Today in History

19th June

1829 Peel's Metropolitan Police Bill received parliamentary approval. The new Act established a full-time, professional and centrally-organised police force for the greater London area under the control of the Home Secretary.

1961, Kuwait became fully independent following an exchange of notes with the United Kingdom that terminated the Anglo-Kuwaiti Treaty of 1899 and therefore provided for Kuwaiti independence.

1980 Three gunmen who attacked the British embassy in Baghdad were shot dead by Iraqi security forces.

1997 The US fast-food chain McDonalds won a two-year libel case in Britain against two environmental campaigners who claimed that the company caused environmental damage and exploited workers in the Third World.
 
20th June

1214 The University of Oxford received its Royal charter on this day in 1248. There is evidence of teaching at the university in 1096, making it the oldest university in the English-speaking world and the second oldest in the world.

1497 The consecration of St. Mary's Church, Fairford (Cotswolds), one of the finest 'wool churches' in England. Successful wool merchants lavished money on their parish churches and John Tame, a wealthy wool merchant, completely rebuilt the church at his own expense. Unusually, the churchyard includes a stone memorial to Tiddles, the church cat whoe 'guarded' the church and its precincts from 1963 to 1980.

1756 In India, the night of the infamous 'Black Hole of Calcutta', where more than 140 British soldiers and civilians were placed in a small prison cell - 18 feet by 14 feet - by the Nawab of Bengal. The following morning only 23 emerged alive.

1819 The U.S. vessel SS Savannah arrived at Liverpool. She was the first steam-propelled vessel to cross the Atlantic, although most of the journey was made under sail.

1837 On the death of William IV, Queen Victoria, aged 18, acceded to the throne.

1887 On Queen Victoria’s Golden Jubilee, Buffalo Bill Cody staged a Royal Command performance of his famous Wild West Show, and four European kings boarded the original Deadwood coach driven by Cody.

1976 Nearly 300 Westerners, mostly Americans and Britons, were moved from Beirut and taken to safety in Syria by the US military.An American navy ship rescued about 270 people, including 97 Britons, from the war-torn Lebanese city after attempts to move them by road were ruled out as too dangerous.Most of the refugees on the beach were Americans responding to their government's call to leave Beirut following the murder of the American ambassador Francis Meloy.
 
22 June 1846
In Paris, France, 32 year old Adolphe Sax, a Belgian musician and musical instrument designer, patents the saxophone.
Sax continued to make instruments throughout his life, however, rival instrument makers challenged the legitimacy of his patents and initiated a campaign of litigation against him and his company, driving him into bankruptcy twice, in 1856 and 1873.
 
22 June 1633
The Catholic Church forces Galileo Galilei to renounce his heliocentric world view.
The Holy Office concluded that the Italian scientist, by stating that the Sun, not the Earth, is the centre of the Universe, was “vehemently suspect of heresy”.
Galileo spent the rest of his life under house arrest.
 
22nd June


1377 At the age of 10, Richard II became King of England following the death of his grandfather Edward III, the previous day. In 1381 the Peasants' Revolt broke out, and Richard, aged 14, bravely rode out to meet the rebels at Mile End and at Smithfield, London.

1535 Cardinal John Fisher was beheaded on Tower Hill, London, for refusing to acknowledge Henry VIII as head of the Church of England.

1680 The 'Sanquhar Declaration' took place in the public square of Sanquhar in Dumfries and Galloway, disavowing allegiance to Charles II and the government of Scotland. The symbolic demonstration, in a speech read by Michael Cameron in the presence of his brother, Covenanter leader Rev. Richard Cameron, was essentially a declaration of war. It was among the first of a series of events that led to the Glorious Revolution and the end of the reign of the House of Stuart.

1893 The Royal Navy battleship HMS Camperdown accidentally rammed the British Mediterranean Fleet flagship HMS Victoria near Tripoli, Lebanon. HMS Victoria sank, taking 358 crew with her, including the commander of the British Mediterranean Fleet, Vice-Admiral Sir George Tryon.

1911 The Coronation of George V and Mary of Teck, the queen consort.

1921 The first Northern Ireland Parliament was opened by King George V in Belfast. Sir James Craig was the first Prime Minister in a parliament that nobody wanted. Southern Irish leaders wanted a united Ireland.
 
23rd June

1314 Preliminary actions began for the Battle of Bannockburn, with the main battle beginning not long after daybreak the following day when the Scots began to move towards the English. It was one of the decisive battles of the First War of Scottish Independence. Robert the Bruce earned a place in Scottish history for his legendary victory over the English at Bannockburn

1661 A marriage treaty agreeing upon the union of Charles II and Catherine of Braganza was signed. Catherine brought a dowry of £500,000, as well as Bombay, Tangier and the right of free trade with the Portuguese colonies, and also popularised tea-drinking in Britain.

1757 British troops, commanded by Robert Clive, won the Battle of Plassey in Bengal - laying the foundations of the British Empire in India.

1951 Guy Burgess and Donald Maclean, missing diplomats, fled to the USSR as Russian spies before the British authorities had the opportunity to arrest them for spying. They 'surfaced' in Moscow in 1956.

