1508 Maximilian I, Holy Roman Emperor, was defeated in Friulia by Venetian forces.
1513 Italian Wars: Battle of Novara. Swiss troops defeated the French under Louis de la Tremoille, forcing the French to abandon Milan. Duke Massimiliano Sforza was restored.
1644 The Qing Dynasty Manchu forces led by the Shunzhi Emperor captured Beijing during the collapse of the Ming Dynasty.
1654 Charles X succeeded his abdicated cousin Queen Christina to the Swedish throne.
1674 Shivaji, founder of the Maratha empire was crowned.
1683 The Ashmolean Museum in Oxford opened as the world’s first university museum.
1752 A fire destroyed one-third of Moscow, including 18,000 homes.
1799 Alexander Pushkin, Russian poet, was born (d. 1837).
1808 Napoleon’s brother, Joseph Bonaparte was crowned King of Spain.
1813 War of 1812: Battle of Stoney Creek – A British force of 700 under John Vincent defeated an American force three times its size under William Winder and John Chandler.
1823 Samuel Leigh and William White established Wesleydale, a Wesleyan (Methodist) mission station at Kaeo, near Whangaroa Harbour.
1832 The June Rebellion of Paris was put down by the National Guard.
1833 U.S. President Andrew Jackson became the first President to ride a train.
1844 The Young Men’s Christian Association (YMCA) was founded in London.
1857 Sophia of Nassau married the future King Oscar II of Sweden-Norway.
1862 American Civil War: Battle of Memphis – Union forces captured Memphi, from the Confederates.
1868 Robert Falcon Scott, English explorer was born (d. 1912).
1882 More than 100,000 inhabitants of Bombay were killed when a cyclone in the Arabian Sea pushed huge waves into the harbour.
1882 The Shewan forces of Menelik defeated the Gojjame army in the Battle of Embabo. The Shewans capture Negus Tekle Haymanot of Gojjam, and heir victory leads to a Shewan hegemony over the territories south of the Abay River.
1889 The Great Seattle Fire destroyed downtown Seattle, Washington.
1892 Chicago El began operation.
1894 Governor Davis H. Waite orders the Colorado state militia to protect and support the miners engaged in the Cripple Creek miners’ strike.
1906 Paris Métro Line 5 was inaugurated with a first section from Place d’Italie to the Gare d’Orléans.
1912 The eruption of Novarupta in Alaska began.
1918 World War I: Battle of Belleau Wood – The U.S. Marine Corps suffered its worst single day’s casualties while attempting to recapture the wood at Chateau-Thierry.
1919 The Republic of Prekmurje ended.
1921 The Southwark Bridge in London, was opened for traffic by King George V and Queen Mary.
1923 V. C. Andrews, American author, was born (d. 1986).
1925 The Chrysler Corporation was founded by Walter Percy Chrysler.
1932 The Revenue Act of 1932 was enacted, creating the first gas tax in the United States, at a rate of 1 cent per US gallon (1/4 ¢/L) sold.
1933 The first drive-in theatre opened, in Camden, New Jersey.
1934 King Albert II of Belgium, was born.
1936 Levi Stubbs, American musician (The Four Tops), was born (d. 2008).
1939 Adolf Hitler gave a public address to returning German volunteers who fought as Legion Kondor during the Spanish Civil War.
1944 Battle of Normandy began. D-Day, code named Operation Overlord, commenced with the landing of 155,000 Allied troops on the beaches of Normandy.
1944 Alaska Airlines commenced operations.
1946 The Basketball Association of America was formed in New York City.
1956 Björn Borg, Swedish tennis player, was born.
1966 James Meredith, civil rights activist, was shot while trying to march across Mississippi.
1968 Senator Robert F. Kennedy died from his wounds after he was shot the previous night.
1971 Soyuz 11 launched.
1971 A midair collision between a Hughes Airwest Douglas DC-9 jetliner and a United States Marine Corps McDonnell Douglas F-4 Phantom II jet fighter near Duarte, California claimed 50 lives.
1971 Vietnam War: The Battle of Long Khanh between Australian and Vietnamese communist forces began.
1974 Sweden became a parliamentary monarchy.
1981 A passenger train travelling between Mansi and Saharsa, India, jumped the tracks at a bridge crossing the Bagmati river.
1983 – Joe Rokocoko, Fijian rugby player and All Black was born.
1984 The Indian Army attacked the Golden Temple in Amritsar following an order from Indira Gandhi.
1985 The grave of “Wolfgang Gerhard” was exhumed in Embu, Brazil; the remains found were later proven to be those of Josef Mengele, Auschwitz’s “Angel of Death”.
1986 – Gin Wigmore, New Zealand singer/songwriter, was born.
1990 U.S. District court judge Jose Gonzales rules that the rap album As Nasty As They Wanna Be by 2 Live Crew violated Florida’s obscenity law; he declared that the predominant subject matter of the record is “directed to the ‘dirty’ thoughts and the loins, not to the intellect and the mind.”
1993 Mongolia held its first direct presidential elections.
2002 A near-Earth asteroid estimated at 10 metres diameter exploded over the Mediterranean Sea between Greece and Libya. The resulting explosion was estimated to have a force of 26 kilotons, slightly more powerful than the Nagasaki atomic bomb.
2004 Tamil was established as a Classical language by the President of India, Dr. A.P.J. Abdul Kalam in a joint sitting of the two houses of the Indian Parliament.
2005 The United States Supreme Court upheld a federal law banning cannabis, including medical marijuana, in Gonzales v. Raich.
Sourced from NZ History Online & Wikipedia.