Today Holidays
Estonia: St. John's Day or Midsummer Day
Events
1128 - Battle of São Mamede, near Guimarães:Portuguese forces led by Alfonso I defeat his mother D. Teresa and D. Fernão Peres de Trava. After this battle, the future king calls himself "Prince of Portugal", the first step towards "official independence" in 1139, after the Battle of Ourique.
1314 - First War of Scottish Independence: The Battle of Bannockburn concludes with a decisive victory of the Scottish forces led by Robert the Bruce, though England did not recognise Scottish independence until 1328 with the signing of the Treaty of Edinburgh-Northampton.
1340 - Hundred Years' War: Battle of Sluys: The French fleet is almost destroyed by the English Fleet commanded in person by Edward III of England.
1374 - A sudden outbreak of St. John's Dance causes people in the streets of Aachen, Germany, to experience hallucinations and begin to jump and twitch uncontrollably until they collapse from exhaustion.
1441 - King Henry VI founds Eton College.
1497 - Cornish traitors Michael An Gof and Thomas Flamank are executed at Tyburn, London.
1497 - John Cabot lands in North America at Newfoundland; the first European exploration of the region since the Vikings.
1509 - Henry VIII and Catherine of Aragon are crowned King and Queen of England.
1535 - The Anabaptist state of Münster is conquered and disbanded.
1571 - Miguel Lopez de Legazpi founds Manila, the capital of the Republic of the Philippines.
1597 - The first Dutch voyage to the East Indies reaches Bantam (on Java).
1604 - Samuel de Champlain discovers the mouth of the Saint John River, site of Reversing Falls and the present day city of Saint John, New Brunswick, Canada.
1662 - The Dutch attempt but fail to capture Macau.
1664 - The colony of New Jersey is founded.
1692 - Kingston, Jamaica is founded.
1717 - The Premier Grand Lodge of England, the first Masonic Grand Lodge in the world (now the United Grand Lodge of England), is founded in London, England.
1748 - John Wesley and his brother Charles Wesley open the Kingswood School in Bristol. The school later moves to Bath.
1793 - The first republican constitution in France is adopted.
1794 - Bowdoin College is founded.
1812 - Napoleonic Wars: Napoleon's Grande Armée crosses the Neman River beginning his invasion of Russia.
1813 - Battle of Beaver Dams;: A British and Indian combined force defeat the U.S Army.
1821 - The Battle of Carabobo takes place. It is the decisive battle in the war of independence of Venezuela from Spain.
1859 - Battle of Solferino: (Battle of the Three Sovereigns). Sardinia and France defeat Austria in Solferino, northern Italy.
1866 - Battle of Custoza: an Austrian army defeats the Italian army during the Austro-Prussian War.
1880 - First performance of O Canada, the song that would become the national anthem of Canada, at the Congrès national des Canadiens-Français.
1894 - Marie Francois Sadi Carnot is assassinated by Sante Geronimo Caserio.
1901 - First exhibition of Pablo Picasso's work opens.
1902 - King Edward VII develops appendicitis, delaying his coronation.
1913 - Greece and Serbia annul their alliance with Bulgaria.
1916 - World War I: The Battle of the Somme begins with a week long artillery bombardment on the German Line.
1916 - Mary Pickford becomes the first female film star to get a million dollar contract.
1918 - First airmail service in Canada from Montreal to Toronto.
1928 - With declining business, the Great Gorge and International Railway begins using one-person crews on trolley operations in Canada.
1932 - A bloodless Revolution instigated by the People's Party ends the absolute power of King Prajadhipok of Siam (Thailand).
1938 - Pieces of a meteor, estimated to have weighed 450 metric tons when it hit the Earth's atmosphere and exploded, land near Chicora, Pennsylvania.
1945 - The Moscow Victory Parade takes place.
1947 - Kenneth Arnold makes the first widely reported UFO sighting near Mount Rainier, Washington.
1948 - Start of the Berlin Blockade. The Soviet Union makes overland travel between the West with West Berlin impossible.
1949 - The first Television Western, Hopalong Cassidy, is aired on NBC starring William Boyd.
1957 - In Roth v. United States, the U.S. Supreme Court rules that obscenity is not protected by the First Amendment .
1963 - The United Kingdom grants Zanzibar internal self-government.
1975 - An Eastern Air Lines Boeing 727 crashes at John F. Kennedy Airport, New York. 113 people die.
1981 - The Humber Bridge is opened to traffic, connecting Yorkshire and Lincolnshire. It would be the world's longest single-span suspension bridge for 17 years.
1982 - British Airways Flight 9, sometimes referred to as "the Jakarta incident", flies into a cloud of volcanic ash thrown up by the eruption of Mount Galunggung, resulting in the failure of all four engines.
1985 - STS-51-G Space Shuttle Discovery completes its mission, best remembered for having Sultan bin Salman bin Abdulaziz Al Saud, the first Arab and first Muslim in space, as a Payload Specialist.
1993 - Yale computer science professor Dr. David Gelernter loses the sight in one eye, the hearing in one ear, and part of his right hand after receiving a mailbomb from the Unabomber.
1994 - A United States Air Force B-52 aircraft crashes at Fairchild Air Force Base, killing all four members of its crew.
1995 - South Africa defeats New Zealand in the 1995 Rugby World Cup. The 1995 World cup is the first major sporting event in South Africa after the end of Apartheid.
2002 - The Igandu train disaster in Tanzania kills 281, the worst train accident in African history.
2004 - In New York state, capital punishment is declared unconstitutional.
2007 - The Angora Fire starts near South Lake Tahoe, California destroying 200+ structures in its first 48 hours.
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