1985 A terrorist bomb aboard Air India flight 182 brought down a Boeing 747 off the coast of Ireland killing all 329 people aboard.

2016 The EU Referendum. The UK voted to leave the European Union.
 
25 June 1966
Jackie Wilson was arrested for inciting a riot and refusing to obey a police order at a nightclub in Port Arthur, Texas.
Wilson had a crowd of between 200 and 400 whipped into a frenzy and refused to stop singing when requested to do so by police.
He was later convicted of drunkenness and fined $30.
 
25 June 1976
Native Americans won the Battle of Little Bighorn, also known as Custer’s Last Stand.
Six hundred men of The U.S. Seventh Cavalry led by George Armstrong Custer, were attacked by 3,000 native American Indians consisting mostly of Sioux and Cheyenne led by Crazy Horse, within one hour of the attack every last one of the soldiers were dead.
 
25th June

1646 The surrender of Oxford to the Roundheads virtually signified the end of the English Civil War.

1891 The first episode of an Arthur Conan Doyle novel involving the fictional detective Sherlock Holmes was printed in the Strand Magazine in London.

1953 John Christie was sentenced to hang for murdering his wife and then hiding her body under the floorboards of their Notting Hill home in London. Christie, 54, had admitted murder but pleaded not guilty by reason of insanity. It took the jury an hour and 22 minutes to reject his defence and declare him guilty.

1969 Wimbledon saw the longest men’s singles match ever when Charlie Pasarell was beaten by Pancho Gonzales 22-24, 1-6, 16-14, 6-3, 11-9. At 112 games and 5 hours 20 minutes it was by far the longest match of the time. The match led to the introduction of the tiebreak in tennis.

2011 The Pirates of Penzance - 8,734 people in fancy dress assembled on Penzance promenade at 13:00 BST. The Guinness World Records later confirmed that Penzance now held the title for the largest gathering of pirates in one place, officially breaking the previous record set by 6,166 pirates in Hastings in 2010.
 
26th June

1857 The first investiture ceremony for Victoria Cross awards took place in Hyde Park, London. Queen Victoria presented 62 servicemen with Britain's highest military honour. The Victoria Cross is Britain's highest award for conspicuous courage and bravery by members of the armed forces in the face of the enemy. The decoration, chosen by Queen Victoria, is in the form of a Maltese cross.

1959 Queen Elizabeth II and US President Dwight D Eisenhower officially opened the St Lawrence Seaway on June 26, 1959 in a dedication ceremony. After some speeches, the two leaders boarded the royal yacht Britannia and sailed through one of the seaway's new locks.

1986 Entrepreneur Richard Branson set off on his second attempt to claim the transatlantic powerboat record for Britain. He smashed the previous record by two hours but was denied the Blue Riband by the trustees of the award because he had broken two rules of the competition; he had stopped to refuel and his vessel did not have a commercial maritime purpose.

2014 David Greaves, 43, who took two cash tills and three plasma televisions from The Railway pub in Accrington, Lancashire, lost his stolen goods when two other opportunistic thieves took them as he went back to steal more. Greaves was sentenced to nine months in prison, suspended for 12 months.
 
1498
the toothbrush was invented in China using boar bristles
1894
German engineer, Karl Benz was granted a U.S. patent for gasoline- driven auto
1934
Pres Franklin Roosevelt signs Federal Credit Union Act which established Credit Unions
1959
Pres Dwight Eisenhower&Queen Elizabeth II open the St. Lawrence Seaway. It allows ocean going vessels to travel from Atlantic Ocean to Great Lakes in N. America
1974
The Universal Product Code is 1st scanned at a Troy, Ohio supermarket. The item scan was a package of Wrigley's chewing gum
1976
Canada's CN Tower in Toronto was opened to the public. At the time it was the tallest free standing structure at 1,815 ft{553 meters} in the world
1997
J K Rowling's 1st Harry Potter book' Harry POtter&The Philosopher's Stone is published. 120 million copies were sold,highest of all the 7 books
 
The Battle of the Little Bighorn, known to the Lakota and other Plains Indians as the Battle of the Greasy Grass, and commonly referred to as Custer's Last Stand, was an armed engagement between combined forces of the Lakota Sioux, Northern Cheyenne and Arapaho tribes and the 7th Cavalry Regiment of The United States Army. The battle, which resulted in the defeat of U.S. forces, was the most significant action of the Great Sioux War of 1876. It took place on June 25–26, 1876, along The Little Bighorn River in the Crow Indian Reservation in southeastern Montana Territory.

Speaking to an audience of 120,000 on the steps of Rathaus Schöneberg, June 26th 1963, President Kennedy said:
Two thousand years ago, the proudest boast was: "Civis Romanus sum ("I am a Roman citizen.") Today, in the world of freedom, the proudest boast is "Ich bin ein Berliner!" All free men, wherever they may live, are citizens of Berlin, and therefore, as a free man, I take pride in the words "Ich bin ein Berliner!"
 

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