On June 3rd...

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1539 Hernando de Soto claimed Florida for Spain.

1621 The Dutch West India Company received its charter for a trade monopoly in parts of the Americas and Africa.

1770 Don Gaspar de Portolá established a presidio at Monterrey Bay, California.

1784 The U.S. Army was officially established by the Congress of the Confederation.

1808 Jefferson Davis, President of the Confederate States of America, was born.

1814 Henry Kinney, early Texas pioneer, was born.

1851 The New York Knickerbockers became the first baseball team to wear uniforms.

1856 Cullen Whipple patented a machine for making screws.

1861 Stephen Douglas, U.S. Representative and Senator, died.

1865 King George V of Great Britain was born.

1871 Jesse James and his gang robbed the Obocock Bank of Corydon, Iowa, of $15,000.

1887 Singer Roland Hayes was born.

1888 The poem Casey at the Bat was first published, in the San Francisco Daily Examiner.

1889 The Canadian Pacific Railway was completed from coast to coast.

1906 King Leopold II of Belgium claimed Congo as his private possession.

1907 Centro Escolar University was established in Manila, Philippines.

1916 The U. S. National Defense Act established the Reserve Officers Training Corps.

1918 The U. S. Supreme Court ruled child labor laws unconstitutional.

1921 A sudden cloudburst killed 120 persons near Pikes Peak, Colorado.

1925 Actor Tony Curtis was born.

1929 Chile and Peru signed the Treaty of Lima, resolving their border dispute from the War of the Pacific.
1929 Television producer Chuck Barris was born.

1932 Lou Gehrig became the first baseball player to hit four consecutive home runs.

1935 The French liner Normandie set a record on its maiden voyage, arriving in New York after crossing the Atlantic in just four days.
1935 Actress Irma P. Hall was born.

1936 Author Larry McMurtry was born.

1937 The Duke of Windsor, who had abdicated the British throne, married Wallis Warfield Simpson in Monts, France.

1939 James Stout rode Johnstown to victory in the Belmont Stakes.
1939 Rock singer Ian Hunter was born.

1941 Emperor Wilhelm II of Germany died.

1944 G. L. Smith rode Bounding Home to victory in the Belmont Stakes.

1946 The International Military Tribunal opened in Tokyo, Japan.
1946 The first bikini bathing suit was displayed, in Paris, France.
1946 The U.S. Supreme Court ruled racial segregation on public buses unconstitutional.
1946 Singer Eddie Holman was born.

1948 The 200-inch Hale Telescope at the Palomar Mountain Observatory was dedicated.

1949 Wesley Anthony Brown became the first black to graduate from the U. S. Naval Academy.
1949 Rock musician Richard Moore was born.

1950 Singer Suzy Quatro was born.

1951 Singer Deneice Williams was born.

1952 Rock musician Billy Powell was born.

1953 Alexander Cartwright was officially credited by the U.S. Congress as the inventor of baseball.

1954 Singer Dan Hill was born.

1958 Actor Scott Valentine was born.

1959 Singapore was granted self-rule.
1959 The United States Air Force Academy graduated its first class.

1961 Braulio Baeza rode Sherluck to victory in the Belmont Stakes.

1962 An Air France jet crashed and burned during take-off from Paris' Orly Airport, killing 130 persons.

1963 A military-chartered DC-7 crashed off the southeast coast of Alaska, killing all 101 persons aboard.
1963 Pope John XXIII died.

1964 Rock musician Kerry King was born.

1965 Astronaut Ed White became the first American to "walk" in space, during the flight of Gemini IV.
1965 A tornado killed 3 persons in the Hale Center, Texas, area.

1967 Bill Shoemaker rode Damascus to victory in the Belmonst Stakes.
1967 Television journalist Anderson Cooper was born.

1968 Country singer Jamie O'Neal was born.

1969 The last episode of "Star Trek" aired on NBC-TV.

1970 The first artificial gene was synthesized.

1971 Singer Ariel Hernandez was born.
1971 Singer Gabriel Hernandez was born.

1972 Sally J. Priesand became the first female rabbi in the United States.

1973 A Tupolev 144 crashed at an air show in Paris, France, killing 15 persons.

1975 Eisaku Sato, Prime Minister of Japan, died.

1979 A blowout in an underwater oil well off the coast of Mexico produced the biggest oil spill in history.
1979 Thieves broke into a Roman Catholic convent in Rome, Italy,and took eight Flemish paintings worth $1.2 million.

1984 Patty Shehan won the LPGA Championship.

1987 Classical guitarist Andrés Segovia died.

1989 Chinese troops opened fire on pro-democracy supporters in Beijing.
1989 Two trains caught fire in Asha, Soviet Union, killing 460 persons.
1989 Ayatollah Ruhollah Khomeini, spiritual leader of Iran, died.

1994 A magnitude 5.9 earthquake killed over 150 people in Java, Indonesia.

1998 An ICE train derailed in Lower Saxony, Germany, killing 101 persons.

2003 Sammy Sosa was ejected in the first inning of Chicago's 3-2 win over the Tampa Bay Devil Rays after umpires found cork in his shattered bat.

2006 Montenegro declared itself independent.

2012 A suicide car bombing killed 15 persons and injured 42 in Bauchi, Nigeria.
2012 A plane crash in Lagos, Nigeria, killed all 152 passengers and 40 persons on the ground.

2013 A suicide bombing in Kabul, Afghanistan, killed 20 persons, including 10 children.
2013 A poultry farm fire in Jilin Province, China, killed 119 persons.

2015 An explosion at a gasoline station in Accra, Ghana, killed 200 people.

2016 Former heavyweight boxing champion Muhammad Ali died.

2017 Three men drove a van into pedestrians at Borough Market, London, England, then stabbed and killed 7 and wounded 48.

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This page was last updated on August 27, 2018.