth.

1953, July 26 - Fidel Castro's revolutionary "26th of July Movement." begins and culminates by overthrowing dictator Fulgencio
Batista in 1959. Although he once declared that Cuba would never again be ruled by a dictator, Castro's government became a Communist dictatorship.

1953, July 27 - The Korean War ended with the signing of an armistice by U.S. and North Korean delegates at Panmunjom, Korea. It brought an end to the hostilities that lasted just over three years and killed 2.5 million people. More

1955, July 17 -  Disneyland opens for its first guests.; a special 'International Press Preview' event, which was only open to invited guests. More

1956, July 26 - Egyptian president Gamal Abdel Nasser nationalizes the foreign-owned Suez Canal Company, which administered the canal and was owned primarily by British and French shareholders. On October 29, Israel invades the Egyptian Sinai.  and on November 5, Britain and France landed paratroopers along the Suez Canal. Political pressure from the United States, the Soviet Union, and the United Nations led to a withdrawal by the three invaders. The episode humiliated the United Kingdom and France and strengthened Nasser. It later became clear that Israel, France and Britain had conspired to plan the invasion. More 

1956, July 30 - Two years after pushing to have the phrase “under God” inserted into the pledge of allegiance, President Dwight D. Eisenhower signs a law officially declaring “In God We Trust” to be the nation’s official motto. The law, also mandated that the phrase be printed on all American paper currency. The phrase had been placed on U.S. coins since the Civil War. 

1958, July 29 - President Eisenhower signs into law the bill passed by the U. S. Congress establishing NASA. The National Aeronautics and Space Administration began operations on October 1, 1958. More

1960, July 1 - The Somali republic was formed on July 1, 1960, as a unification of the Trust Territory of Italian Somaliland, and British Somaliland. The independence day of Somalia is a national holiday observed annually in Somalia and the diaspora worldwide.

1962, July 1 - Rwanda gains independence from Belgium. Independence Day in Rwanda is a somewhat muted affair. Kwibohora, (July 4) is celebrated as Rwanda Liberation Day. On this day in 1994 the Rwandan Patriotic Front (RPF) secured the capital of Kigali and ended the 1994 Genocide Against the Tutsi in Rwanda.

1962, July 1 - Burundi gains its freedom from Belgium.

1962, July 10 - The U.S. Patent Office issued Patent No. 3,043,625 to “Nils Ivar Bohlin, Goteborg, (Volvo) for the three-point seatbelt. Volvo was so convinced of its safety potential safety that it made the patent available for other manufacturers, and motorists, to benefit from.

1964, July 2 - U.S. President Lyndon B. Johnson signs the Civil Rights Act into law, outlawing discrimination based on race, color, religion, sex, or national origin. More

1964, July 6 - Malawi Independence Day.

1964, July 23 - President de Gaulle proposes at a news conference in the Salle des Fetes of the Elysee Palace, that the United States, the Soviet Union, Communist China and France agree to get out and stay out of the Indochinese peninsula as a means of ending the fighting in Laos and South Vietnam. He also proposes, once the fighting had ended, a massive program of economic and technical aid to the peoples of North and South Vietnam, Laos and Cambodia. More

1964, July 29 -  Ranger 7, an unmanned U.S. lunar probe reaches the Moon and takes the first close-up images of earths' satellite. During its final 17 minutes of flight, it sent back 4,316 images of the lunar surface. The last image taken 2.3 seconds before impact had a resolution of just half-a-meter.  More

1965, July 26 - Maldives Independence Day

1965, July 29 - The 1st Brigade, 101st Airborne Division, arrives in Vietnam Cam Ranh Bay. The 101st fought in 45 operations spanning seven years. Seventeen members of the 101st Airborne received the Congressional Medal of Honor for their conduct in combat in this conflict. The unit officially came home to Fort Campbell on April 6, 1972. The 101st Airborne suffered heavy casualties during the Vietnam War, 4,011 were killed in action, and 18,259 were wounded. This was over twice the amount of soldiers lost from their unit during WWII. More

1965, July 30 - Medicare is signed into law by President Lyndon Johnson at the Truman Library in Independence, Missouri. His gesture drew attention to the 20 years it had taken Congress to enact government health insurance for senior citizens after Harry Truman had proposed it. In fact, Medicare’s history dated back even further. More

1969, July 20 - American astronauts Neil Armstrong and Edwin "Buzz" Aldrin land the Apollo 11 mission Lunar Module “Eagle” in the Sea of Tranquility and become the first humans to walk on the moon. More

1971, July 1 - The Twenty-Sixth Amendment to the Constitution is ratified, lowering the voting age from 21 to 18.

1971,  July 30 - Japanese Air Force, Fighter Jet collides with a passenger plane, Boeing 727 operated by All Nippon Airways (ANA).  causing both aircraft to crash. All 162 people aboard the airliner were killed, while the Sabre pilot, a trainee with the JASDF, freed himself from his airplane after the collision and parachuted to safety. More

1973, July 10 - The Bahamas gains its independence by the United Kingdom Government, Order in Council.  This date is now celebrated as the country's Independence Day.

1973, July 31 - Delta Air Lines DC-9 Flight 723, on approach to Boston, Massachusetts slams into a seawall at the foot of the runway, spewing burning wreckage across the airport and killing 88 of the 89 people on board. The lone survivor was Leopold Chouinard, who clung to life despite severe injuries but, tragically, died in the hospital four months after the crash. More

1975, July 5 - Cape Verde Independence Day from Portugal - Effective date of the Agreement Between Portugal and Partido Africano para a Independência da Guiné e Cabo Verde (PAIGC) signed on 18 December 1974.[

1975, July 5 - Guinea-Bissau Independence Day - Declaration of independence during the Guinea-Bissau War of Independence.[52]

1975, July 6 - Comoros Independence Day from France. Unilateral declaration of independence by the Chamber of Deputies of Comoros following the 1974 Comorian independence referendum.[

1976, July 4 - The United States celebrates its bicentennial with a day of parades, concerts, and fireworks.

1976, July 20 - Viking 1 Lands on Mars' on the western slope of Chryse Planitia (the Plains of Gold). Viking 1 found a place in history when it became the first U.S. mission to land a spacecraft safely on the surface of Mars and return images of the surface. More

1976, July 28 - A 7.8 earthquake razes the Chinese city of Tangshan located about 68 miles east of Beijing. The official death toll,  reported was 242,000 persons, but it may have been twice as high. At least 700,000 more people were injured and the property damage was extensive. More

1978, July 25 - Louise Brown gives birth to the world’s first "test-tube baby", in Oldham, northwest England. More 

1979, July 12 - Kiribati Independence Day

1980, July 30 - Vanuatu, achieves independence from the United Kingdom and France under Prime Minister Walter Lini.

