Today:
1497: Cornish rebels Michael An Gof and Thomas Flamank are executed at Tyburn, London, England.
1743: English King George II defeats the French at Dettingen, Bavaria.
1829: James Smithson, founding donor of the Smithsonian Institution, dies in Genoa, Italy, leaving his estate to the United States to found an institution for the increase and diffusion of knowledge.
1844: Joseph Smith, founder of the Latter Day Saint movement, and his brother Hyrum Smith, are killed by a mob at the Carthage, Illinois jail.
1898: Joshua Slocum completes the first solo circumnavigation of the globe, landing his sloop Spray in Newport, Rhode Island, after a 46,000-mile trip.
1922: The American Library Association (ALA) awards the first Newbery Medal, honoring the year’s best children’s book, to “The Story of Mankind” by Hendrik Willem van Loon.
1941: British cryptologists help break the secret code used by the German army to direct its strategic military operations on the Eastern front in the Soviet Union.
1954: The world’s first nuclear power plant is activated at Obninsk, near Moscow, Russia.
1969: The Stonewall Riots begin in New York City, sparking the modern gay rights movement.
1991: Slovenia and Croatia declare their independence from the Socialist Federal Republic of Yugoslavia, marking the beginning of the breakup of Yugoslavia and the subsequent Yugoslav Wars.