What Happened in June?

President Clinton orders missile attack against Iraq in retaliation for alleged plot to assassinate former President Bush.

After 49 years, the Soviet military occupation of East Germany ended. At one time there had been 337,800 Soviet troops stationed in Germany. Over 300,000 Russians died during World War II in the Battle for Berlin.

Two days after launch, U.S. Space shuttle Atlantis, docks at Mir’s Kristall module as the two spacecraft flew 250 miles above the Lake Baikal region of eastern Russia, forming the world’s heaviest spacecraft up to that time – nearly half a million pounds. More

A tanker truck loaded with 25,000 pounds of explosives bomb is detonated near the Khobar Tower housing complex in Dhahran during the night, Saudi Arabia, killing 19 Airmen and injuring more than 400 U.S. and international military members and civilians. The towers housed coalition forces supporting Operation Southern Watch, a no-fly zone operation in Southern Iraq. More

Timothy McVeigh was convicted of the 1995 Oklahoma City bombing, one of the deadliest acts of terrorism in American history. He was executed on June 11, 2001 for his crimes. More

In Hong Kong, the flag of the British Crown Colony was officially lowered at midnight June 30 and the People's Republic of China and the Hong Kong SAR Flag are raised representing China's sovereignty and the official transfer of power after 156 years of British colonial rule. More

The European Central Bank is established, leading to the introduction of the euro currency. The first President of the Bank was Wim Duisenberg, the former president of the Dutch central bank and the European Monetary Institute.

Timothy McVeigh, responsible for the 1995 Oklahoma City bombing, is executed by lethal injection. More

The Mars Spirit Rover is launched, beginning NASA's Mars Exploration Rover mission. Spirit, landed on Mars on January 4, 2004. Its twin, rover Opportunity, launched on July 7, 2003 lands on Mars 21 days after Spirit on January 24, 2004. Spirit remained active until March 22, 2010. NASA was not able to regain contact with Spirit and officially concluded its recovery efforts May 25, 2011.

The U.S. returns sovereignty to an interim government in Iraq, but maintains roughly 135,000 troops in the country to fight a growing insurgency.

Montenegro's parliament declares the Republic's independence, severing 88 years of union with Serbia. Montenegro officially became the 192nd member of the United Nations on June 28, 2006.

Construction of the Svalbard Global Seed Vault begins. The vault is intended to safeguard the seeds of the world’s food plants in the event of a global crisis. The secure facility is built into the side of a mountain on Spitsbergen, the largest of the Svalbard islands, a Norwegian archipelago in the Arctic Ocean. The vault was formally open with its first consignment of seeds on February 26, 2008. More

The Bald Eagle is removed from the list of threatened species, making it an Endangered Species Act success story. Bald eagles had been decimated by habitat destruction and degradation, as well as by illegal shooting and contamination of their food source by the insecticide known as DDT.  Expand +

Apple Inc starts selling its first mobile “smartphone,” the iPhone, a device that went on to revolutionize the industry.

The World Health Organization (WHO) declares H1N1 swine flu to be a global pandemic, the first such incident in over forty years. The swine flu pandemic was the third recent flu pandemic involving the H1N1 virus; the first being the 1918 –1920 Spanish flu pandemic and the second being the 1977 Russian flu. There were 491,382 lab-confirmed) cases Some studies estimated that the number of cases including asymptomatic and mild cases was about 700 million to 1.4 billion people. ( 11 to 21 percent of the global population of 6.8 billion at the time. Lab confirmed deaths were 18,449 with estimated excess deaths of 284,000 - More

Bernard Madoff, American hedge-fund investment manager is sentenced to up to 150 years in prison for operating the largest Ponzi scheme in history worth an estimated $65 billion.  Expand +

Liu Yang. a Chinese military transport pilot becomes the first Chinese woman in space when she and two other crew members were launched aboard the spacecraft Shenzhou 9.

Edward Snowden, a former CIA employee, reveals thousands of classified NSA documents to journalists Glenn Greenwald, Laura Poitras, Barton Gellman, and Ewen MacAskill. Snowden came to international attention after stories based on the material appeared in The Guardian, The Washington Post, and other publications. Later in June, Edward Snowden, comes forward and admits that he is the source of the recent NSA leaks. On September 2, 2020, a U.S. federal court ruled in United States v. Moalin that the U.S. intelligence's mass surveillance program exposed by Snowden was illegal and possibly unconstitutional. More

Former NSA contractor Edward Snowden reveals his identity to The Guardian and is publicly identified as the source of leaked classified documents, exposing mass surveillance programs. More

The U.S. Supreme Court legalizes same-sex marriage nationwide. More