1982, July 9 - Pan Am Flight 759, a Boeing 727 flight from Miami to San Diego, with stops in New Orleans and Las Vegas. crashed in the New Orleans suburb of Kenner after being forced down shortly after takeoff due to wind shear which the pilots were not informed about prior to takeoff. All 145 on board, as well as 8 people on the ground, were killed. More

1985, July 10 - French secret service agents planted two bombs and sank the Greenpeace Flagship The Rainbow Warrior. One crew member was killed. More

1985, July 13 - Live Aid, a global rock concert for famine relief in Ethiopia, is held in London and Philadelphia.

1988, July 3 - The U.S. cruiser USS Vincennes shoots down the Iranian passenger jet, Iran Air 655, with a surface-to-air missile, killing 290 people. More

1990, July 27 - The Jamaat al Muslimeen attempted coup d'état in Trinidad and Tobago.

1994, July 4 - Rwandan Patriotic Front troops capture the Rwandan capital of Kigali, ending the Rwandan Genocide.

1994, July 12 - Germany's Constitutional Court ended the ban on sending German troops to fight outside the country which  had been in effect since the end of World War II. The ruling allowed German troops to join in United Nations and NATO
peace-keeping missions. On July 14, German military units marched in Bastille Day celebrations in Paris, the first appearance of German troops there since World War II.

1995, July 23 - Alan Hale and Thomas Bopp separately discover the Comet Hale–Bopp. The comet becomes visible to the naked eye a year later and stays visible for a record 18 months, due to its massive nucleus size. This is twice as long as the Great Comet of 1811, the previous record holder. Accordingly, Hale–Bopp was dubbed the great comet of 1997. Sadly, 39 people who were part of the "Heaven's Gate" cult in San Diego committed mass suicide as the comet came close to Earth. More 

1996, July 5 - Dolly, the most famous sheep of all time is born in the lab from DNA taken from an adult sheep’s mammary gland. She was the first mammal to be cloned from an adult cell, rather than an embryo. A major scientific achievement which also raised ethical concerns. More

1996, July 17 - TWA Flight 800 departed Kennedy International Airport in New York bound for Paris but exploded in mid-air 12 minutes after takeoff.  All 212 passengers and 17 crew members on board were killed. Although it could not be determined with certainty, the likely ignition source was a short circuit.  Problems with the aircraft's wiring were found, including evidence of arcing in the fuel quantity indication system (FQIS) wiring that enters the tank. More

1997, July 1 - Britain returns Hong Kong to China, ending over 150 years of British rule. More

2000, July 25 - Air France Flight 4590, a Concorde passenger jet on an international charter flight from Paris to New York, crashes shortly after takeoff,. All 109 people on board and four on the ground were killed. It was the only fatal Concorde accident during its 27-year operational history. More

2005, July 7 - A series of coordinated terrorist attacks in London, England, kill 52 people and injure over 700.

2009, July 7 - The United Nations declares a famine in parts of southern Somalia, the first time the term has been used in almost 20 years.

2011, July 9 - South Sudan gains independence from Sudan ending a decades-long civil war and becoming the world's newest country.

2011, July 21 - The Space Shuttle Atlantis completes STS-135, its 33rd and final mission landing on Runway 15 at Kennedy Space Center's Shuttle Landing Facility. More

2013,  July 3 - Egypt's first democratically elected president, Mohamed Morsi, is overthrown in a military coup.

2014, July 17 -  Malaysia Airlines flight MH17 shot down over Ukraine by a Russian-made surface-to-air missile, fired by Moscow-backed separatists. In January of 2023, the European Court of Human Rights confirmed Russia's involvement in the downing of flight MH17. More

2015, July 14 - Iran and six world powers reach a historic nuclear deal in Vienna, Austria.to limit Iran's nuclear program in exchange for lifting economic sanctions.

2016, July 14 - Terrorist Attack in the city of Nice kills 86 people and injures 434 others. More

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On June 14 , 1777, the Second Continental Congress issued a resolution adopting the Flag of the United States. It wasn't until 1949, that Congress approved the national observance, and President Harry Truman signed it into law.

There have been twenty-seven official versions of the flag to date. The current version of the flag dates to August 21, 1959, after Hawaii became the fiftieth state. More

These are some of many widely recognized historic events that occurred during the month of June, listed by year. Dates provided for earlier time events may be approximate. Select another month

323 BCE, June 10 - Death of Alexander the Great: The renowned military leader and conqueror, Alexander the Great, dies in Babylon at the age of 32. More

632 CE, June 8 - Death of Prophet Muhammad: The founder of Islam, Prophet Muhammad, passes away in Medina, Saudi Arabia, marking a significant event in the history of the Islamic faith.

763 CE, June 15 - The Assyrian solar eclipse, also known as the Bur-Sagale eclipse, is recorded in Assyrian eponym lists that most likely dates to the tenth year of the reign of king Ashur-dan III. The eclipse is identified as the  one that occurred on 15 June 763 BC in the proleptic Julian calendar and helped and was helpful to understand the chronology of Mesopotamian history and correlate it to certain events mentioned in the Old Testament. More

793 CE, June 8 - The Viking raid on the monastery of Lindisfarne, the sacred heart of the Northumbrian kingdom in England occurs, highlighting the  Viking expansion, and incursions throughout Europe. More 

930, CE, Iceland's first parliament, the Althing (Icelandic: Alþingi), was established in Thingvellir National Park . A flag still stands in the exact spot today in commemoration. More

987 CE, June 1 - Coronation of Hugh Capet: Hugh Capet is crowned as the King of the Franks, marking the beginning of the Capetian dynasty and the consolidation of power in France.

1005, June 29 - The Battle of Lechfeld takes place between the East Frankish (German) forces under Henry II and the invading Hungarian armies, resulting in a decisive victory for the East Frankish forces.

1014, June 23 - The Battle of Clontarf occurs in Ireland, where the forces of Brian Boru, the High King of Ireland, defeat the Viking invaders.

1065, June 28 - Westminster Abbey is consecrated in London, England, becoming the site of coronations and burials for English monarchs.

