This Day in History

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June 3

1539 – Hernando de Soto claims Florida for Spain.

1608 – Samuel de Champlain completes his third voyage to New France at Tadoussac, Quebec.

1621 – The Dutch West India Company receives a charter for New Netherland.

1781 – Jack Jouett begins his midnight ride to warn Thomas Jefferson and the Virginia legislature of an impending raid by Banastre Tarleton.

1839 – In Humen, China, Lin Tse-hsü destroys 1.2 million kg of opium confiscated from British merchants, providing Britain with a casus belli to open hostilities, resulting in the First Opium War.

1885 – In the last military engagement fought on Canadian soil, the Cree leader, Big Bear, escapes the North-West Mounted Police.

1888 – The poem "Casey at the Bat", by Ernest Lawrence Thayer, is published in The San Francisco Examiner.

1889 – The first long-distance electric power transmission line in the United States is completed, running 14 miles (23 km) between a generator at Willamette Falls and downtown Portland, Oregon.

1916 – The National Defense Act is signed into law, increasing the size of the United States National Guard by 450,000 men.

1937 – The Duke of Windsor marries Wallis Simpson.

1942 – World War II: Japan begins the Aleutian Islands Campaign by bombing Unalaska Island.

1943 – In Los Angeles, California, white U.S. Navy sailors and Marines clash with Latino youths in the Zoot Suit Riots.

1953 - Elvis Presley graduated from L.C. Humes High School in Memphis. He was the first member of his family to graduate high school.

1962 – At Paris' Orly Airport, Air France Flight 007 overruns the runway and explodes when the crew attempts to abort takeoff, killing 130 people.

1965 – The launch of Gemini 4, the first multi-day space mission by a NASA crew. Ed White, a crew member, performs the first American spacewalk.

1969 – Melbourne–Evans collision: off the coast of South Vietnam, the Australian aircraft carrier HMAS Melbourne cuts the U.S. Navy destroyer USS Frank E. Evans in half.

1970 - The Kinks' Ray Davies was forced to make a 6,000 mile round trip from New York to London to record one word in a song. Davies had to change the word 'Coca- Cola' to 'Cherry Cola' on the bands forthcoming single 'Lola' due to an advertising ban at BBC Radio.

1973 – A Soviet supersonic Tupolev Tu-144 crashes near Goussainville, France, killing 14, the first crash of a supersonic passenger aircraft.

1979 – A blowout at the Ixtoc I oil well in the southern Gulf of Mexico causes at least 3,000,000 barrels (480,000 m3) of oil to be spilled into the waters, the second-worst accidental oil spill ever recorded.

1980 – The 1980 Grand Island tornado outbreak: Seven tornadoes hit Grand Island, Nebraska, which take five lives, 357 single-family homes, 33 mobile homes, 85 apartments, 49 businesses and cause $300 million in damages.

1983 - US session drummer Jim Gordon, murdered his mother by pounding her head with a hammer. A diagnosed schizophrenic, it was not until his trial in 1984 that he was properly diagnosed. Due to the fact that his attorney was unable to use the insanity defense, Gordon was sentenced to sixteen years-to-life in prison in 1984. A Grammy Award winner for co-writing "Layla" with Eric Clapton, Gordon worked with The Beach Boys, John Lennon, George Harrison, Frank Zappa and many other artists.

1989 – The government of China sends troops to force protesters out of Tiananmen Square after seven weeks of occupation.

1991 – Mount Unzen erupts in Kyūshū, Japan, killing 43 people, all of them either researchers or journalists.

2012 – A plane carrying 153 people on board crashes in a residential neighborhood in Lagos, Nigeria, killing everyone on board and 10 people on the ground.

2012 – The pageant for the Diamond Jubilee of Elizabeth II takes place on the River Thames.

Births

1808 – Jefferson Davis; 1864 – Ransom E. Olds (founder Oldsmobile & REO Motor Car Co.); 1911 – Ellen Corby ('Grandma Walton'); 1917 – Leo Gorcey; 1924 – Colleen Dewhurst; 1924 – Jimmy Rogers (no, the black one); 1925 – Tony Curtis; 1926 – Allen Ginsberg; 1927 – Boots Randolph ("Yakety Sax"); 1929 – Chuck Barris; 1931 – Raúl Castro; 1936 – Larry McMurtry; 1942 – Curtis Mayfield; 1945 – Hale Irwin; 1946 – Tristan Rogers ('Robert Scorpio' on "General Hospital"); 1947 – Mickey Finn; 1950 – Suzi Quatro; 1950 – Deniece Williams ("Let's Hear It For The Boy"), Robert Z'Dar ("Maniac Cop"); 1951 – Jill Biden; 1952 – Billy Powell; 1964 – James Purefoy; 1967 – Anderson Cooper; 1976 – Jamie McMurray

Deaths

1861 – Stephen A. Douglas; 1875 – Georges Bizet; 1899 – Johann Strauss II; 1955 – Barbara Graham; 1973 – Dory Funk; 1975 – Ozzie Nelson; 1987 – Will Sampson ('Chief Bromden' in "One Flew Over the Cuckoo's Nest"); 1990 – Robert Noyce (co-founder Intel); 1991 – Katia Krafft, Maurice Krafft; 2001 – Anthony Quinn; 2002 – Lew Wasserman; 2009 – David Carradine; 2011 – James Arness; 2011 – Jack Kevorkian; 2013 – Deacon Jones