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.
U.S. and British pilots begin delivering food and supplies by airplane to Berlin after the city is isolated by a Soviet Union blockade. – 1948.
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.
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
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.
Four German boats burn at the docks in Hoboken, N.J. and kill more than 300 persons. The fire was so large that it could be seen by nearly every person in the New York City area. – 1900.
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.
The autonomous Dominion of Canada, a confederation of Nova Scotia, New Brunswick, and the future provinces of Ontario and Quebec, is officially recognized by Great Britain with the passage of the British North America Act. – 1867.
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.
July 2
Africans on the Cuban schooner Amistad rise up against their captors, kill two crew members, and seize control of the ship, which had been transporting them to a life of slavery on a sugar plantation in Puerto Principe, Cuba. – 1839.
U.S. president James A. Garfield, who had been in office just less than four months, is shot by an assassin. Garfield lingered for 80 days before dying of complications from the shooting. – 1881.
The Lockheed aircraft carrying American aviator Amelia Earhart and navigator Frederick Noonan is reported missing near Howland Island in the Pacific. The pair was attempting to fly around the world. No trace of Earhart or Noonan ever was found. – 1937.
President Lyndon Johnson signs Title VII of the Civil Rights Act of 1964, which forbids employers and unions from discriminating on the basis of race, color, gender, nationality, or, religion. – 1964.