1071, June 29 - The Battle of Manzikert takes place, where the Seljuk Turks defeat the Byzantine Empire, leading to the gradual decline of Byzantine power in Anatolia.

1099, June 7 - The Crusaders begin the Siege of Jerusalem, a pivotal event during the First Crusade that eventually leads to the capture of the city. On June 15, the Crusaders enter Jerusalem and establish the Kingdom of Jerusalem, marking the culmination of the First Crusade.

1108, June 1 - Louis VI is crowned as the King of France.

1119, June 24 - The Order of the Knights Templar is founded in Jerusalem.

1139, June 24 - The Battle of Ourique takes place, where Afonso Henriques defeats the Almoravids and establishes the Kingdom of Portugal.

1153, June 6 - The Treaty of Wallingford is signed, ending the civil war in England between King Stephen and Empress Matilda, and establishing Henry II as the undisputed king.

1162, June 18 - Thomas Becket, the Archbishop of Canterbury, is formally canonized as a saint by Pope Alexander III.

1178, June 18 - Five monks in Canterbury, England, observe an unusual phenomenon on the moon; a meteor event,now known as the "Canterbury Tales"
 
1184, June 16 - The Battle of Fimreite takes place in Norway, where King Sverre Sigurdsson defeats the forces of Magnus Erlingsson, securing his rule.

1191, June 8 - Richard I of England (Richard the Lionheart) arrives in Acre, beginning his involvement in the Third Crusade.

1215, June 15 - King John of England signs the Magna Carta and authenticates it with a wax seal. The Magna Carta was the product of political crisis and an uprising of the leading men of England. It was the first document to put into writing the principle that the king and his government was not above the law and placed limits of royal authority by establishing law as a power in itself. More 

1314, June 23 - The Battle of Bannockburn begins between the army of Robert the Bruce, King of Scots, and the army of King Edward II of England. It was a decisive engagement in #ref44589" class="md-crosslink" data-show-preview="true" style="box-sizing: border-box; color: var(--link-color); text-decoration: var(--link-decoration);">Scottish history whereby the Scots defeated the English, regained their independence, and established Robert the Bruce as Robert I. a major turning point in the war, which ended 14 years later with the de jure restoration of Scottish independence under the Treaty of Edinburgh–Northampton. More

1381, June 14 - Peasants' Revolt begins in England. More

1494, June 7 - Spain and Portugal sign the Treaty of Tordesillas, dividing the New World between them.

1519, June 28 - Charles I of Spain, crowned Holy Roman Emperor, becomes Charles V. Becoming one of the most powerful European rulers of all times. he reign over territories in Europe and the Americas. His goal as Holy Roman Emperor was to unite Europe, but instead, his reign was filled with war and conflict. More

1520,  June 30 - the Spanish conquistador Hernán Cortés forces fight their way out of Tenochtitlan suffering severe loses as the Aztecs revolt against their rule. Many Spanish soldiers drowned in Lake Texcoco. The exit is known as the "Noche Triste" or “the Night of Sadness".

1523, June 6 - Sweden National Day. Celebrates the election of King Gustav Vasa and the new constitutions of  1809 and 1974. The election of King Gustav Vasa was the de facto end of the Kalmar Union and has been seen as a formal declaration of independence.

1647,  June 10 - The Puritan-led English Parliament during the republican Commonwealth, passed an ordinance which declared the celebration of Christmas to be a punishable offence. Although many people continued to celebrate Christmas in private, Christmas effectively ceased to be celebrated in the great majority of churches overtime. It wasn't until the restoration of the monarchy in 1660 that Christmas Day celebrations were brought back. In Scotland Celebrating Christmas was still deeply frowned upon for centuries. In fact, the 25th December only became a public holiday in Scotland in 1958. More  

1665, June 7 - The first recorded victims of the Great Plague of London die - 

1676, June 1 - The battle at Öland takes in the Baltic Sea, off the east coast of Öland during the Scanian War, resulting in the defeat of the Swedish navy by the allied Danish-Dutch forces. More 

1692, June 7 - Jamaica's Port Royal is consumed by an earthquake causing two thirds of the town to sink into the sea and destroying  every building or other substantial structure in the Island, A series of fires and hurricanes followed and the town was never restored to its former British naval station glory and remains as a small fishing village today. Two thousand people died immediately and an additional 3000 died of injuries and disease shortly after. More 

1692, June 10 - Bridget Bishop, is executed on Proctor's Ledge at Gallows Hill in Salem, becoming the first person to be executed during the Salem witch trials. More

1752, June 10 - Benjamin Franklin’s famous kite-in-a-thunderstorm experiment is said to have taken place on this day in 1752. More 

1772, June 10 - Rhode Islanders, led by merchant John Brown, board and set fire to the revenue cutter HMS Gaspee in Narragansett Bay whereupon her powder magazine exploded. Efforts of the British authorities to learn the names of the culprits were unsuccessful since the public sentiment was in accord with the venture, despite the sizable reward that had been offered. More 

1775, June 14 - The U.S. Army is officially born as the Second Continental Congress founds a united army to bring the 13 colonies together in the fight for independence from Great Britain. The Army was founded just months into the American Revolutionary War and predates the signing of the Declaration of Independence bymore than a year. More 

1775, June 15 - The Continental Congress votes to appoint George Washington, the commander of the colonies' first official army. and he accepts the assignment and signs his commission. More

1775, June 18 - The Battle of Bunker Hill takes place near Boston, Mass, in the early stages of the American Revolutionary War.

1775, June 22 - The Continental Congress approves the first release of  $1 million in bills of credit (paper currency) to help fund the American Revolutionary War. Another $1 million was authorized in July. By the end of 1775, Congress had authorized a total of $6 million bills of credit.  The currency quickly lost value, partly because it was not backed by a physical asset like gold or silver, but also due to the fact that too many bills were printed. The loss in value inspired the term "not worth a continental". More

1776, June 11 -  The Continental Congress creates a committee to draft the  Declaration of Independence. The committee members were: Thomas Jefferson, John Adams, Benjamin Franklin, Roger Sherman, and Robert R. Livingston. More

1777, June 13 - Marquis De Lafayette accompanied by Baron De Kalb arrive on North Island, Georgetown County, S.C.  to serve alongside General Washington. Lafayette was 19 at the time. He and George Washington went on to develop a strong bond. More

1777, June 14 - The Second Continental Congress issues a resolution adopting the Flag of the United States. It wasn't until 1949, that Congress approved the national observance, and President Harry Truman signed it into law. There have been twenty-seven official versions of the flag to date. The current version of the flag dates to August 21, 1959, after Hawaii became the fiftieth state. More 

1783, June 5 - The first sustained flight occurred as a hot-air balloon was launched at Annonay, France, by brothers Joseph and Jacques Montgolfier, reaching an altitude of about 6,000 feet.

