Browse Historical Events by Day: What Happened on June 15th?

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

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

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

Arkansas was admitted to the U.S and becomes the 25th State. More

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

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

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

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

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