1770 – James Bruce discovers what he believes to be the source of the Nile.[1]
1812 – Napoleonic Wars: At the Battle of Smoliani, French Marshals Victor and Oudinot are defeated by the Russians under General Peter Wittgenstein.[2]
1851 – Moby-Dick, a novel by Herman Melville, is published in the USA.
1862 – American Civil War: President Abraham Lincoln approves General Ambrose Burnside's plan to capture the Confederate capital at Richmond, Virginia, leading to the Battle of Fredericksburg.
1886 – Friedrich Soennecken first developed the hole puncher, a type of office tool capable of punching small holes in paper.
1889 – Pioneering female journalist Nellie Bly (aka Elizabeth Cochrane) begins a successful attempt to travel around the world in less than 80 days. She completes the trip in 72 days.[3]
1910 – AviatorEugene Burton Ely performs the first takeoff from a ship in Hampton Roads, Virginia, taking off from a makeshift deck on the USS Birmingham in a Curtiss pusher.
1957 – The "Apalachin Meeting" in rural Tioga County in upstate New York is raided by law enforcement; many high level Mafia figures are arrested while trying to flee.
1960 – Ruby Bridges becomes the first black child to attend an all-white elementary school in Louisiana.
1965 – Vietnam War: The Battle of Ia Drang begins: The first major engagement between regular American and North Vietnamese forces.
1967 – The Congress of Colombia, in commemoration of the 150 years of the death of Policarpa Salavarrieta, declares this day as "Day of the Colombian Woman".
1967 – American physicist Theodore Maiman is given a patent for his ruby laser systems, the world's first laser.
1969 – Apollo program: NASA launches Apollo 12, the second crewed mission to the surface of the Moon.
1970 – Soviet Union enters ICAO, making Russian the fourth official language of organization.
1970 – Southern Airways Flight 932 crashes in the mountains near Huntington, West Virginia, killing 75, including almost all of the Marshall Universityfootballteam.
1973 – In the United Kingdom, Princess Anne marries CaptainMark Phillips, in Westminster Abbey.
1973 – The Athens Polytechnic uprising, a massive demonstration of popular rejection of the Greek military junta of 1967–74, begins.
1975 – With the signing of the Madrid Accords, Spain abandons Western Sahara.
1977 – During a British House of Commons debate, Labour MP Tam Dalyell poses what would become known as the West Lothian question, referring to issues related to devolution in the United Kingdom.
1978 – France conducts the Aphrodite nuclear test as 25th in the group of 29, 1975–78 French nuclear tests.
1979 – Iran hostage crisis: US President Jimmy Carter issues Executive order 12170, freezing all Iranian assets in the United States in response to the hostage crisis.
1982 – Lech Wałęsa, the leader of Poland's outlawed Solidarity movement, is released after eleven months of internment near the Soviet border.
1984 – Zamboanga City mayor Cesar Climaco, a prominent critic of the government of Philippine President Ferdinand Marcos, is assassinated in his home city.
1990 – After German reunification, the Federal Republic of Germany and Poland sign a treaty confirming the Oder–Neisse line as the border between Germany and Poland.
1991 – American and British authorities announce indictments against two Libyan intelligence officials in connection with the downing of the Pan Am Flight 103.
1991 – Cambodian Prince Norodom Sihanouk returns to Phnom Penh after thirteen years of exile.
1995 – A budget standoff between Democrats and Republicans in the U.S. Congress forces the federal government to temporarily close national parks and museums and to run most government offices with skeleton staffs.
2001 – War in Afghanistan: Afghan Northern Alliance fighters take over the capital Kabul.
2001 – A magnitude 7.8 earthquake strikes a remote part of the Tibetan plateau. It had the longest known surface rupture recorded on land (~400 km) and is the best documented example of a supershear earthquake.[5]
2003 – Astronomers Michael E. Brown, Chad Trujillo, and David L. Rabinowitz discover 90377 Sedna, a Trans-Neptunian object.
2008 – The first G-20 economic summit opens in Washington, D.C.
2012 – Israel launches a major military operation in the Gaza Strip, as hostilities with Hamas escalate.
2016 – A magnitude 7.8 earthquake strikes Kaikoura, New Zealand, at a depth of 15 km (9 miles), resulting in the deaths of two people.
2017 – A gunman kills four people and injures 12 others during a shooting spree across Rancho Tehama Reserve, California. He had earlier murdered his wife in their home.
