June 9 - Events

Events

• 411 BC – Coup in Athens succeeds, forming a short-lived oligarchy.
• 53 – Roman Emperor Nero marries Claudia Octavia.
• 68 – Roman Emperor Nero commits suicide, after quoting Homer's Iliad, thus ending the Julio-Claudian Dynasty and starting the civil year known as the Year of the Four Emperors.
• 721 – Odo of Aquitaine defeats the Moors in the Battle of Toulouse.
• 1311 – Duccio's Maestà Altarpiece, a seminal artwork of the early Italian Renaissance, is unveiled and installed in the Siena Cathedral in Siena, Italy.
• 1534 – Jacques Cartier is the first European to discover the Saint Lawrence River.
• 1650 – The Harvard Corporation, the more powerful of the two administrative boards of Harvard, is established. It is the first legal corporation in the Americas.
• 1667 – The Raid on the Medway by the Dutch fleet begins. It lasts for five days and results in a decisive victory by the Dutch over the English in the Second Anglo-Dutch War.
• 1732 – James Oglethorpe is granted a royal charter for the colony of the future U.S. state of Georgia.
• 1762 – British forces begin the Siege of Havana and capture the city during the Seven Years' War.
• 1772 – The British schooner Gaspée is burned off the coast of Rhode Island.
• 1798 – Irish Rebellion of 1798: Battle of Arklow and Battle of Saintfield.
• 1815 – End of the Congress of Vienna: the new European political situation is set.
• 1856 – Five hundred Mormons leave Iowa City, Iowa and head west for Salt Lake City carrying all their possessions in two-wheeled handcarts.
• 1862 – American Civil War: Stonewall Jackson concludes his successful Shenandoah Valley Campaign with a victory in the Battle of Port Republic; his tactics during the campaign are now studied by militaries around the world.
• 1863 – American Civil War: Battle of Brandy Station, Virginia.
• 1873 – Alexandra Palace in London burns down after being open for only 16 days.
• 1885 – A peace treaty is signed to end the Sino-French War, with China eventually giving up Tonkin and Annam - most of present-day Vietnam - to France.
• 1900 – Birsa Munda, an important figure in the Indian independence movement, dies in British prison under mysterious circumstances.
• 1915 – William Jennings Bryan resigns as Woodrow Wilson's Secretary of State over a disagreement regarding the United States' handling of the sinking of the RMS Lusitania.
• 1923 – Bulgaria's military takes over the government in a coup.
• 1924 – In the second attempt to climb Mount Everest, George Mallory and Andrew "Sandy" Irvine disappear, possibly having first made it to the top.
• 1928 – Charles Kingsford Smith completes the first trans-Pacific flight in a Fokker Trimotor monoplane, the Southern Cross.
• 1930 – Chicago Tribune reporter Jake Lingle is killed during rush hour at the Illinois Central train station by Leo Vincent Brothers, allegedly over a 100,000 USD gambling debt owed to Al Capone.
• 1934 – Donald Duck makes his debut in The Wise Little Hen.
• 1944 – World War II: 99 civilians are hung from lampposts and balconies by German troops in Tulle, France, in reprisal for maquisards attacks.
• 1944 – World War II: the Soviet Union invades East Karelia and the previously Finnish part of Karelia, occupied by Finland since 1941.
• 1946 – King Bhumibol Adulyadej ascends to the throne of Thailand. He is currently the world's longest reigning monarch.
• 1948 – Foundation of the International Council on Archives under the auspices of the UNESCO.
• 1953 – Flint-Worcester tornado outbreak sequence: a tornado spawned from the same storm system as the Flint tornado hits in Worcester, Massachusetts killing 94.
• 1954 – McCarthyism: Joseph Welch, special counsel for the United States Army, lashes out at Senator Joseph McCarthy during hearings on whether Communism has infiltrated the Army giving McCarthy the famous rebuke, "You've done enough. Have you no sense of decency, sir, at long last? Have you left no sense of decency?"
• 1958 – Queen Elizabeth II officially opens London Gatwick Airport, (LGW) in Crawley, West Sussex, United Kingdom.
• 1959 – The USS George Washington is launched. It is the first submarine to carry ballistic missiles.
• 1965 – Civilian Prime Minister of South Vietnam Phan Huy Quat resigned after being unable to work with a junta led by Nguyen Cao Ky.
• 1967 – Six-Day War: Israel captures the Golan Heights from Syria
• 1968 – U.S. President Lyndon B. Johnson declares a national day of mourning following the assassination of Senator Robert F. Kennedy.
• 1972 – Severe rainfall causes a dam in the Black Hills of South Dakota to burst, creating a flood that kills 238 people and causes $160 million in damage.
• 1973 – Secretariat wins the Triple Crown.
• 1974 – Portugal and the Soviet Union establish diplomatic relations.
• 1978 – The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints opens its priesthood to "all worthy men", ending a 148-year-old policy excluding black men.
• 1979 – The Ghost Train Fire at Luna Park Sydney (New South Wales, Australia) kills seven.
• 1985 – Thomas Sutherland is kidnapped in Lebanon (he will not be released until 1991).
• 1999 – Kosovo War: the Federal Republic of Yugoslavia and NATO sign a peace treaty.
• 2008 – In the town of Lake Delton, Wisconsin, Lake Delton drains as a result of heavy flooding breaking the dam holding the lake back.