May 30
At Rouen in English-controlled Normandy, France, Joan of Arc, the peasant girl who became the savior of France, is burned at the stake for heresy. – 1431.
Former U.S. president William Howard Taft dedicates the Lincoln Memorial on the Washington Mall on this day in 1922. At the time, Taft was serving as chief justice of the U.S. Supreme Court. – 1922.
May 31
The famous tower clock known as Big Ben, at the top of the 320-foot-high St. Stephen’s Tower, rings out over the Houses of Parliament in Westminster, London, England. – 1859.
The South Fork Dam collapses and causes a flood in Johnstown, Pa., that kills more than 2,200 residents. The flood appeared as a rolling hill of debris more than 30 feet high and nearly half-a-mile wide. – 1889.
W. Mark Felt’s family ends 30 years of speculation and identifies Felt, the former FBI assistant director, as “Deep Throat,” the secret source who helped unravel the Watergate scandal. – 2005.
June 1
Kentucky becomes the 15th state of the United States. – 1792.
Tennessee becomes the 16th state of the United States. – 1796.
Approximately 12,500 longshoremen strike the Pacific Coast, from San Diego, Calif. to Bellingham, Wash.. – 1916.
A Warsaw Poland underground newspaper, the Liberty Brigade, makes public the news of the gassing of tens of thousands of Jews at Chelmno, a death camp in Poland. – 1942.
A coal mine explosion kills 236 workers at the Yamano mine near Fukuoka, Japan. The tragic disaster might have been avoided if the operators of the mine had taken even the most basic safety precautions. – 1965.
CNN (Cable News Network), the world’s first 24-hour television news network, makes its debut. – 1980.
June 2
Twenty-six journeymen printers in Philadelphia stage the trade’s first strike in America over wages: A cut in their $6. weekly pay. – 1786.
In an event that is generally regarded as marking the end of the U.S. Civil War, Confederate General Edmund Kirby Smith, commander of Confederate forces west of the Mississippi River, signs the surrender terms offered by Union negotiators. With Smith’s surrender, the last Confederate army ceases to exist, to bring a formal end to the bloodiest four years in U.S. history, with 620,000 Union and Confederate soldiers dead. – 1865
Babe Ruth, one of the greatest players in the history of baseball, ends his Major League Baseball 22-year playing career with 10 World Series and 714 home runs. – 1935.
Queen Elizabeth II is formally crowned monarch of the United Kingdom. – 1953.
June 3
One-hundred-twenty miles above the earth, Major Edward H. White II opens the hatch of the Gemini 4 and steps out of the capsule, to become the first American astronaut to walk in space. – 1965.
June 4
The 19th Amendment to the U.S. Constitution to guarantee women the right to vote, is passed by Congress and sent to the states for ratification. – 1919.
Japanese Admiral Chuichi Nagumo, commander of the fleet that attacked Pearl Harbor, Hawaii launches a raid on Midway Island with almost the entirety of the Japanese navy. The attack on Midway was an unmitigated disaster for the Japanese, resulting in the loss of 322 aircraft and the death of 3,500 men. They were forced to withdraw from the area before attempting a landing on the island they sought to conquer. – 1942.
Chinese troops storm through Tiananmen Square in the center of Beijing and kill and arrest thousands of pro-democracy protesters. The brutal Chinese government assault on the protesters shocked the West and brought denunciations and sanctions from the United States. – 1989.
June 5
Senator Robert Kennedy is shot at the Ambassador Hotel in Los Angeles after winning the California presidential primary. Kennedy was shot several times by a 22-year-old Palestinian assassin. Kennedy died a day later. – 1968.
On this day, 3,400 members of the United Auto Workers (UAW) union walk out on their jobs at a General Motors (GM) metal-stamping factory in Flint, Mich. to begin a strike that will last seven weeks and stall production at GM facilities nationwide. – 1998.
Sources: History.com, Toil and Trouble, by Thomas R. Brooks; American Labor Struggles, by Samuel Yellen; IWW calendar, Solidarity Forever; Historical Encyclopedia of American Labor, edited by Robert E. Weir and James P. Hanlan; Southwest Labor History Archives/George Meany Center; Geov Parrish’s Radical History; workday Minnesota; Andy Richards and Adam Wright, AFL-CIO Washington DC Metro Council.
• “Those who cannot remember the past are condemned to repeat it.”
— George Santayana, Philosopher