Births[]
1449 – Sidonie of Poděbrady, daughter of King of Bohemia (d. 1510)
1487 – John III of Pernstein, Bohemian land-owner, Governor of Moravia and Count of Kladsko (d. 1548)
1501 – Anna of Oldenburg, Regent of East Frisia (d. 1575)[6]
1531 – Richard Topcliffe, English torturer (d. 1604)
1601 – John Eudes, French priest and missionary (d. 1680)
1650 – William III of England, Prince of Orange, King of England, Scotland and Ireland (d. 1702)
1663 – Friedrich Wilhelm Zachow, German organist and composer (d. 1712)
1719 – Leopold Mozart, Austrian violinist, composer, and conductor (d. 1787)
1765 – Robert Fulton, American engineer, Early steamboat pioneer (d. 1815)
1771 – Marie François Xavier Bichat, French anatomist and physiologist (d. 1802)
1776 – Henri Dutrochet, French physician, botanist, and physiologist (d. 1847)
1777 – Nathaniel Claiborne, American farmer and politician (d. 1859)
1778 – Johann Nepomuk Hummel, Austrian pianist and composer (d. 1837)
1779 – Adam Oehlenschläger, Danish poet and playwright (d. 1850)
1797 – Charles Lyell, Scottish geologist and lawyer (d. 1875)
1803 – Jacob Abbott, American author (d. 1879)
1805 – Fanny Mendelssohn, German pianist and composer (d. 1847)
1812 – Aleardo Aleardi, Italian poet (d. 1878)
1812 – Maria Cristina of Savoy (d. 1836)
1816 – John Curwen, English minister and educator (d. 1880)
1828 – James B. McPherson, American general (d. 1864)
1832 – Henry Strangways, English-Australian politician, 12th Premier of South Australia (d. 1920)
1838 – August Šenoa, Croatian author, poet, and critic (d. 1881)
1840 – Claude Monet, French painter (d. 1926)
1856 – Madeleine Lemoyne Ellicott, American activist (d. 1945)
1861 – Frederick Jackson Turner, American historian and author (d. 1932)
1863 – Leo Baekeland, Belgian-American chemist and engineer (d. 1944)
1869 – John Lumsden, Irish physician, founded the St. John Ambulance Brigade of Ireland (d. 1944)
1875 – Gregorio del Pilar, Filipino general and politician (d. 1899)
1875 – Jakob Schaffner, Swiss author and activist (d. 1944)
1877 – Norman Brookes, Australian tennis player (d. 1968)
1878 – Julie Manet, French painter and art collector (d. 1966)
1878 – Leopold Staff, Ukrainian-Polish poet and academic (d. 1957)
1883 – Ado Birk, Estonian lawyer and politician, 3rd Prime Minister of Estonia (d. 1942)
1889 – Jawaharlal Nehru, Indian lawyer and politician, 1st Prime Minister of India (d. 1964)
1891 – Frederick Banting, Canadian physician and academic, Nobel Prize laureate (d. 1941)
1895 – Walter Jackson Freeman II, American physician and psychiatrist (d. 1972)
1897 – John Steuart Curry, American painter and academic (d. 1946)
1898 – Benjamin Fondane, Romanian-French philosopher, poet, and critic (d. 1944)
1900 – Aaron Copland, American composer, conductor, and educator (d. 1990)
1904 – Harold Haley, American lawyer and judge (d. 1970)
1904 – Harold Larwood, English-Australian cricketer (d. 1995)
1904 – Dick Powell, American actor, singer, director, and producer (d. 1963)
1905 – John Henry Barbee, American singer and guitarist (d. 1964)
1906 – Louise Brooks, American actress and dancer (d. 1985)
1907 – Howard W. Hunter, American religious leader, 14th President of The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints (d. 1995)
1907 – Astrid Lindgren, Swedish author and screenwriter (d. 2002)
1907 – William Steig, American author, illustrator, and sculptor (d. 2003)
1908 – Joseph McCarthy, American captain, lawyer, and politician (d. 1957)
1910 – Rosemary DeCamp, American actress and singer (d. 2001)
1910 – Eric Malpass, English author (d. 1996)
1912 – Barbara Hutton, American philanthropist (d. 1979)
1912 – Tung-Yen Lin, Chinese-American engineer, designed the Guandu Bridge (d. 2003)
1914 – Ken Carson, American Western singer (d. 1994)
1915 – Mabel Fairbanks, American figure skater and coach (d. 2001)
1915 – Martha Tilton, American singer and actress (d. 2006)
1916 – Roger Apéry, Greek-French mathematician and academic (d. 1994)
1916 – Sherwood Schwartz, American screenwriter and producer (d. 2011)
1917 – Park Chung-hee, South Korean general and politician, 3rd President of South Korea (d. 1979)
1918 – John Bromwich, Australian tennis player (d. 1999)
↑Heiko Ebbel Janssen: Gräfin Anna von Ostfriesland – eine hochadelige Frau der späten Reformationszeit (1540/42–1575). Ein Beitrag zu den Anfängen der reformierten Konfessionalisierung im Reich. Aschendorff, Münster 1998, ISBN: 3-402-03802-1.
↑Conn, Heather. "Mary Greyeyes Reid". The Canadian Encyclopedia. Retrieved 2018-05-01.
↑"Miriam Brouwer". Team Canada - Official Olympic Team Website. 26 June 2019. Retrieved 2 June 2020.