June 25
Native American forces, led by Chiefs Crazy Horse and Sitting Bull, defeat the U.S. Army troops of Lieutenant Colonel George Armstrong Custer in a bloody battle near southern Montana’s Little Bighorn River. – 1876.
Fair Labor Standards Act passes Congress which bans child labor and sets the 40-hour work week. – 1938.
Armed forces from communist North Korea smash into South Korea, to set off the Korean War. The United States, acting under the auspices of the United Nations, quickly springs to the defense of South Korea and fight a bloody and frustrating war for the next three years. – 1950.
June 26
During World War I, the first 14,000 U.S. infantry troops land in France at the port of Saint Nazaire. The landing site had been kept secret because of the menace of German submarines, but by the time the Americans had lined up to take their first salute on French soil, an enthusiastic crowd had gathered to welcome them. – 1917.
The U.S. Congress approves the Federal Highway Act, which allocates more than $30 Billion for the construction of 41,000 miles of interstate highways; it was the largest public construction project in U.S. history to that date. – 1956.
June 27
The Germans set up two-way radio communication in a newly-occupied French territory and employ their most sophisticated coding machine, Enigma. – 1940.
U.S. president Harry S Truman announces that he is ordering U.S. air and naval forces to South Korea to aid the democratic nation in repulsing an invasion by communist North Korea. – 1950.
A 26-day strike of New York City hotels by 26,000 workers, the first such walkout in 50 years, ends with a five-year contract calling for big wage and benefit gains – 1985.
June 28
Archduke Franz Ferdinand of Austria and his wife, Sophie, are shot to death by a Bosnian Serb nationalist during an official visit to the Bosnian capital of Sarajevo. The killings sparked a chain of events that led to the outbreak of World War I by early August. June 28, 1919, five years to the day after Franz Ferdinand’s death, Germany and the Allied Powers sign the Treaty of Versailles, to officially mark the end of World War I. There were more than 16 Million deaths and 20 Million wounded during the Great War. – 1914.
June 29
In Furman v. Georgia, the U.S. Supreme Court rules by a vote of 5-4 that capital punishment, as it is employed on the state and federal level, is unconstitutional. The majority held that, in violation of the Eighth Amendment to the Constitution, the death penalty qualified as “cruel and unusual punishment.” – 1972.
The U.S. space shuttle Atlantis docks with the Russian space station Mir to form the largest man-made satellite ever to orbit the Earth. This historic moment of cooperation between former rival space programs was the 100th human space mission in U.S. history. – 1995.
June 30
Jean-Francois Gravelet, a Frenchman known professionally as Emile Blondin, becomes the first daredevil to walk across Niagara Falls on a tightrope. Wearing pink tights and a yellow tunic, Blondin crosses on a cable about two inches in diameter and 1,100-feet long with only a balancing pole. – 1859.
Just three days after the United Nations Security Council voted to provide military assistance to South Korea, president Harry S Truman orders U.S. armed forces to assist in defending that nation from invading North Korean armies. Truman’s dramatic step marked the official entry of the United States into the Korean War. – 1950.
July 1
The largest military conflict in North American history begins when Union and Confederate forces collide at Gettysburg, Pa.. The epic battle lasts three days with casualties from both sides totaling approximately 51,000 soldiers. The battle results in a retreat to Virginia by Robert E. Lee’s Army of northern Virginia. – 1863.
Homestead, Pa. is the site of a steel strike. Seven strikers and three Pinkertons are killed. Andrew Carnegie hires armed thugs to protect strikebreakers. – 1892.
At midnight, Hong Kong reverts back to Chinese rule in a ceremony attended by British prime minister Tony Blair, Prince Charles of Wales, Chinese president Jiang Zemin, and U.S. secretary of state Madeleine Albright. – 1997.