What Happened in June?

Chief Seattle (Si’ahl) passes away (1780-1866), thirteen years after the city was named for him. He was buried in the Suquamish Tribal Cemetery, not far from Seattle. The name “Seattle” is an Anglicization of Si'ahl. Chief Seattle's mother Sholeetsa, was Duwamish and his father Shweabe was chief of the the Suquamish Tribe. It is said that Si’ahl was born at his mother's Duwamish village of Stukw on the Black River, in what is now the city of Kent. More

The House passes the Joint Resolution proposing the 14th Amendment to the Constitution and submits it to the states. On July 28, 1868, the 14th amendment was declared in a certificate of the Secretary of State, ratified by the necessary 28 of the 37 States, and became part of the supreme law of the land. More

Maximilian was executed on a hill outside Querétaro, bringing an end to France's short lived Mexican empire. Maximilian I, was an Austrian archduke who became emperor of the Second Mexican Empire. His tenure as emperor was just three years from 10 April 1864 until his execution by the Mexican Republic. More

The Shogunate in Japan is abolished, marking the beginning of the Meiji Restoration.

Michael III ruling Prince of Serbia (Mihailo Obrenović) is assassinated, affecting the plans of the Balkan League for a coordinated rebellion against the Ottomans and destroying the league.

American inventor Christopher Latham Sholes, along with Carlos Glidden and Samuel Soule, were granted the patent number 79,265 for their "Improvement in Type-Writing Machines". The Type-Writer also introduced the QWERTY layout, which is still used on almost all US keyboards today. The Sholes Glidden Type-Writer was manufactured by E. Remington and Sons starting in 1873. Its adoption by large corporations kickstarted the typewriter industry and contributed to the speedup of American work life. More

Pioneering feminist, Susan B. Anthony, was fined for voting in a presidential election at Rochester, New York. More

In an effort to gain public attention about train travel, a train named the Transcontinental Express traveling via the first transcontinental railroad arrives in San Francisco 83 hours and 39 minutes after it left New York City showcasing the speed and efficiency of the first transcontinental railroad. Only ten years before, the same journey would have taken months over land or weeks on ship. The feat was reported widely in U.S. newspapers. More

The Battle of the Little Bighorn, known to the Lakota and other Plains Indians as the Battle of the Greasy Grass, takes place in southern Montana. The battle was fought along the ridges and steep bluffs of the Little Bighorn River, in south-central Montana, between warriors of the Lakota Sioux, Northern Cheyenne, and Arapaho tribes, led by Sitting Bull, battling the 7th Regiment of the US Cavalry, led by Lt. Col. George Armstrong Custer along with their Crow, and Arikara scouts. More

Henry Flipper, at age 21, becomes the first African American graduate of the United States Military Academy at West Point. Born into slavery, Henry O. Flipper fought his way through prejudice and isolation to become the first commissioned Black officer in the U.S. Army. More

The disassembled Statue of Liberty arrives in New York aboard the French steamer Isere . The statue, a gift from the people of France, was designed by French sculptor Frédéric Auguste Bartholdi and its metal framework was built by Gustave Eiffel. The statue was dedicated more than a year later on October 28, 1886 and has became known around the world as an enduring symbol of freedom and democracy. More

U.S. President Grover Cleveland age 49, marries Frances Folsom, age 21,i n the White House. Folsom became the youngest first lady in American history. Cleveland remains the only U.S. president to be married in a room of the White House. The wedding was highly publicized, though only close associates of the bride and groom were permitted to attend the ceremony. A reception was held as a public event one week later. More

The Great Seattle Fire, the most destructive fire in the history of Seattle, destroyed the entire central business district of Seattle, Washington and part of the Water Front. The fire was accidentally started by an overheated glue pot in a carpentry shop, lasted less than a day, burning through the afternoon and into the night. Seattle quickly reacted, wooden buildings were banned and rebuilt using brick buildings that sat 20 feet (6.1 m) above the original street level. Its population swelled during reconstruction, becoming the largest city in the newly admitted state of Washington. More

Mahatma Gandhi 's first act of civil disobedience took place in South Africa when he went there to work for an Indian company after studying to become a lawyer in England. When railroad officials made Gandhi sit in a third-class coach even though he had purchased a first-class ticket, Gandhi refused and police forced him off the train. This event changed his life. More

The first Ferris wheel (invented by George Washington Gale Ferris, Jr., a Pittsburgh-based engineer) made its debut, at the World's Columbian Exposition in Chicago. More

Guglielmo Marconi, Italian engineer and inventor, applies for a patent in the United Kingdom. The patent 12039, titled "Improvements in Transmitting Electrical impulses and Signals, and in Apparatus therefor" became the first patent for a communication system based on radio waves.  Expand +

Henry Ford, the founder of Ford Motor Company takes his first car for a spin on the city of Detroit. More

The Meiji Great Sanriku Tsunami hits the pacific coast of the north-eastern Japan, called as the Sanriku Region. The highest tsunami run-up height was 125 feet (38 m) at Ryori Shirahama in Iwate Prefecture. The death toll was 22,000. The economic damage amounted to about 10% of the then national budget. After this tsunami, several villages were relocated to higher ground. More

The Chinese government leases Hong Kong's New Territories to the United Kingdom for 99 years. The lease was signed as part of the Convention for the Extension of Hong Kong Territory, granting Britain control over the mainland area north of Kowloon and numerous islands, which now make up the majority of Hong Kong, including the Island of Hong Kong which had been under British control since 1841. The new 99 year lease was a consequence of China's weakened position after the First Sino-Japanese War. The lease expired in 1997, when Hong Kong was returned to China under the principle of "one country, two systems".

 The Philippines declares its independence from Spain after being a Spanish colony since 1565. Later that year, the Treaty of Paris ended the Spanish-American War and Spain ceded the Philippines to the US, the islands were occupied by U.S. forces. and the Philippines became an American colony until after World War II. The Philippines officially attained complete Independence from the U.S on July 4, 1946, Which is celebrated in the Philippines as Republic Day. More