1783, June 8 - The Iceland Laki volcanic eruption starts, lasting eight months. Haze from the eruption was reported from Iceland to Syria. The long eruption caused the death of 10,000 or  bout one-quarter of the human residents by famine. It also caused widespread famines throughout Asia and Europe. In Iceland, the haze lead to the loss of most of the island's livestock from eating fluorine contaminated grass), and crop failure cused by acid rain. More

1788, June 21 -  New Hampshire ratifies the U.S. Constitution and becomes the 9th State and last necessary state of the original 13 colonies to ratify the U.S. Constitution. More

1788, June 21 - The  Constitution became the official framework of the government of the United States of America when New Hampshire became the ninth of 13 states to ratify it, thus replacing the post-Revolutionary War Articles of Confederation. More

1788, June 25 - Virginia ratifies the U.S Constitution and becomes the 10th State. More

1792, June 1 - Kentucky was admitted to the U.S and becomes the 15th State. More

1796, June 1 - Tennessee was admitted to the U.S and becomes the 16th State. More

1812, June 18 - The War of 1812 begins. President James Madison signed into law a resolution passed by Congress declaring war with Great Britain. The War of 1812 ended December 24, 1814 when the two nations met in Belgium and signed the Treaty of Ghent. ending the war and restoring the previously recognized boundaries between the United States and British territory in North America. The Senate unanimously ratified the Treaty of Ghent on February 16, 1815. More

1815, June 18 - Napoleon Bonaparte is defeated at the Battle of Waterloo, ending the Napoleonic Wars. More

1836, June 15 - Arkansas was admitted to the U.S and becomes the 25th State. More

1837, June 20 - Queen Victoria ascends to the British throne at the age of 18. More 

1846, June 14 - The capture of Retired Mexican General Vallejo at  his home in Sonoma by ragtag group of about 30 armed Americans, marks the start of the short lived, California Republic or Bear Flag Republic, an unrecognized breakaway from Mexico, that for 25 days militarily controlled an area in and around what is now Sonoma County in California, north of San Francisco. Three weeks later, on July 5, 1846, the Republic's military of 100 to 200 men was subsumed into the California Battalion commanded by Captain John C. Frémont, who had encouraged the revolt. The battalion officially became the U.S. Army’s California Battalion, and went on to fight — this time officially, in the battle for California. More

1846, June 15 - The Oregon Treaty is signed, establishing the U.S.-Canadian border at the 49th parallel. Tribes are not consulted as the 49th Parallel becomes the boundary. Many Native people on either side of the line wake up in a different country, living under different laws than those they knew the night before. More 

1858, June 16 - Senatorial candidate Abraham Lincoln addresses more than 1,000 delegates at the Illinois Republican Convention in Springfield, delivering a warning that the nation was facing a crisis that could destroy the Union. Paraphrasing a passage from the New Testament: “a house divided against itself cannot stand.” The issue dividing the nation was slavery and the extent of federal power over individual states’ rights. More

1863, June 20 - West Virginia is admitted to the U.S and becomes the 35th State. More

1864, June 15 - Arlington officially becomes a national cemetery by order of Secretary of War Edwin Stanton. The original cemetery was 200 acres, and  as of early 2020, has grown to 639 acres. Arlington became a segregated cemetery, just like all national cemeteries at the time, and remained segregated by race and rank until 1948, when President Harry S. Truman desegregated the military. Approximately 400,000 veterans and their eligible dependents are buried at Arlington National Cemetery. Service members from every one of America’s major wars, from the Revolutionary War to today's conflicts, are interred at ANC. More 

1864, June 27 - Colorado Territory Governor, John Evans issues a proclamation commanding all “Friendly” Native Americans of the Cheyenne and Arapaho to go to Fort Lyon to receive supplies and to find safety. Unfortunately, this was in direct conflict with the standing order at all Forts within the Territory of Colorado that all members of the Military should shoot and kill any Native American that approached a Fort and with a second proclamation issued the following day by Evans inviting white settlers to indiscriminately “kill and destroy all…hostile Indians. These duplicitous political maneuverings led to the November 29 Sand Creek Massacre, when over the course of eight hours the American troops killed around 230 Cheyenne and Arapaho people composed mostly of women, children, and the elderly who had been directed by the American Military to camp there. More 

1865, June 19 - Union General Gordon Granger announces in Galveston, Texas, that all slaves in Texas are free, an event, now celebrated as "Juneteenth". More

1866, June 7 -  Chief Seattle (Si’ahl) passes away (1780-1866), thirteen years after the city was named for him. He was buried in the Suquamish Tribal Cemetery, not far from Seattle. The name “Seattle” is an Anglicization of Si'ahl. Chief Seattle's mother Sholeetsa, was Duwamish (dxʷdəwʔabš} and his father Shweabe was chief of the the Suquamish Tribe. It is said that Si’ahl was born at his mother's Duwamish village of Stukw on the Black River, in what is now the city of Kent. More

1866, June 16 - The House  passes the Joint Resolution proposing the 14th Amendment to the Constitution and submits it to the states. On July 28, 1868, the 14th amendment was declared, in a certificate of the Secretary of State, ratified by the necessary 28 of the 37 States, and became part of the supreme law of the land. More

1867, June 19 - Maximilian was executed on a hill outside Querétaro, bringing an end to France's short lived Mexican empire. More
 
1872, June 6 -  Pioneering feminist, Susan B. Anthony, was fined for voting in a presidential election at Rochester, New York. More 

1876, June 4 - A train named the Transcontinental Express arrives in San Francisco 83 hours and 39 minutes after it left New York City. More

1876, June 25 - The Battle of the Little Bighorn, known to the Lakota and other Plains Indians as the Battle of the Greasy Grass, takes place in southern Montana. The battle was fought along the ridges and steep bluffs of the Little Bighorn River, in south-central Montana , between warriors of the Lakota Sioux, Northern Cheyenne, and Arapaho tribes, led by Sitting Bull, battling the 7th Regiment of the US Cavalry, led by Lt. Col. George Armstrong Custer along with their Crow, and Arikara scouts.  More 

