306 – Constantine I is proclaimed Roman emperor by his troops.
315 – The Arch of Constantine is completed near the Colosseum in Rome to commemorate Constantine I's victory over Maxentius at the Milvian Bridge.
677 – Climax of the Siege of Thessalonica by the Slavs in a three-day assault on the city walls.
864 – The Edict of Pistres of Charles the Bald orders defensive measures against the Vikings.
1137 – Eleanor of Aquitaine marries Prince Louis, later King Louis VII of France, at the Cathedral of Saint-André in Bordeaux.
1139 – Battle of Ourique: The Almoravids, led by Ali ibn Yusuf, are defeated by Prince Afonso Henriques who is proclaimed King of Portugal.
1261 – The city of Constantinople is recaptured by Nicaean forces under the command of Alexios Strategopoulos, re-establishing the Byzantine Empire.
1278 – The naval Battle of Algeciras takes place in the context of the Spanish Reconquista resulting in a victory for the Emirate of Granada and the Maranid Dynasty over the Kingdom of Castile.
1467 – The Battle of Molinella: The first battle in Italy in which firearms are used extensively.
1536 – Sebastián de Belalcázar on his search of El Dorado founds the city of Santiago de Cali.
1538 – The city of Guayaquil is founded by the Spanish ConquistadorFrancisco de Orellana and given the name Muy Noble y Muy Leal Ciudad de Santiago de Guayaquil.
1547 – Henry II of France is crowned.
1554 – Mary I marries Philip II of Spain at Winchester Cathedral.
1567 – Don Diego de Losada founds the city of Santiago de Leon de Caracas, modern-day Caracas, the capital city of Venezuela.
1593 – Henry IV of France publicly converts from Protestantism to Roman Catholicism.
1603 – James VI of Scotland is crowned king of England (James I of England), bringing the Kingdom of England and Kingdom of Scotland into personal union. Political union would occur in 1707.
1609 – The English ship Sea Venture, en route to Virginia, is deliberately driven ashore during a storm at Bermuda to prevent its sinking; the survivors go on to found a new colony there.
1693 – Ignacio de Maya founds the Real Santiago de las Sabinas, now known as Sabinas Hidalgo, Nuevo León, Mexico.
1837 – The first commercial use of an electrical telegraph is successfully demonstrated in London by William Cooke and Charles Wheatstone.
1853 – Joaquin Murrieta, the famous Californio bandit known as the "Robin Hood of El Dorado", is killed.
1861 – American Civil War: The United States Congress passes the Crittenden–Johnson Resolution, stating that the war is being fought to preserve the Union and not to end slavery.
1866 – The United States Congress passes legislation authorizing the rank of General of the Army. Lieutenant GeneralUlysses S. Grant becomes the first to be promoted to this rank.
1869 – The Japanese daimyōs begin returning their land holdings to the emperor as part of the Meiji Restoration reforms. (Traditional Japanese Date: June 17, 1869).
1894 – The First Sino-Japanese War begins when the Japanese fire upon a Chinese warship.
1898 – Spanish-American War: The American invasion of Spanish-held Puerto Rico begins, as United States Army troops under General Nelson A. Miles land and secure the port at Guánica.[1]
1908 – Ajinomoto is founded. Kikunae Ikeda of the Tokyo Imperial University discovers that a key ingredient in kombu soup stock is monosodium glutamate (MSG), and patents a process for manufacturing it.
1909 – Louis Blériot makes the first flight across the English Channel in a heavier-than-air machine from Calais to Dover, England, United Kingdom in 37 minutes.
1915 – RFC Captain Lanoe Hawker becomes the first British pursuit aviator to earn the Victoria Cross.
1917 – Sir Robert Borden introduces the first income tax in Canada as a "temporary" measure (lowest bracket is 4% and highest is 25%).
1925 – Telegraph Agency of the Soviet Union (TASS) is established.
1934 – The Nazis assassinate Austrian Chancellor Engelbert Dollfuss in a failed coup attempt.
1940 – General Henri Guisan orders the Swiss Army to resist German invasion and makes surrender illegal.
1942 – The Norwegian Manifesto calls for nonviolent resistance to the German occupation.
1943 – World War II: Benito Mussoliniis forced out of office by the Grand Council of Fascism and is replaced by Pietro Badoglio.
1944 – World War II: Operation Spring is one of the bloodiest days for the First Canadian Army during the war.
1946 – The Crossroads Baker device is the first underwater nuclear weapon test.
1956 – Forty-five miles south of Nantucket Island, the Italian ocean linerSS Andrea Doria collides with the MS Stockholm in heavy fog and sinks the next day, killing 51.
