George Junius Stinney, Jr., black-skinned, was executed for the alleged murder of two white girls, whose bodies were found in a ditch. By all accounts, there were few real reasons to accuse George Junius Stinney of that crime. On June 16, 1944, 14-ye...
After the war, the Americans took SS-Sturmbannführer Baron Wernher von Braun and his team and moved them to the United States, to work on the American missile program. In fact, the Americans took a large amount of parts for V-2 missiles from Europe a...
Hitchcock filmed it at minimal cost, in black and white. The premiere of the famous psychological thriller Psycho, directed by Alfred Hitchcock, took place on June 16, 1960. The main roles were played by Anthony Perkins and Janet Leigh, and the film...
On June 16, 1846, Pope Peter IX was elected, the beginning of the longest pontificate in modern history. Namely, Pius IX. he was pope for as long as 31 years, 7 months and 23 days, which is considerably longer than any other pope for whom the exact l...
On the side of the York dynasty, German and Swiss mercenaries fought. On June 16, 1487, the last great battle of the War of the Roses period was held in England. It was the Battle of Stoke, a small town in the English county of Nottinghamshire, not f...
On this day the first woman in history, Valentina Tereshkova of Russian nationality, was launched into space. The Soviets selected her among more than 400 candidates, for which the imposed requirements were that they are younger than 30 years of age,...
On this day in the year 1779 the Great Siege of Gibraltar, a strategic promontory on the southern coast of the Iberian Peninsula, began. This invasion took place during the American War of Independence, after France and Spain decided to support the A...
On this day Cossack leader Stenka Razin was executed. Razin led a very unusual life, during which he led a number of gangs that plundered even across distant Persia (Iran). Razin belonged to the so-called Don Cossacks, used as a specific military for...
On this day in 2012, the first Chinese woman, Liu Yang, was launched into space. She was a part of the Shenzhou 9 crew, the fourth Chinese manned spacecraft flight. It is particularly interesting that the mission was launched on 49th anniversary of t...
This day IBM celebrates as the day of its inception. Back in 1911, the famous American entrepreneur Charles Ranlett Flint created a new company by successfully merging several previous computer companies that had been manufacturing tabulators, employ...
Washington's rank was marked by three general stars. On June 15, 1775, George Washington became Commander-in-Chief of the U.S. Army. He was previously a colonel in the army of Virginia (one of the 13 colonies that wanted to fight for independence fro...
In July 1967, he published the graphic masterpiece Ballad of the Salt Sea. One of the most famous cartoonists, the creator of the legendary character Corto Maltese, Hugo Pratt was born on June 15, 1927 in the Italian town of Rimini. Real name Ugo Eug...
Ever since it became a state, Arkansas has been a border state to the American West. On June 15, 1836, Arkansas became a U.S. federal state, the 25th in a row to be admitted to the United States. Many famous Americans have been born or lived in Arkan...
Antonescu made a career as a professional military officer and then became a politician. On June 15, 1882, Ion Antonescu was born, a Romanian marshal and conductor (a title similar to the German Führer). Antonescu is one of only three marshals procla...
Interestingly, Xi Jinping is married to popular singer Peng Liyuan. She used to be much better known in China than him, until he rose to the very top of the Chinese party and state leadership. On June 15, 1953, current Chinese leader Xi Jinping was b...
In 1495, fifteen-year-old Lisa married Francesco di Bartolomeo di Zanobia del Gioconda, a silk and textile merchant. On June 15, 1479, Lisa Gherardini was born, an Italian noblewoman believed to have been the model for the famous painting of the Mona...
Ebbe Schwartz from Denmark was elected the first president. The Union of European Football Associations (UEFA), as the supreme body of European football, was founded on 15 June 1954. The founding took place in Basel, Switzerland, with Ebbe Schwartz o...
On this day in 1978, the reigning King Hussein of Jordan married former United States citizen Lisa Najeeb Halaby. She thus became the Queen of Jordan and took the new name – Noor Al-Hussein (Nur Al-Hussein) – which means “Light of Hussein”. The weddi...
On this day in 1667, the first thoroughly documented blood transfusion was performed. It was administered by the French physician Jean-Baptiste Denys, the famed physician of King Louis XIV (the Sun King). The transfusion which Denys performed was no...
On this day, according to legend, the oldest national flag in the world that is still in use was created. It is the Danish flag with a white cross on a red field. The Danes call it “Dannebrog”, which means “Danish cloth”. On this day in 1219 the Dane...
On this day in 1888, the famous Emperor Wilhelm II from the Hohenzollern dynasty assumed the German imperial throne. The whole series of events was quite unusual because his father and predecessor reigned for only 99 days before he died. So his grand...
On this day in 1775, George Washington became the supreme commander of the U.S. Army. He had previously served as a colonel in the army of Virginia (one of the 13 colonies that wished to fight for independence from Great Britain). George Washington w...
On this day two pilots took off from Canada towards Ireland on the first continuous flight across the Atlantic Ocean. The British aviators in question were John Alcock and Arthur Whitten Brown, and they were piloting a World War I-era Vickers Vimy bo...
The U.S. Army was established on this day in 1775. Namely, the American Continental Congress (the predecessor of today's Congress) established the army in order to fight against the British. The Army also included the existing volunteers units, and a...
The earliest preserved written document in which the city of Munich is mentioned was dated on this day in 1158. Specifically, at that time the powerful Duke of Bavaria and Saxony, Henry the Lion, built a bridge over the river Isar next to a place whe...
On this day, German troops occupied Paris. It was a great triumph for the Wehrmacht (the German Army), but also for Adolf Hitler personally because his occupied a metropolis for the first time. Army Group B (German: Heeresgruppe B), under the suprem...
On this day in 2002, an asteroid came very close to the Earth, which was a quite dangerous situation. The asteroid, which weighed 540,000 tons, missed the Earth by only 120,000 kilometers. Previously, another asteroid, the 10-meter 1994 XM1, had come...
On this day in 1983, the first man-made object left the Solar System. It was the Pioneer 10 space probe, launched back in 1972 (11 years earlier). It left the Solar System when it crossed the orbit of Neptune on this day (at that time, Neptune was th...
On this day in 1955, the first diamond-bearing deposits were discovered in Russia. This discovery was made by geologists Yuri Khabardin, Ekaterina Elagina, and Viktor Avdeenko, who discovered traces of kimberlite in that area. Specifically, kimberlit...
On this day the founder of Protestantism, Martin Luther, married Katharina von Bora, a former nun. She was 26 years old, and he was 41. She entered the monastery at the age of 5. When she was 24, she became dissatisfied with the monastic life and sou...
