June 17

Events Pre-1600 653 – Pope Martin I is arrested and taken to Constantinople, due to his opposition to monothelitism. 656 – After a prolonged siege by rebels who demand his abdication, caliph Uthman is assassinated as the rebels enter his palace. 1128 – Former Empress Matilda, daughter and designated heiress of king Henry I of England, marries Geoffrey Plantagenet, Count of Anjou. 1242 – Following the Disputation of Paris, twenty-four carriage loads of Jewish religious manuscripts are burnt in Paris. 1300 – Turku Cathedral is consecrated by Bishop Magnus I in the city of Turku (). 1397 – The Kalmar Union is formed under the rule of Margaret I of Denmark. 1462 – Vlad the Impaler attempts to assassinate Mehmed II (The Night Attack at Târgovişte), forcing him to retreat from Wallachia. 1497 – Battle of Deptford Bridge: Forces under King Henry VII defeat troops led by Michael An Gof. 1579 – Sir Francis Drake claims a land he calls Nova Albion (modern California) for England. 1596 – The Dutch explorer Willem Barentsz discovers the Arctic archipelago of Spitsbergen.

1601–1900 1631 – Mumtaz Mahal dies during childbirth. Her husband, Mughal emperor Shah Jahan I, will spend the next 17 years building her mausoleum, the Taj Mahal. 1665 – Battle of Montes Claros: Portugal definitively secures independence from Spain in the last battle of the Portuguese Restoration War. 1673 – French explorers Jacques Marquette and Louis Jolliet reach the Mississippi River and become the first Europeans to make a detailed account of its course. 1767 – Samuel Wallis, a British sea captain, sights Tahiti and is considered the first European to reach the island. 1773 – Cúcuta, Colombia, is founded by Juana Rangel de Cuéllar. 1775 – American Revolutionary War: Colonists inflict heavy casualties on British forces while losing the Battle of Bunker Hill. 1789 – In France, the Third Estate declares itself the National Assembly. 1794 – Foundation of Anglo-Corsican Kingdom. 1795 – The burghers of Swellendam expel the Dutch East India Company magistrate and declare a republic. 1831 – The steam locomotive Best Friend of Charleston causes the first boiler explosion caused by a steam locomotive.Rivanna Chapter, National Railway Historical Society (2005), This Month in Railroad History - June . Retrieved December 14, 2025. 1839 – In the Kingdom of Hawaii, Kamehameha III issues the edict of toleration which gives Roman Catholics the freedom to worship in the Hawaiian Islands. The Hawaii Catholic Church and the Cathedral of Our Lady of Peace are established as a result. 1843 – The Wairau Affray, the first serious clash of arms between Māori and British settlers in the New Zealand Wars, takes place. 1861 – American Civil War: Battle of Vienna, Virginia. 1863 – American Civil War: Battle of Aldie in the Gettysburg campaign. 1876 – American Indian Wars: Battle of the Rosebud: One thousand five hundred Sioux and Cheyenne led by Crazy Horse beat back General George Crook's forces at Rosebud Creek in Montana Territory. 1877 – American Indian Wars: Battle of White Bird Canyon: The Nez Perce defeat the U.S. Cavalry at White Bird Canyon in the Idaho Territory. 1885 – The Statue of Liberty arrives in New York Harbor. 1898 – The United States Navy Hospital Corps is established. 1900 – Boxer Rebellion: Western Allied and Japanese forces capture the Taku Forts in Tianjin, China.