1877, June 14 - Henry Flipper, at age 21,  becomes the first African American graduate of the United States Military Academy at West Point. More

1885, June 17- The disassembled Statue of Liberty arrives in New York aboard the French steamer Isere . The statue, a gift from the people of France, was designed by French sculptor Frédéric Auguste Bartholdi and its metal framework was built by Gustave Eiffel. The statue was dedicated on October 28, 1886 and has became known around the world as an enduring symbol of freedom and democracy. More 

1886, June 6 - The Great Seattle Fire, the most destructive fire in the history of Seattle, destroyed the entire central business district of Seattle, Washington and part of the Water Front. The fire was accidentally started by an overheated glue pot in a carpentry shop, lasted less than a day, burning through the afternoon and into the night. Seattle quickly reacted, wooden buildings were banned and rebuilt using brick buildings that sat 20 feet (6.1 m) above the original street level. Its population swelled during reconstruction, becoming the largest city in the newly admitted state of Washington. More

1893, June 7 - Gandhi 's first act of civil disobedience took place in South Africa when he went there to work  for an Indian company after studying to become a lawyer in England. When railroad officials made Gandhi sit in a third-class coach even though he had purchased a first-class ticket, Gandhi refused and police forced him off the train. This event changed his life. More

1896, June 4 - Henry Ford, the founder of Ford Motor Company takes his first car for a spin on the city of Detroit. More 

1896, June 15 - The Meiji Great Sanriku Tsunami hits the pacific coast of the north-eastern Japan, called as the Sanriku Region. The highest tsunami run-up height was 125 feet (38 m) at Ryori Shirahama in Iwate Prefecture.  The death toll was 22,000. The economic damage amounted to about 10% of the  then national budget. After this tsunami, several villages were relocated to higher ground. More

1898, June 12 - The Philippines declares its independence from Spain after being a Spanish colony since 1565. Later that year, the Treaty of Paris ended the Spanish-American War and Spain ceded the Philippines to the US, the islands were occupied by U.S. forces. and the Philippines became an American colony until after World War II. More 

1900, June 1 - The Boxer Rebellion begins in China. An uprising against against the spread of Western and Japanese influence including western religion begun by peasants but was eventually supported by the government. The Boxer Rebellion was put down by the Eight-Nation Alliance of the United States, the United Kingdom, Russia, France, Japan, Germany, Italy, and Austria-Hungary. More

1903, June 16 - The Ford Motor Company was officially incorporated. Founder Henry Ford and 12 investors launched his venture in a converted factory on Mack Avenue in Detroit. It was his third attempt at establishing an automotive business. At the time, the company could only produce a few cars a day. More 

1903, June 30 - Einstein publishes his Special Theory of Relativity, which describes his revolutionary ideas about light, time and energy. He revisited the theory in a 1912 manuscript when he was asked to write several book chapters. The outbreak of World War I in 1914 delayed publication, and when the project resumed, Einstein considered this manuscript outdated and it was never published. More 

1905, June 7 - Norway Union Dissolution and Independence Day from Sweden. (National Day, commemorating the Independence from Denmark and the Constitution of Norway is celebrated  on17 May 17, 1814).

1910, June 15th - The British Terra Nova Expedition led by Captain Robert Falcon Scott, sails from Cardiff, Wales for Antarctica. Scott wanted to continue the scientific work that he had begun when leading the Discovery Expedition from 1901 to 1904, and wanted to be the first to reach the geographic South Pole. He and four companions attained the pole on 17 January 1912, where they found that a Norwegian team led by Roald Amundsen had preceded them by 34 days. Scott's party of five died on the return journey from the pole. More 

1913, June 7 - The first successful ascent of Denali takes place. Four men stood on the top of Denali, the highest peak in North America, for the first time. Walter Harper, Harry Karstens, Hudson Stuck and Robert Tatum made history. More

1914,  June 28 - Archduke Francis Ferdinand, Crown Prince of Austria and his wife were assassinated at Sarajevo, touching off a conflict between the Austro-Hungarian government and Serbia that escalated into World War I. More

1916, June 3 - U.S. President Woodrow Wilson signs the National Defense Act which authorized an expanded Army of 175,000, and an enlarged National Guard of 450,000 and brought the states’ militias more under federal control and gave the president authority, in case of war or national emergency, to mobilize the National Guard for the duration of the emergency.

1917, June 15 - The United States Congress passes the Espionage Act, building on the 1911, Defense Secrets Act, with important new elements added. More

1917, June 26 - The first American troops arrive in Europe. However, the American Expeditionary Forces (AEF) did not fully participate at the front until October, when the First Division, one of the best-trained divisions of the AEF, entered the trenches at Nancy, France. More

1919, June 4 - The 19th amendment granting women the right to vote is passed by Congress. The amendment passed its final hurdle of obtaining the agreement of three-fourths of the states when Tennessee became the 36th state to ratify the amendment on August 18, 1920.  U.S. Secretary of State Bainbridge Colby certifies the 19th Amendment on August 26, 1920, giving women the Constitutional right to vote. It had been first proposed in Congress, forty two years earlier in1878, More

1919, June 28 - The signing of the Treaty of Versailles formally ended World War I. According to the terms, Germany was assessed sole blame for the war, it had to pay reparations of $15 Billion. It was also forced to give up Alsace-Lorraine and all overseas colonies. The treaty also prohibited German rearmament.

1922, June 14 - Warren G. Harding became the first U.S. President to broadcast a message over the radio. 

1923, June 27 - The first successful aerial refueling takes place when a DH-4B carrying Lts. Virgil Hine and Frank W. Seifert passed gasoline through a hose to another DH-4B flying beneath it carrying Lts Lowell H. Smith and John P. Richter. More

1924, June 2 - The government of the United States confers citizenship on all Native Americans born within the territorial limits of the country. The right to vote, however, was governed by state law; until 1957, some states barred Native Americans from voting. More

1934, June 30 - Germany, Chancellor and Nazi leader Adolf Hitler orders a political purge intended to consolidate his power and alleviate the concerns of the German military about the role of Ernst Röhm and the Sturmabteilung (SA), the Nazis' paramilitary organization, known colloquially as "Brownshirts". The purge resulted in the killing of hundreds of Nazis whom he believed had the potential to become political enemies including Röhm. The actions became known as the "Night of the Long Knives". The bloody purge was followed by "Gleichschaltung" the process of Nazification by which Adolf Hitler — leader of the Nazi Party in Germany — successively established a system of totalitarian control and coordination over all aspects of German society "from the economy and trade associations to the media, culture and education" More

1938, June 25 - Fair Labor Standards Act is passed, setting the first minimum wage in the U.S. at 25 cents per hour.

