7 Major Historical Events That Happened in June
For those who live in the Northern Hemisphere, there’s something about the culmination of ever-warming weather, the full ripening of foliage, and the seemingly endless daylight hours that makes June a magical time of year. And while many of us harbor fond recollections of beachfront jaunts or backyard games that took place as spring swept into summer, June also comes with a collective well of memories that transpired within its 30-day span.
Here are seven historical events from Junes of both recent vintage and centuries past. From crucial battles to transformative treaties and political scandals, each has stood the test of time as a major checkpoint of the shared human experience.
June 15, 1215: King John Affixes His Seal to the Magna Carta
King John’s ascent to the English throne in 1199 seemingly brought nothing but trouble for the monarch, who subsequently lost control of several French territories, was excommunicated by Pope Innocent III, and faced an uprising from powerful barons who chafed at high taxes. Seeking to at least pacify the barons, John agreed to a series of terms that provided specific limits on the king’s power over matters of land ownership, debts, and the election of church officials, signing the agreement on June 15, 1215.
Although peace between the two sides was short-lived, the charter was revised and reissued multiple times over the years, and the 1225 version of what is now known as the Magna Carta is recognized as the definitive issue. And while it was never intended to define the course of human rights beyond the immediate feudal concerns, the document did exactly that with its clauses that guaranteed basic liberties and justice for citizens, words that later influenced the United States Declaration of Independence and Constitution.
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June 18, 1815: Napoleon Loses the Battle of Waterloo
Making a triumphant return from exile in March 1815, Napoleon Bonaparte embarked on what became his Hundred Days campaign to reestablish dominance over mainland Europe. His renewed military ambitions commenced in Belgium, where a split French army separately engaged forces under Prussian Field Marshal Gebhard von Blücher and England’s Duke of Wellington on June 16.
Two days later, Napoleon advanced on the duke’s men stationed outside the village of Waterloo, Belgium. However, the combination of superior defensive positioning and questionable tactical decisions by the attackers enabled the opposing force to hold steady until Prussian reinforcements arrived. By nightfall, not even Napoleon’s feared French Imperial Guard could stem the losing tide. Napoleon is said to have fled from the battlefield in tears, and he soon followed with his abdication and surrender to the British, resulting in another exile — this one permanent.
June 19, 1865: Federal Troops Enforce Emancipation in Texas, Inspiring Juneteenth
Although General Robert E. Lee’s surrender on April 9, 1865, is generally considered the end of the American Civil War, many Confederate-controlled areas continued resisting the inevitable defeat and lifestyle changes as long as possible. As such, emancipation of enslaved people was not actually enforced in Texas until June 19 that year, when Major General Gordon Granger and a federal force descended on Galveston with an order declaring an end to the institution of slavery once and for all.
Although many enslavers delayed relaying the news to their enslaved workers, or refused to comply until forced, members of Texas’ newly freed community marked the first commemoration of the date the following year. The regional celebrations gradually spread as Black people in the South established new roots throughout the country, although it was more than a century before Texas became the first of the 50 states to make Juneteenth a holiday in 1979, and it took another four decades from there for the day to become a federal holiday in 2021.
June 3, 1937: The Duke of Windsor Marries Wallis Simpson
When King George V died in January 1936, his eldest son followed long-standing tradition in the United Kingdom by assuming the crown as Edward VIII. However, Edward was romantically involved with American socialite Wallis Simpson, who had divorced her first husband and was still married to her second, and the new king refused to end their relationship despite warnings that the Church of England and Parliament would never accept her as queen.
Edward subsequently — to the shock of the nation — abdicated the throne on December 10, passing the kingdom to his younger brother George VI. The following day, he famously announced over the airwaves, “I have found it impossible to carry on the heavy burden of responsibility and to discharge the duties of king, as I would wish to do, without the help and support of the woman I love.” Simpson and Edward cemented their controversial union with a wedding at France’s Chateau de Cande on June 3, 1937, and they remained largely out of the limelight as George VI, followed by his daughter, Elizabeth II, carried on the royal line.
June 6, 1944: D-Day Commences on the Beaches of Normandy
Following a brief postponement due to bad weather, the Allied armies of World War II embarked on their long-planned crossing of the English Channel with the largest amphibious assault in history on June 6, 1944. The opening round of Operation Overlord, remembered simply as D-Day, brought more than 130,000 troops across 7,000 ships and landing craft to five beaches along the coastline of Normandy, France.
Despite a deception campaign designed to point German defenses toward other landing spots, resistance proved fierce at the section dubbed Omaha Beach, where U.S. forces faced a torrent of machine-gun fire raining down from steep cliffs. But Omaha and the other four beaches — Utah, Gold, Juno, and Sword — were secure by the end of the day, providing a base for some 850,000 troops to reach Normandy by the end of June, and generating the crucial momentum needed to help bring the war to a close within a year’s time.
June 17, 1972: The Arrest of Five Burglars at DNC Headquarters Ignites the Watergate Scandal
In the early morning hours of June 17, 1972, a security guard at the Watergate complex in Washington, D.C., summoned police to apprehend five men who were poking around the Democratic National Committee headquarters. Thus commenced perhaps the most consequential political scandal in U.S. history, which culminated with the imprisonment of several White House staffers and the resignation of President Richard Nixon.
The Nixon campaign’s links to the break-in were uncovered by Washington Post reporters Bob Woodward and Carl Bernstein (with an able assist from their insider informant, “Deep Throat”), and the dominoes began to fall with the convening of a Senate committee and appointment of a special prosecutor to probe the links in the spring of 1973. Despite Nixon’s repeated denials, it was his own words that provided the “smoking gun” for investigators by way of taped conversations in the Oval Office. After the Supreme Court rejected Nixon’s attempts to withhold all the tapes, and the House Judiciary Committee passed three articles of impeachment, the embattled president acknowledged the writing on the wall and announced he was stepping down on August 8, 1974.
June 18, 1983: Sally Ride Becomes the First American Woman in Space
Shortly before earning her doctorate in physics from Stanford University in 1978, Sally Ride came across a newspaper advertisement seeking recruits for NASA’s astronaut program; she soon became one of six women and 35 overall candidates accepted from a pool of 8,000 applicants, setting her on course for a historic space flight. The big moment came on June 18, 1983, when Ride blasted off with four crew members aboard the space shuttle Challenger to become the first American woman in space.
Following the successful six-day mission, which involved the use of the shuttle’s robot arm to deploy and retrieve a satellite, Ride returned to orbit the following October. She was even named to a crew for a third mission, before being diverted to an investigation team in the wake of the tragic Challenger explosion in January 1986. Ride went on to serve as a physics professor and director of the University of California’s Space Institute, before launching the Sally Ride Science outreach program for students. While she wasn’t the first woman to lift off from Earth — two Soviet cosmonauts, Valentina Tereshkova and Svetlana Savitskaya, preceded her — Ride’s journey nevertheless stands as a seminal moment in the American space program and an inspiration to those who dare to reach for the stars.
