19 June History
- 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.
- 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.
- 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.
- 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).