1940, June 10 -  Norway surrenders to Nazi Germany, two months after Germany attacked Denmark and Norway on April 9, 1940. On that same day, Denmark surrendered and was occupied. The Norwegians resisted for two months but surrendered on June 9, 1940.

1940, June 10 - Italy declares war against France and Great Britain. The Italian entry into the war widened its scope considerably in Africa and the Mediterranean Sea.

1941, June 22 -  Nazi Germany Invades the Soviet Union during the Second World War . The Invasion, named Barbarossa, was the largest land offensive in human history, with over 10 million combatants taking part.

1942, June 4 - The battle of Midway -  Early on the morning of June 4, aircraft from four Japanese aircraft carriers attacked and severely damaged the US base on Midway. Unbeknownst to the Japanese, the US carrier forces were just to the east of the island and ready for battle. More

1942, June 11 - Eisenhower is appointed by Army Chief of Staff Marshall to oversee all U.S. operations in Europe. 14 days later, on June 25, 1942, Eisenhower arrived at U.S. headquarters in London and took command.

1944, June 4 - Rome was liberated by the U.S. 5th Army, led by General Mark Clark.

1944, June 6 - Allied forces launch the D-Day invasion of Normandy, France, during World War II - Over 160,000 Allied troops landed on the beaches of Normandy along a 50-mile stretch of heavily-fortified French coastline to fight Nazi Germany. Gen. Dwight D. Eisenhower called the operation a crusade in which, “we will accept nothing less than full victory.” By day’s end, the Allies gained a foot-hold in Continental Europe. The cost in lives on D-Day was high; more than 9,000 Allied Soldiers were killed or wounded. More

1944, June 17 - Iceland National Day. Effective date of the dissolution of the Danish–Icelandic Act of Union following the 1944 Icelandic constitutional referendum.

1944, June 22 - The American forces secured Okinawa. The battle for Okinawa drug out over nearly three months and included some of the worst kamikaze attacks of the warThe United States sustained over 49,000 casualties including more than 12,500 men killed or missing. More

1944, June 24 - President Franklin D. Roosevelt Signs the G.I. Bill. More 

1945, June 26 - The United Nations Charter was signed by 50 nations in San Francisco. The United Nations Charter was ratified on October 24, 1945. More

1948, June 24 - Joseph Stalin, the Soviet leader, imposes the Berlin Blockade cutting off all land and river transit between West Berlin and West Germany. 

1948, June 26 - In response to the Soviet blockade, the  U.S. and Great Britain begin an emergency airlift of food and fuel to West Berlin to relieve two million isolated West Berliners. The Russians blockade of Berlin ended on May 12, 1949. More

1950, June 25 - North Korea invades South Korea following clashes along the border. North Korea was supported by China and the Soviet Union. Two days later, on June 27, President Harry S. Truman orders U.S. air and naval forces to South Korea to aid the democratic nation in repulsing the invasion and in support of a U.N. resolution calling for an end to hostilities. The fighting ended with an armistice on 27 July 1953, formally dividing the country at the 38th parallel into North and South Korea. The Korean War was among the most destructive conflicts of the modern era, with approximately 3 million war fatalities including over 36,000 Americans. More

1951, June 14 - The first UNIVAC, acquired by the United States Census Bureau is dedicated. The UNIVAC I (Universal Automatic Computer I) was the first general-purpose electronic digital computer for business application produced in the U.S. Its design was started by J. Presper Eckert and John Mauchly, the inventors of the ENIAC who owned EMCC. The company was acquired by Remington Rand which completed the work. (Remington Rand later became part of Sperry, now Unisys) More

1953, June 10 - President Eisenhower rejects isolationism in the Cold War.  More

1953, June 19 - Julius and Ethel Rosenberg were executed by electrocution at Sing Sing Prison in New York. They had been found guilty of providing vital information on the atomic bomb to the Soviet Union. More 

1954, June 13 - The words "under God" are added to the Pledge of Allegiance. The phrase was added by an Act of Congress and signed into law by President Dwight D. Eisenhower. The original Pledge of Allegiance was written by Francis Bellamy a Baptist minister, in August 1892. Bellamy had hoped that the pledge would be used by citizens in any country. The Pledge was published in the September 8th issue of The Youth's Companion. The addition of the words "under God" was intended to distinguish the United States from atheistic communism during the Cold War and to emphasize the religious heritage of the United States. 

1954, June 27 - Guatemalan President Jacobo Arbenz Guzman resigns after pressure from a clandestine CIA operation approved by U.S. President Dwight Eisenhower, leading to a military take over led by Colonel Castillo Armas. More

1956, June 25 - Detroit built the last Packard that was actually designed by Packard. More

1960, June 26 - Madagascar Independence Day from France.

1960, June 30 - Democratic Republic of the Congo Independence Day

1961, The Antarctic Treaty goes into effect to regulate international relations with respect to Antarctica, "all land and ice shelves south of 60°S latitude parallel". The 12 original signatories were Argentina, Australia, Belgium, Chile, France, Japan, New Zealand, Norway, South Africa, the USSR, the United Kingdom and the United States.

1962, June 1 - Samoa Independence Day. While independence was achieved at the beginning of January, Samoa celebrates its independence day on June 1.

1963, June 11 -  Black students Vivian Malone and James Hood registered for classes at The University of Alabama despite then-Gov. George C. Wallace’s unsuccessful attempt to block their enrollment. More

1963, June 16 - Soviet cosmonaut Valentina Tereshkova becomes the first woman in space. Valentina Tereshkova became the first woman to travel to space when, as part of the Vostok 6 mission. During her Vostok 6 solo mission, she orbited Earth 48 times and spent almost three days in space (two days, 23 hours, and 12 minutes). Tereshkova remains the only female astronaut or cosmonaut to make a solo space journey, the youngest woman to fly to space and the first civilian to journey to space. More

1963, June 20 - The U.S. and Soviet representatives signed the "Memorandum of Understanding Between the United States of America and the Union of Soviet Socialist Republics Regarding the Establishment of a Direct Communications Link." (The Hot line) More

1965, June 3 - Major Edward H. White II steps out of the Gemini capsule, becoming the first American astronaut to walk in space. On March 18, 1965, Soviet cosmonaut Aleksei A. Leonov was the first man ever to walk in space. 