1901–present 1901 – The College Board introduces its first standardized test, the forerunner to the SAT. 1910 – Aurel Vlaicu pilots an A. Vlaicu nr. 1 on its first flight. 1922 – Portuguese naval aviators Gago Coutinho and Sacadura Cabral complete the first aerial crossing of the South Atlantic. 1929 – The town of Murchison, New Zealand is rocked by a 7.8 magnitude earthquake killing 17. At the time it was New Zealand's worst natural disaster. 1930 – U.S. president Herbert Hoover signs the Smoot–Hawley Tariff Act into law. 1932 – Bonus Army: Around a thousand World War I veterans amass at the United States Capitol as the U.S. Senate considers a bill that would give them certain benefits. 1933 – Union Station massacre: In Kansas City, Missouri, four FBI agents and captured fugitive Frank Nash are gunned down by gangsters attempting to free Nash. 1939 – Last public guillotining in France: Eugen Weidmann, a convicted murderer, is executed in Versailles outside the Saint-Pierre prison. 1940 – World War II: is attacked and sunk by the Luftwaffe near Saint-Nazaire, France. At least 3,000 are killed in Britain's worst maritime disaster. 1940 – World War II: The British Army's 11th Hussars assault and take Fort Capuzzo in Libya from Italian forces. 1940 – The three Baltic states of Estonia, Latvia and Lithuania fall under the occupation of the Soviet Union. 1944 – Iceland declares independence from Denmark and becomes a republic. 1948 – United Air Lines Flight 624, a Douglas DC-6, crashes near Mount Carmel, Pennsylvania, killing all 43 people on board. 1952 – Guatemala passes Decree 900, ordering the redistribution of uncultivated land. 1953 – Cold War: East Germany Workers Uprising: In East Germany, the Soviet Union orders a division of troops into East Berlin to quell a rebellion. 1958 – The Ironworkers Memorial Second Narrows Crossing, in the process of being built to connect Vancouver and North Vancouver (Canada), collapses into the Burrard Inlet killing 18 ironworkers and injuring others. 1960 – The Nez Perce tribe is awarded $4 million for of land undervalued at four cents/acre in the 1863 treaty. 1963 – The United States Supreme Court rules 8–1 in Abington School District v. Schempp against requiring the reciting of Bible verses and the Lord's Prayer in public schools. 1963 – A day after South Vietnamese president Ngo Dinh Diem announced the Joint Communiqué to end the Buddhist crisis, a riot involving around 2,000 people breaks out. One person is killed. 1967 – Nuclear weapons testing: China announces a successful test of its first thermonuclear weapon. 1971 – U.S. president Richard Nixon in a televised press conference calls drug abuse "America's public enemy number one", starting the war on drugs. 1972 – Watergate scandal: Five White House operatives are arrested for burgling the offices of the Democratic National Committee during an attempt by members of the administration of President Richard M. Nixon to illegally wiretap the political opposition as part of a broader campaign to subvert the democratic process.; ; 1985 – Space Shuttle program: STS-51-G mission: Space Shuttle Discovery launches carrying Sultan bin Salman bin Abdulaziz Al Saud, the first Arab and first Muslim in space, as a payload specialist. 1987 – With the death of the last individual of the species, the dusky seaside sparrow becomes extinct. 1989 – Interflug Flight 102 crashes during a rejected takeoff from Berlin Schönefeld Airport, killing 21 people. 1991 – Apartheid: The South African Parliament repeals the Population Registration Act which required racial classification of all South Africans at birth. 1992 – A "joint understanding" agreement on arms reduction is signed by U.S. president George Bush and Russian president Boris Yeltsin (this would be later codified in START II). 1994 – Following a televised low-speed highway chase, O. J. Simpson is arrested for the murders of his ex-wife, Nicole Brown Simpson, and her friend Ronald Goldman. 2015 – Nine people are killed in a mass shooting at Emanuel African Methodist Episcopal Church in Charleston, South Carolina. 2017 – A series of wildfires in central Portugal kill at least 64 people and injure 204 others. 2021 – Juneteenth National Independence Day is signed into law by President Joe Biden, to become the first federal holiday established since Martin Luther King Jr. Day in 1983.

