The U.S. Supreme Court ruled (5-4) that it was unconstitutional for any state to require, without providing other options, for a minor to notify both parents before obtaining an abortion.
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What Happened in June?
Deaths, raids, and battles. Examine landmark historical events that took place in June. Dates for earlier events may be approximate.
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1991, June, last Saturday
Day of Hungarian Freedom. Celebrates the restoration of Hungary's sovereignty after the withdrawal of Soviet troops in June 1991
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On June 12, 1991, Boris Yeltsin becomes the first democratically elected President of Russia, which still was part of the Soviet Union. He remained as President as Russia transitioned to an independent state. He resigned on December 31, 1999 at 12 am Moscow time. His resignation was announced on the main TV channels before the New Year's celebrations.
Following his resignation, Vladimir Putin became the acting president and later won the presidential election in March 2000, securing a four-year term.
The Republics of Croatia and Slovenia declared their independence from Yugoslavia. Ethnic rivalries between Serbians and Croatians quickly erupted. About 200,000 went missing and presumed dead and over two million people became refugees.
The High Court of Australia's issues a decision, on June 3, 1992, in the Mabo case (Mabo v Queensland (No 2). It was a landmark judgment that recognized the land rights of Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander peoples.
The case, brought by Eddie Koiki Mabo and others, established the existence of Native Title and challenged the legal fiction of terra nullius (land belonging to no one) at the time of British settlement. The following year the Parliament of Australia passed the Native Title Act 1993 to create a system for Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander peoples to make a native title claim over their lands. On January 21, 1992, nearly ten years after beginning their legal claim in the High Court of Australia, Eddie Koiki Mabo passed away from cancer at age fifty-six. More
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.
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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 on June 2, 1997, 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
The European Central Bank is established, on June 1, 1998, 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.
The 47-memberUN Human Rights Council holds its first session in Geneva, on June 15, 2006, replacing the highly criticized United Nations Commission on Human Rights. The council was charged with the mission to strengthen the promotion and protection of fundamental freedoms worldwide, with a more robust and specialized mandate. More
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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
Miksu, CC BY-SA 3.0 , via Wikimedia Commons
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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.
In the mid-1900s, they were in danger of extinction throughout most of their range. Bald eagles are still protected under the Migratory Bird Treaty Act and the Bald and Golden Eagle Protection Act. Both laws prohibit killing, selling, or otherwise harming eagles, their nests or eggs. More
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 on June 11, 2009. The first such incident in over forty years and 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.
Originally arrested on December 11, 2008, he pleaded guilty in March 2009 to 11 federal felonies, including securities fraud and money laundering. He died in prison in 2021.
Approximately, over $15 billion was recovered from Bernie Madoff's Ponzi scheme, with the SIPA Trustee recovering about $14.8 billion and the Justice Department distributing over $4.3 billion to victims, allowing them to recoup nearly 94% of their losses, thanks to extensive legal actions and settlements.