1965, June 7 - The U.S. Supreme Court struck down a Connecticut law banning contraception. With tis decision, the Supreme Court guaranteed the right to privacy, including freedom from government intrusion into matters of birth control.

1966, June 13 - the U.S. Supreme Court hands down its decision in Miranda v. Arizona establishing the principle that all criminal suspects must be informed of their specific legal rights before interrogation.  Now considered standard police procedure. This decision was based on a case in which a defendant, Ernesto Miranda, was accused of robbery, kidnapping, and rape. During police interrogation, he confessed to the crimes.

1967, June 5-10 - The Six-Day War takes place between Israel and Arab neighbors Egypt, Jordan, and Syria. The Six-Day War began as Israel launched a series of preemptive surprise  airstrikes against Egyptian airfields and other facilities, launching its war effort. Egyptian forces were caught by surprise, and nearly all of Egypt's military aerial assets were destroyed, giving Israel air supremacy. Simultaneously, the Israeli military launched a ground offensive into Egypt's Sinai Peninsula as well as the Egyptian-occupied Gaza Strip. The war ended with Israel in control of the Gaza Strip, the Sinai Peninsula, the West Bank, and Jerusalem.  More

1967, June 8 - The USS Liberty is attacked by Israeli Air Force jet fighter aircraft and Israeli Navy motor torpedo boats during the Six-Day War. The USS Liberty was in international waters north of the Sinai Peninsula. The intelligence ship, was well-marked as an American vessel and only lightly armed. The Israeli attack killed 34 US sailors, and wounded 171 in the two-hour attack. More:  USS Liberty Veterans Association and CIA Statement  

1967, June 13 Thurgood Marshall, then-Solicitor General, becomes the first Black American to be nominated to the U.S. Supreme  Court. He was nominated by President Lyndon B. Johnson, saying it was “the right thing to do, the right time to do it, the right man and the right place.” Marshall's pursuit for a legal career began with disappointment as the University of Maryland Law School, refused to open its doors to Black students. He wound up graduating first in his class at Howard University Law School. One of his first victories came against the University of Maryland, which had rejected a Black applicant on the basis of race alone. More

1968, June 5 - Presidential candidate  Robert Francis Kennedy was fatally shot on June 5, 1968 at the Ambassador Hotel in Los Angeles, California shortly after claiming victory in that state's crucial Democratic primary. He was 42 years old. More

1971, June, 13 - The New York Times began publication of the Pentagon Papers, a collection of top secret documents exposing U.S. strategy in the Vietnam War. More 

1971, June 30 - The three cosmonauts aboard the Soyuz 11, Georgy Dobrovolsky, Vladislav Volkov, and Viktor Patsayev, perished in space when the capsule depressurized during preparations for re-entry. They are the only humans known to have died in space.  More

1972, June 17 - Five men are arrested for breaking into the Democratic National Committee headquarters at the Watergate complex in Washington, D.C., leading to the Watergate scandal and the resignation of U.S. President Richard Nixon. More 

1972, June 18 - British European Airways Flight 548 passenger flight from London Heathrow to Brussels crashes near Staines, England, shortly after take-off killing all 118 people on board.  As of 2024, it remains the deadliest air accident (as opposed to terrorist incidents) in the United Kingdom. The aircraft suffered a deep stall in the third minute of its flight and crashed to the ground, narrowly missing a busy main road. More 

1972, June 23 - Title IX of the education amendments of 1972 is enacted into law in the United States. Title IX prohibits federally funded educational institutions from discriminating against students or employees based on sex. More

1972, June 29 - The U.S. Supreme Court ruled that capital punishment was a violation of the Eighth Amendment prohibiting "cruel and unusual punishment." The decision spared the lives of 600 individuals then sitting on death row. Four years later, in another ruling, the Court reversed itself and determined the death penalty was not cruel and unusual punishment. On October 4, 1976, the ban was lifted on the death penalty in cases involving murder.

1974 - June 1 - Cincinnati surgeon Henry J. Heimlich publishes, hirs stop-choking technique in the medical journal Emergency Medicine. The technique called, the Heimlich maneuver after its introduction,  involved thrusting inward and upward on the abdomen of choking victims and It quickly became a go-to method for saving those lives. The technique was renamed the "abdominal thrust" after the  American Red Cross introduced back blows to its official guidelines on treating choking in 2006 and Dr Heimlich disagreed that back blows should be used and asked that his name be removed from the guidelines. , 

1975, June 25 - Mozambique Independence Day from Portugal

1976, June 29 - Seychelles Independence Day.

1977, June 27 - Djibouti Independence Day from France

1979, June 18 - Jimmy Carter and Leonid Brezhnev sign the SALT-II nuclear treaty. The US Senate chose not to ratify the treaty in response to the Soviet invasion of Afghanistan, which took place later that year. The Supreme Soviet did not ratify it either. More

1982, June 30 - Deadline for ratification of the Equal Rights Amendment to the Constitution passes without the necessary
votes.

1982, June 14 - The Falklands War ends as the large Argentine garrison at Port Stanley surrenders to the British military. The Falkland Islands War was fought for the control of the Falkland Islands (Islas Malvinas) and its dependencies, a territory long disputed by the warring nations. More

1985, June 14 - TWA Flight 847 is hijacked by Mohammed Ali Hamadei and a second terrorist brandishing grenades and pistols during a routine flight from Athens to Rome. More 

1985, June 27 - The iconic Route 66 is decertified, after 59 years of existence, by the American Association of State Highway and Transportation Officials and votes to remove all its highway signs.  Route 66 stretched 2,200 miles from Chicago to Santa Monica in California More

1986, June 4 - Jonathan Pollard pleads guilty to espionage for selling top-secret U.S. military intelligence information to Israel.  More

1987, June 12 - In a speech in Berlin, President Reagan challenges Soviet leader Mikhail Gorbachev to ―tear down this wall‖ and open Eastern Europe to political and economic reform. More

1989, June 4 - Chinese military cracks down on pro-democracy protesters in Tiananmen Square, Beijing. More

1990, June 1 - George H.W. Bush and Soviet leader Mikhail Gorbachev sign a bilateral agreement on Destruction and Non-production of Chemical Weapons and on Measures to Facilitate the Multilateral Convention on Banning Chemical Weapons"  The agreement was signed during a summit meeting in Washington D.C, The historic treaty called for an 80 percent reduction of their chemical weapon stockpiles under the oversight of inspectors from both countries. The agreement was intended to be the first step towards a global ban . By 1993, 150 other nations had joined the superpowers to sign a comprehensive treaty banning chemical weapons.