Births Pre-1600 801 – Drogo of Metz, Frankish bishop (died 855) 1239 – Edward I, English king (died 1307) 1530 – François de Montmorency, French nobleman (died 1579) 1571 – Thomas Mun, English writer on economics (died 1641)

1601–1900 1603 – Joseph of Cupertino, Italian mystic and saint (died 1663) 1604 – John Maurice, Dutch nobleman (died 1679) 1610 – Birgitte Thott, Danish scholar, writer and translator (born 1662) 1631 – Gauharara Begum, Mughal princess (died 1706) 1682 – Charles XII, Swedish king (died 1718) 1691 – Giovanni Paolo Panini, Italian painter and architect (died 1765) 1693 – Johann Georg Walch, German theologian and author (died 1775) 1704 – John Kay, English engineer, invented the Flying shuttle (died 1780) 1714 – César-François Cassini de Thury, French astronomer and cartographer (died 1784) 1718 – George Howard, English field marshal and politician, Governor of Minorca (died 1796) 1778 – Gregory Blaxland, English-Australian explorer (died 1853) 1800 – William Parsons, 3rd Earl of Rosse, English-Irish astronomer and politician (died 1867) 1808 – Henrik Wergeland, Norwegian poet, playwright, and linguist (died 1845) 1810 – Ferdinand Freiligrath, German poet and translator (died 1876) 1811 – Jón Sigurðsson, Icelandic scholar and politician (died 1879) 1818 – Charles Gounod, French composer and academic (died 1893) 1818 – Sophie of Württemberg, queen of the Netherlands (died 1877) 1821 – E. G. Squier, American archaeologist and journalist (died 1888) 1832 – William Crookes, English chemist and physicist (died 1919) 1833 – Manuel González Flores, Mexican general and president (died 1893) 1858 – Eben Sumner Draper, American businessman and politician, 44th Governor of Massachusetts (died 1914) 1861 – Pete Browning, American baseball player (died 1905) 1861 – Omar Bundy, American general (died 1940) 1863 – Charles Michael, duke of Mecklenburg (died 1934) 1865 – Susan La Flesche Picotte, Native American physician (died 1915) 1867 – Flora Finch, English-American actress (died 1940) 1867 – John Robert Gregg, Irish-born American educator, publisher, and humanitarian (died 1948) 1867 – Henry Lawson, Australian poet and author (died 1922) 1871 – James Weldon Johnson, American author, journalist, and activist (died 1938) 1876 – William Carr, American rower (died 1942) 1876 – Edward Anthony Spitzka, American anatomist and author (died 1922) 1880 – Carl Van Vechten, American author and photographer (died 1964) 1881 – Tommy Burns, Canadian boxer and promoter (died 1955) 1882 – Adolphus Frederick VI, Grand Duke of Mecklenburg-Strelitz (died 1918) 1882 – Igor Stravinsky, Russian pianist, composer, and conductor (died 1971) 1888 – Heinz Guderian, German general (died 1954) 1897 – Maria Izilda de Castro Ribeiro, Brazilian girl, popular saint (died 1911) 1898 – M. C. Escher, Dutch illustrator (died 1972) 1898 – Carl Hermann, German physicist and academic (died 1961) 1898 – Joe McKelvey, Executed Irish republican (died 1922)McDermott, Jim, (2001), Northern Divisions The Old IRA and the Belfast Pogroms 1920-22, BTP Publications, Belfast, pg 278, ISBN 1-900960-11-7 1898 – Harry Patch, English soldier and firefighter (died 2009) 1900 – Martin Bormann, German politician (died 1945) 1900 – Evelyn Irons, Scottish journalist and war correspondent (died 2000)

1901–present 1902 – Sammy Fain, American pianist and composer (died 1989) 1902 – Alec Hurwood, Australian cricketer (died 1982) 1903 – Ruth Graves Wakefield, American chef, created the chocolate chip cookie (died 1977) 1904 – Ralph Bellamy, American actor (died 1991) 1904 – J. Vernon McGee, American pastor and theologian (died 1988) 1904 – Patrice Tardif, Canadian farmer and politician (died 1989) 1907 – Maurice Cloche, French director, producer, and screenwriter (died 1990) 1909 – Elmer L. Andersen, American businessman and politician, 30th Governor of Minnesota (died 2004) 1909 – Ralph E. Winters, Canadian-American film editor (died 2004) 1910 – Red Foley, American singer-songwriter and guitarist (died 1968) 1910 – George Hees, Canadian football player and politician (died 1996) 1914 – John Hersey, American journalist and author (died 1993)