19 June History


Month:                           Date:     

  • 240 BC    -    Eratosthenes estimates the circumference of Earth using two sticks.
  • 1536    -    Anne Boleyn, Henry VIII's second wife, is beheaded.
  • 1778    -    General George Washington's troops finally leave Valley Forge after a winter of training.
  • 1821    -    The Ottomans defeat the Greeks at the Battle of Dragasani.
  • 1846    -    The New York Knickerbocker Club plays the New York Club in the first baseball game at Elysian Field, Hoboken, New Jersey.
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  • 1848    -    The first Women's Rights Convention convenes in Seneca Falls, New York.
  • 1861    -    Virginians, in what will soon be West Virginia, elect Francis Pierpoint as their provisional governor.
  • 1862    -    President Abraham Lincoln outlines his Emancipation Proclamation. News of the document reaches the South.
  • 1864    -    The USS Kearsarge sinks the CSS Alabama off of Cherbourg, France.
  • 1867    -    Mexican Emperor Maximillian is executed.
  • 1885    -    The Statue of Liberty arrives in New York City from France.
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  • 1903    -    The young school teacher, Benito Mussolini, is placed under investigation by police in Bern, Switzerland.
  • 1919    -    Mustafa Kemal founds the Turkish National Congress at Ankara and denounces the Treaty of Versailles.
  • 1933    -    France grants Leon Trotsky political asylum.
  • 1934    -    The National Archives and Records Administration is established.
  • 1937    -    The town of Bilbao, Spain, falls to the Nationalist forces.
  • 1942    -    Prime Minister Winston Churchill arrives in Washington D.C. to discuss the invasion of North Africa with President Roosevelt.
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  • 1944    -    U.S. Navy carrier-based planes shatter the remaining Japanese carrier forces in the Battle of the Marianas.
  • 1951    -    President Harry S. Truman signs the Universal Military Training and Service Act, which extends Selective Service until July 1, 1955 and lowers the draft age to 18.
  • 1958    -    Nine entertainers refuse to answer a congressional committee's questions on communism.
  • 1961    -    Kuwait regains complete independence from Britain.
  • 1963    -    Soviet cosmonaut, Valentia Tereshkova, becomes the first woman in space.
  • 1965    -    Air Marshall Nguyen Cao Ky becomes South Vietnam's youngest premier at age 34.
  • 1968    -    Over 50,000 people march on Washington, D.C. to support the Poor People's Campaign.
  • 1973    -    The Case-Church Amendment prevents further U.S. involvement in Southeast Asia.
  • 1987    -    The U.S. Supreme Court voids the Louisiana law requiring schools to teach creationism.
  • 1995    -    The Richmond Virginia Planning Commission approves plans to place a memorial statue of tennis professional Arthur Ashe.

  • 19 June Birthdays

  • 1566    -    James I, King of England (1603-1625).
  • 1623    -    Blaise Pascal, French mathematician, physicist, and religious philosopher.
  • 1897    -    Moe Howard, comic actor, one of the Three Stooges.
  • 1900    -    Laura Hobson, novelist (Gentleman's Agreement).
  • 1903    -    Henry Louis Gehrig, professional baseball player.
  • 1919    -    Pauline Kael, American film critic, author.
  • 1945    -    Aung San Suu Kyi, Myanmar human rights activist, Nobel Peace Prize recipient (1991).
  • 1945    -    Tobias Wolff, American writer (This Boy's Life: A Memoir, The Night in Question).
  • 1947    -    Salman Rushdie, British author (Midnight's Children, The Satanic Verses).