1990, June 21 - A 7.7M Earthquake in Iran, near the Caspian Sea, kills an estimated 50,000 people and injures another 135,000, leaving more than 500,000 homeless and destroying three cities (Rudbar, Manjil, and Lowshan) and 700 villages.

1990, June 25 - The U.S. Supreme Court ruled (5-4) that it was unconstitutional for any state to require, without providing other options, for a minor to notify both parents before obtaining an abortion.

1991, June 12 - Boris Yeltsin is elected the first democratically elected President of Russia.

1991, June 25 -  The Republics of Croatia and Slovenia declared their independence from Yugoslavia. Ethnic rivalries between Serbians and Croatians quickly erupted. About 200,000 were missing and presumed dead and over two million people became refugees.

1991, June, last Saturday - Day of Hungarian Freedom. Celebrates the restoration of Hungary's sovereignty after the withdrawal of Soviet troops in June 1991

1992, June 12 - Russia Day. The day commemorates the adoption of the Declaration of State Sovereignty of the Russian Soviet. It has been celebrated annually on 12 June since 1992. 

1993, June 26 - President Clinton orders missile attack against Iraq in retaliation for alleged plot to assassinate former President Bush.

1994, June 11 -  After 49 years, the Soviet military occupation of East Germany ended. At one time there had been 337,800 Soviet troops stationed in Germany. Over 300,000 Russians died during World War II in the Battle for Berlin.

1995, June 29 -  Two days after launch, U.S. space shuttle Atlantis, docks at Mir’s Kristall module as the two spacecraft flew 250 miles above the Lake Baikal region of eastern Russia, forming the world’s heaviest spacecraft up to that time – nearly half a million pounds. More 

1996, June 25 -  A tanker truck loaded with 25,000 pounds of explosives bomb is detonated near the Khobar Tower housing complex in Dhahran during the night, Saudi Arabia, killing 19 Airmen and injuring more than 400 U.S. and international military members and civilians. The towers housed coalition forces supporting Operation Southern Watch, a no-fly zone operation in Southern Iraq. More

1997, June 2 - Timothy McVeigh was convicted of the 1995 Oklahoma City bombing, one of the deadliest acts of terrorism in American history. He was executed on June 11, 2001 for his crimes. More

1997, June 30 - In Hong Kong, the flag of the British Crown Colony was officially lowered at midnight and replaced by a new flag representing China's sovereignty and the official transfer of power.

2001, June 11 - Timothy McVeigh, responsible for the 1995 Oklahoma City bombing, is executed by lethal injection. More

2004, June 28 - The U.S. returns sovereignty to an interim government in Iraq, but maintains roughly 135,000 troops in the country to fight a growing insurgency.

2006, June 19 -  Construction of the  Svalbard Global Seed Vault begins. The secure facility is built into the side of a mountain on Spitsbergen, the largest of the Svalbard islands, a Norwegian archipelago in the Arctic Ocean. The vault is intended to safeguard the seeds of the world’s food plants in the event of a global crisis. The vault was formally open with its first consignment of seeds on February 26, 2008. More

2009, June 11 - The World Health Organization (WHO) declares H1N1 swine flu to be a global pandemic, the first such incident in over forty years. The swine flu pandemic was the third recent flu pandemic involving the H1N1 virus; the first being the 1918 –1920 Spanish flu pandemic and the second being the 1977 Russian flu. There were 491,382 lab-confirmed) cases Some studies estimated that the number of cases including asymptomatic and mild cases was about 700 million to 1.4 billion people.  ( 11 to 21 percent of the global population of 6.8 billion at the time. Lab confirmed deaths were 18,449 with estimated excess deaths of 284,000 - More

2013, June 6 - Edward Snowden, a former CIA employee, reveals thousands of classified NSA documents to journalists Glenn Greenwald, Laura Poitras, Barton Gellman, and Ewen MacAskill. Snowden came to international attention after stories based on the material appeared in The Guardian, The Washington Post, and other publications. Later in June, Edward Snowden, comes forward and admits that he is the source of the recent NSA leaks. On September 2, 2020, a U.S. federal court ruled in United States v. Moalin that the U.S. intelligence's mass surveillance program exposed by Snowden was illegal and possibly unconstitutional. More at Business Insider and NPR

2015, June 26 - The U.S. Supreme Court legalizes same-sex marriage nationwide. More

2015, June 27 - Activist Bree Newsome removes the Confederate battle flag from a flagpole on the South Carolina Statehouse grounds. More 

2016, June 22 - The United Kingdom votes in a referendum to withdraw from the European Union, with 51.9 percent supporting Britain's exit (“Brexit”) and 48.1 percent opposing the move. it marked the first time a country had decided to leave the organization. The withdrawal process commenced following the referendum and the subsequent notification to the European Council on 29 March 2017. The actual withdraw was completed on 1 February 2020

Although the UK's withdrawal from the European Union took place on 1 February 2020, the Withdrawal Agreement came into force thenceforth, which regulated the orderly withdrawal of the UK from the EU while maintaining the application of the acquis communaitaire in their relations until 31 December 2020. More

Note: Sources for the Historical Content shown, include research and reviews of relevant Online History Resources or printed material. When possible, we show a link to a source which provides additional or unique perspective about the event. We do our best to provide accurate information but would appreciate being notified if any incorrect information is found. You may do so by using this link: Feedback

Memorial Day honors all service members who lost their lives while in service to the United States, during peace and war. It is a time to reflect on those who made the ultimate sacrifice for our country.

            Immortality

   Do not stand 
        By my grave, and weep.
   I am not there,
       I do not sleep—
I am the thousand winds that blow
I am the diamond glints in snow
I am the sunlight on ripened grain,
I am the gentle, autumn rain.
As you awake with morning’s hush,
I am the swift, up-flinging rush
Of quiet birds in circling flight,
I am the day transcending night.
    Do not stand
        By my grave, and cry—
     I am not there,
          I did not die.

Poem by Clare Harner, The Gypsy, December 1934 (page 16). The poem is often attributed to anonymous or incorrect sources. Read more about Memorial day:  U.S. Department of Veterans Affairs   -   National Museum of American History