1957 – The Tunisian King Muhammad VIII al-Amin is replaced by President Habib Bourguiba.
1958 – The African Regroupment Party holds its first congress in Cotonou.
1961 – Cold War: In a speech John F. Kennedy emphasizes that any attack on Berlin is an attack on NATO.
1965 – Bob Dylangoes electric at the Newport Folk Festival, signaling a major change in folk and rock music.
1969 – Vietnam War: U.S. PresidentRichard Nixon declares the Nixon Doctrine, stating that the United States now expects its Asian allies to take care of their own military defense. This is the start of the "Vietnamization" of the war.
1976 – Viking program: Viking 1 takes the famous Face on Mars photo.
1978 – Puerto Rican police shoot two nationalists in the Cerro Maravilla murders.
1978 – Birth of Louise Joy Brown, the first human to have been born after conception by in vitro fertilisation, or IVF.[2]
1979 – In accord with the Egypt–Israel Peace Treaty, Israel begins its withdrawal from the Sinai Peninsula.
1983 – Black July: Thirty-seven Tamil political prisoners at the Welikada high security prison in Colombo are massacred by the fellow Sinhalese prisoners.
1984 – Salyut 7cosmonautSvetlana Savitskaya becomes the first woman to perform a space walk.
1993 – Israel launches a massive attack against Lebanon in what the Israelis call Operation Accountability, and the Lebanese call the Seven-Day War.
1993 – The Saint James Church massacre occurs in Kenilworth, Cape Town, South Africa.
1994 – Israel and Jordan sign the Washington Declaration, that formally ends the state of war that had existed between the nations since 1948.
1995 – A gas bottle explodes in Saint Michel station of line B of the RER (Paris regional train network). Eight are killed and 80 wounded.
1996 – In a military coup in Burundi, Pierre Buyoya deposes Sylvestre Ntibantunganya.
1421 – Henry Percy, 3rd Earl of Northumberland, English politician (d. 1461)
1450 – Jakob Wimpfeling, Renaissance humanist (d. 1528)
1486 – Albrecht VII, Duke of Mecklenburg (d. 1547)
1498 – Hernando de Aragón, Archbishop of Zaragoza (d. 1575)
1532 – Alphonsus Rodriguez, Jesuit lay brother and saint (d. 1617)
1556 – George Peele, English translator, poet, and dramatist (d. 1596)
1562 – Katō Kiyomasa, Japanese warlord (d. 1611)
1573 – Christoph Scheiner, German astronomer and Jesuit (d. 1650)
1581 – Brian Twyne, English archivist (d. 1644)
1605 – Theodore Haak, German scholar (d. 1690)
1633 – Joseph Williamson, English politician (d. 1701)
1654 – Agostino Steffani, Italian composer and diplomat (d. 1728)
1657 – Philipp Heinrich Erlebach, German composer (d. 1714)
1658 – Archibald Campbell, 1st Duke of Argyll, Scottish general (d. 1703)
1683 – Pieter Langendijk, Dutch playwright and poet (d. 1756)
1750 – Henry Knox, American general and politician, 1st United States Secretary of War (d. 1806)
1753 – Santiago de Liniers, 1st Count of Buenos Aires, French-Spanish captain and politician, 10th Viceroy of the Viceroyalty of the Río de la Plata (d. 1810)
1797 – Princess Augusta of Hesse-Kassel (d. 1889)
1806 – Maria Weston Chapman, American abolitionist (d. 1885)
1839 – Francis Garnier, French captain and explorer (d. 1873)
1844 – Thomas Eakins, American painter, sculptor, and photographer (d. 1916)
1847 – Paul Langerhans, German pathologist, physiologist and biologist (d. 1888)
1848 – Arthur Balfour, Scottish-English lieutenant and politician, 33rd Prime Minister of the United Kingdom (d. 1930)
1857 – Frank J. Sprague, American naval officer and inventor (d. 1934)
1865 – Jac. P. Thijsse, Dutch botanist and conservationist (d. 1945)
1866 – Frederick Blackman, English physiologist and academic (d. 1947)
1867 – Max Dauthendey, German author and painter (d. 1918)
1867 – Alexander Rummler, American painter (d. 1959)
1869 – Platon, Estonian bishop and saint (d. 1919)
1870 – Maxfield Parrish, American painter and illustrator (d. 1966)
1875 – Jim Corbett, Indian hunter, environmentalist, and author (d. 1955)
1878 – Masaharu Anesaki, Japanese philosopher and scholar (d. 1949)
1882 – George S. Rentz, American commander (d. 1942)
1883 – Alfredo Casella, Italian pianist, composer, and conductor (d. 1947)