1594The Action of Faial, Azores. The Portuguese carrack Cinco Chagas, loaded with slaves and treasure, is attacked and sunk by English ships with only 13 survivors out of over 700 on board.
1713The French residents of Acadia are given one year to declare allegiance to Britain or leave Nova Scotia, Canada.
1757Battle of Plassey: Three thousand British troops under Robert Clive defeat a 50,000-strong Indian army under Siraj ud-Daulah at Plassey.
1758Seven Years' War: Battle of Krefeld: British, Hanoverian, and Prussian forces defeat French troops at Krefeld in Germany.
1760Seven Years' War: Battle of Landeshut: Austria defeats Prussia.
1780American Revolution: Battle of Springfield fought in and around Springfield, New Jersey (including Short Hills, formerly of Springfield, now of Millburn Township).
1794Empress Catherine II of Russia grants Jews permission to settle in Kyiv.
1810John Jacob Astor forms the Pacific Fur Company.
1812War of 1812: Great Britain revokes the restrictions on American commerce, thus eliminating one of the chief reasons for going to war.
1865American Civil War: At Fort Towson in the Oklahoma Territory, Confederate Brigadier General Stand Watie surrenders the last significant Confederate army.
1868Christopher Latham Sholes receives a patent for an invention he called the "Type-Writer".
1887The Rocky Mountains Park Act becomes law in Canada, creating the nation's first national park, Banff National Park.
1894The International Olympic Committee is founded at the Sorbonne in Paris, at the initiative of Baron Pierre de Coubertin.
1908The Persian Cossack Brigade bombards the building of the National Consultative Assembly of Iran (Majles), killing hundreds of civilians.
1913Second Balkan War: The Greeks defeat the Bulgarians in the Battle of Doiran.
1919Estonian War of Independence: The decisive defeat of the Baltische Landeswehr in the Battle of Cēsis; this date is celebrated as Victory Day in Estonia.
1925Shameen Incident: British Army and French Army soldiers stationed in the concession of Shameen open fire on Chinese protesters, resulting in at least 52 deaths.
1926The College Board administers the first SAT exam.
1931Wiley Post and Harold Gatty take off from Roosevelt Field, Long Island in an attempt to circumnavigate the world in a single-engine plane.
1938The Civil Aeronautics Act is signed into law, forming the Civil Aeronautics Authority in the United States.
1941The Lithuanian Activist Front declares independence from the Soviet Union and forms the Provisional Government of Lithuania; it lasts only briefly as the Nazis will occupy Lithuania a few weeks later.
1942World War II: Germany's latest fighter aircraft, a Focke-Wulf Fw 190, is captured intact when it mistakenly lands at RAF Pembrey in Wales.
1944An F4 tornado tears through the Appalachian Mountains, killing over 100 people in West Virginia, particularly in the town of Shinnston.
1946The 1946 Vancouver Island earthquake strikes Vancouver Island, British Columbia, Canada.
1956The French National Assembly takes the first step in creating the French Community by passing the Loi Cadre, transferring a number of powers from Paris to elected territorial governments in French West Africa.
1959Convicted Manhattan Project spy Klaus Fuchs is released after only nine years in prison and allowed to emigrate to Dresden, East Germany where he resumes a scientific career.
1960The United States Food and Drug Administration declares Enovid to be the first officially approved combined oral contraceptive pill in the world.
1961The Antarctic Treaty System, which sets aside Antarctica as a scientific preserve and limits military activity on the continent, its islands and ice shelves, comes into force.
1967Cold War: U.S. President Lyndon B. Johnson meets with Soviet Premier Alexei Kosygin in Glassboro, New Jersey for the three-day Glassboro Summit Conference.
1968Seventy-four people were killed and 150 others injured in a stampede at a football match between Boca Juniors and Club Atlético River Plate in Buenos Aires, Argentina.
1969Warren E. Burger is sworn in as Chief Justice of the United States Supreme Court by retiring Chief Justice Earl Warren.
1969IBM announces that effective January 1970 it will price its software and services separately from hardware thus creating the modern software industry.
1972Title IX of the United States Civil Rights Act of 1964 is amended to prohibit sexual discrimination to any educational program receiving federal funds.
1973A fire at a house in Hull, England, which kills a six-year-old boy is passed off as an accident; it later emerges as the first of 26 deaths by fire caused over the next seven years by serial arsonist Peter Dinsdale.
1985A terrorist bomb explodes at Narita International Airport near Tokyo, killing two and injuring four. An hour later, the same group detonates a second bomb aboard Air India Flight 182, bringing the Boeing 747 down off the coast of Ireland killing all 329 aboard.
1991Sonic the Hedgehog is released in North America on the Sega Genesis platform, beginning the popular video game franchise.
2001The 8.4 southern Peru earthquake shakes coastal Peru with a maximum Mercalli intensity of VIII (Severe). A destructive tsunami followed, leaving at least 74 people dead, and 2,687 injured.
2005American social news and discussion site Reddit is founded in Medford, Massachusetts by Steve Huffman and Alexis Ohanian.
2012Ashton Eaton breaks the decathlon world record at the United States Olympic Trials.
2013Nik Wallenda becomes the first man to successfully walk across the Grand Canyon on a tight rope.
2013Militants storm a high-altitude mountaineering base camp near Nanga Parbat in Gilgit–Baltistan, Pakistan, killing ten climbers and a local guide.
2014The last of Syria's declared chemical weapons are shipped out for destruction.
2016Brexit: The United Kingdom votes in a referendum to leave the European Union, by 52% to 48%.
2017A series of terrorist attacks take place in Pakistan, resulting in 96 deaths and wounding 200 others.
2018Twelve boys and an assistant coach from a soccer team in Thailand are trapped in a flooding cave, leading to an 18-day rescue operation.
Nacimientos (215)
47 a. C.Caesarion, Egyptian king (died 30 BC)
1385Stephen, Count Palatine of Simmern-Zweibrücken (died 1459)
1433Duke Francis II of Brittany (died 1488)
1456Margaret of Denmark, Queen of Scotland (died 1486)
1489Charles II of Savoy, Italian nobleman (died 1496)
1534Oda Nobunaga, Japanese warlord (died 1582)
1596Johan Banér, Swedish field marshal (died 1641)
1616Shah Shuja, Mughal prince (died 1661)
1625John Fell, English churchman and influential academic (died 1686)
1668Giambattista Vico, Italian jurist, historian, and philosopher (died 1744)
1683Étienne Fourmont, French orientalist and sinologist (died 1745)
1711Giovanni Battista Guadagnini, Italian instrument maker (died 1786)
Saint John's Eve and the first day of the Midsummer celebrations (although this is not the real summer solstice; see June 20) (Roman Catholic Church, Europe):