June20
Today is the
Summer Solstice, in the Northern Hemisphere, and,
Winter Solstice in the Southern Hemisphere.
451 –
Battle of Chalons:
Flavius Aetius battles
Attila the Hun. After the battle, which was inconclusive, Attila retreats, causing the Romans to interpret it as a victory.
1248 – The
University of Oxford receives its Royal charter.
1631 –
The sack of Baltimore: The
Irish village of Baltimore is attacked by Algerian pirates.
1782 – The U.S. Congress adopts the
Great Seal of the United States.
1819 – The U.S. vessel
SS Savannah arrives at Liverpool, United Kingdom. It is the first steam-propelled vessel to cross the Atlantic, although most of the journey is made under sail.
1837 –
Queen Victoria succeeds to the British throne.
1840 –
Samuel Morse receives the patent for the
telegraph.
1863 –
West Virginia is admitted as the 35th U.S. state.
1877 –
Alexander Graham Bell installs the world's first commercial telephone service in
Hamilton, Ontario, Canada.
1893 –
Lizzie Borden is acquitted of the axe murders of her father and stepmother.
1948 –
Toast of the Town, later
The Ed Sullivan Show, makes its television debut.
1963 – The so-called
"red telephone" link is established between the Soviet Union and the United States following the
Cuban Missile Crisis.
1969 -
David Bowie records '
Space Oddity' at
Trident Studios London. The track went on to become a UK No.1 when re-released in 1975.
1972 –
Watergate scandal: An 18½-minute gap appears in the
tape recording of the conversations between U.S. President Richard Nixon and his advisers regarding the recent arrests of his operatives while breaking into the Watergate complex.
1975 – The film
Jaws is released in the United States, becoming the highest-grossing film of that time and starting the trend of films known as
"summer blockbusters".
1979 –
ABC News correspondent Bill Stewart is shot dead by a Nicaraguan soldier under the regime of
Anastasio Somoza Debayle. The murder is caught on tape and sparks an international outcry against the regime.
1982 – The Argentine
Corbeta Uruguay base on Southern Thule surrenders to Royal Marine commandos in the final action of the
Falklands War.
1990 – The
7.4 Mw Manjil–Rudbar earthquake affects northern Iran with a maximum Mercalli intensity of X (Extreme), killing 35,000–50,000, and injuring 60,000–105,000.
1991 – The
German Bundestag votes to move the capital from Bonn back to Berlin.
2001 –
Andrea Yates, in an attempt to save her young children from Satan, drowns all five of them in a bathtub in Houston, Texas.
2003 – The
Wikimedia Foundation is founded in St. Petersburg, Florida.

2004 - Organizers at a
Paul McCartney show in Petersburg, Russia, hired three jets to
spray dry ice into the clouds so it wouldn't rain during the concert. The gig was McCartney's 3,000th concert appearance. He had performed 2,535 gigs with the
Quarrymen and
The Beatles, 140 gigs with
Wings and 325 solo shows.
Births
1905 – Lillian Hellman; 1907 – Jimmy Driftwood; 1909 – Errol Flynn; 1924 – Chet Atkins; 1925 – Audie Murphy; 1928 – Martin Landau; 1933 – Danny Aiello; 1935 – Len Dawson; 1937 – Jerry Keller; 1940 – John Mahoney (
"Frasier"'s father); 1941 – Stephen Frears; 1942 – Brian Wilson; 1945 – Anne Murray; 1946 – Bob Vila; 1949 – Alan Longmuir (
Bay City Rollers), Lionel Richie; 1950 – Nouri al-Maliki; 1952 – John Goodman,
Larry Riley; 1954 – Michael Anthony (bassist Van Halen); 1957 – Koko B. Ware; 1958 – Ron Hornaday, Jr. (race car driver); 1960 – John Taylor; 1967 – Nicole Kidman; 1967 – Dan Tyminski (singer of "
Man Of Constant Sorrow"; 1968 – Robert Rodriguez; 1971 – Josh Lucas, Twiggy Ramirez (bassist 'Marilyn Manson'); 1978 – Quinton 'Rampage' Jackson; 1983 – Darren Sproles
Deaths
1875 -
Joe Meek; 1945 – Bruno Frank; 1947 – Bugsy Siegel; 1972 – Howard Johnson; 2012 – LeRoy Neiman