On This Day: 1 June

Roman Emperor Didius Julianus (Marcus Didius Salvius Julianus) is murdered by a soldier in the Imperial palace, after 66 days in power (during the Year of the Five Emperors)		193
Brother John Cor, a Tironensian monk based at Lindores Abbey in Fife, is named as the producer in the first known written reference to Scotch whisky		1495
Anne Boleyn is crowned Queen of England, four months after her formal marriage to Henry VIII and nine days after newly appointed Archbishop of Canterbury Thomas Cranmer declared his marriage to Catherine of Aragon null and void		1533
Archbishop Whitgift and Richard Bancroft, Bishop of London, order the burning of a collection of books including titles by Marlowe and Thomas Nash		1599
Charles II of England and Louis XIV of France sign the Secret Treaty of Dover, which will force England into the Third Anglo–Dutch War		1670
Act of Settlement, barring Roman Catholics from succession to the British throne, passed		1701
Benedict Arnold, a general in the Continental Army during the American War of Independence, is court–martialled for malfeasance		1779
The French fleet is defeated at the Battle of the Glorious First of June, in the Atlantic Ocean – the first and largest fleet action of the naval conflict between the Great Britain and the First French Republic during the French Revolutionary Wars		1794
US frigate Chesapeake is captured by HMS Shannon, in a brief but intense action costing over 80 lives		1813
Napoleon Bonaparte swears fidelity to the French constitution		1815
Sir James Clark Ross becomes the first European to reach the North magnetic pole		1831
Prince Otto of Bavaria becomes King of Greece		1835
Mehmet Ali becomes Viceroy of Egypt		1841
Pharmaceutical Society of Great Britain founded		1841
Les Fleurs du Mal, an influential volume of poetry by the French poet Charles Baudelaire, is first published		1857
Union forces overcome the Confederates at the Battle of Fair Oaks		1862
The first Pullman train runs, from St. Pancras to Bedford		1874
Louis Napoleon, Prince Imperial of France – the last dynastic Bonaparte – is killed in the Zulu Wars		1879
The world's first public telephone opens in New Haven, Connecticut		1880
The US Census Bureau begins using Herman Hollerith's tabulating machine to count census returns		1890
Captain Scott sails for Antarctica from the East India Dock, London		1910
Georges Carpentier knocks out Bombardier Billy Wells in the European Heavyweight Boxing Championship		1913
The first Zeppelin air raid takes place over Britain		1915
Battle of Jutland ends		1916
The Royal Ulster Constabulary is founded as a successor to the Royal Irish Constabulary		1922
Driving tests introduced in Britain		1935
Superman first appeared – DC Comics		1938
The German Focke–Wulf Fw 190 fighter aircraft makes its first flight		1939
The submarine HMS Thetis sinks in Liverpool Bay; 99 lives lost. (She was later salvaged, repaired and recommissioned, and saw over three years' service as HMS Thunderbolt before being sunk by the Italian navy in 1943)		1939
Evacuation of Crete by British forces completed, leaving the island to be overrun by German forces		1941
BOAC Flight 777 is shot down over the Bay of Biscay by German Junkers Ju 88s, killing British actor Leslie Howard and leading to speculation that the intended victim was Winston Churchill		1943
Ion Antonescu, dictator of Romania, executed for war crimes		1946
TV licences go on sale in the UK (combined with a radio licence), priced £2		1946
Premium bonds first drawn		1957
President Rene Coty asks General Charles de Gaulle to form a new government, 12 years after he relinquished power, as divisions over the war in Algeria threaten to bring civil war to France		1958
Adolf Eichmann, former Nazi SS–Obersturmbannführer ('Senior Assault Unit Leader') and one of the major organizers of the Holocaust, is hanged in Israel		1962
Kenya becomes a republic, with Jomo Kenyatta as its first President		1964
Bob Dylan is booed at the Royal Albert Hall after going electric		1966
Prime Minister Harold Wilson is hit in the face with an egg thrown by a Young Conservative demonstrator, outside the Wealdstone Labour Hall in north–west London, over the cancellation of the South African Springboks cricket tour		1970
Elvis Presley's birthplace – a two–room shack in Tupelo, Mississippi – opens to the public		1971
Iraq Petroleum company nationalised		1972
George Papadopoulos becomes Greece's first President, after the abolition of the monarchy		1973
Terrorist Andreas Baader is captured in Frankfurt		1973
The Heimlich manoeuvre, for the prevention of choking, is published in the journal Emergency Medicine		1974
Rhodesia takes the name Zimbabwe, as 90 years of minority white rule come to an end		1979
Cable News Network (CNN) begins broadcasting		1980
300 people are arrested in the 'Battle of the Beanfield' at Stonehenge, after English Heritage bans midsummer festivals on the site		1985
The European Central Bank is founded in Brussels		1988
George H. W. Bush and Mikhail Gorbachev sign a treaty to end chemical weapon production		1990
IRA gunmen kill a soldier on Lichfield station		1990
Eleven people, including four children, die when Serb forces shell a football match in the Sarajevo suburb of Dobrinja, on one of the most important festivals in the Muslim calendar		1993
South Africa rejoins the Commonwealth after an absence of 33 years		1994
Socialists, Communists and Greens, under Lionel Jospin, win the French general election		1997
Crown Prince Dipendra of Nepal shoots and kills several members of his family, including his father King Birendra and his mother Queen Aishwarya; he then shoots himself, and dies later in hospital		2001
A Hamas suicide bomber kills 21 at the Dolphinarium discotheque in Tel Aviv		2001
Oklahoma City bombing co–conspirator Terry Nichols is sentenced to 161 consecutive life terms, without the possibility of parole – breaking a Guinness World Record		2004
Dutch voters follow the French by rejecting the European constitution – by a majority of 62% to 38%		2005
An Air France Airbus A330 crashes into the Atlantic off the coast of Brazil, on a flight from Rio de Janeiro to Paris; all 228 passengers and crew are lost; the official enquiry attributes the crash (Air France's worst, and the worst involving the A330) to the crew's incorrect reactions to technical difficulties caused by ice crystals in the pitot tubes		2009
General Motors files for Chapter 11 bankruptcy – the fourth largest bankruptcy in US history		2009
The Space Shuttle Endeavour completes its 25^th and last flight		2011
A Three Gorges cruise ship capsizes on the Yangtze river, after reportedly being hit by a tornado; of 454 people on board, only 12 survive		2015
Anthony Joshua loses the WBA (Super), IBF, WBO and IBO heavyweight titles in a shock defeat to the US–born Mexican Andy Ruiz Jr at Madison Square Garden, New York		2019

You are here:

On This Day: 1 June