913 – Emperor Alexander III dies of exhaustion while playing the game tzykanion (Byzantine name for polo). He is succeeded by his 8-year-old nephew Constantine VII.
1749 – The Conspiracy of the Slaves in Malta is discovered.
1762 – Seven Years’ War: British forces begin a siege of Havana, Cuba, and temporarily capture the city in the Battle of Havana.
1822 – Alexis St. Martin is accidentally shot in the stomach, leading to William Beaumont’s studies on digestion.
1844 – The Young Men’s Christian Association (YMCA) is founded in London.
1844 – The Glaciarium, the world’s first mechanically frozen ice rink, opens.
1882 – More than 100,000 inhabitants of Bombay are killed when a cyclone in the Arabian Sea pushes huge waves into the harbour.
1889 – The Great Seattle Fire destroys all of downtown Seattle.
1892 – The Chicago “L” commuter rail system begins operation
1894 – Governor Davis H. Waite orders the Colorado state militia to protect and support the miners engaged in the Cripple Creek miners’ strike.
1912 – The eruption of Novarupta in Alaska begins. It is the second largest volcanic eruption of the 20th century.
1932 – The Revenue Act of 1932 is enacted, creating the first gas tax in the United States, at a rate of 1 cent per US gallon sold.
1933 – The first drive-in theater opens in Camden, New Jersey, United States.
1934 – New Deal: The U.S. President Franklin D. Roosevelt signs
the Securities Act of 1933 into law, establishing the U.S. Securities and Exchange Commission.
1939 – Judge Joseph Force Crater, known as the “Missingest Man in New York”, is declared legally dead.
1944 – World War II: The Battle of Normandy begins. D-Day, code named Operation Overlord, commences with the landing of 155,000 Allied troops on the beaches of Normandy in France. The allied soldiers quickly break through the Atlantic Wall and push inland in the largest amphibious military operation in history.
1946 – The Basketball Association of America, the precursor to the modern National Basketball Association, is founded in New York City.
1968 – Assassination of Robert F. Kennedy: Robert F. Kennedy, Democratic Party senator from New York and brother of 35th President John F. Kennedy, dies from gunshot wounds inflicted on June 5.
1971 – A midair collision between a Hughes Airwest Douglas DC-9 jetliner and a United States Marine Corps McDonnell Douglas F-4 Phantom II jet fighter near Duarte, California, claims 50 lives.
1981 – Bihar train disaster: A passenger train travelling between Mansi and Saharsa, India, jumps the tracks at a bridge crossing the Bagmati River. The government places the official death toll at 268 plus another 300 missing; however, it is generally believed that the death toll is closer to 1,000.
1982 – The Lebanon War begins. Forces under Israeli Defense Minister Ariel Sharon invade southern Lebanon during Operation Peace for the Galilee, eventually reaching as far north as the capital Beirut.
1993 – Mongolia holds its first direct presidential elections.
2002 – Eastern Mediterranean event. A near-Earth asteroid estimated at ten meters in diameter explodes over the Mediterranean Sea between Greece and Libya. The resulting explosion is estimated to have a force of 26 kilotons, slightly more powerful than the Nagasaki atomic bomb.
2005 – In Gonzales v. Raich, the United States Supreme Court upholds a federal law banning cannabis, including medical marijuana.
2016 – Major news outlets report Hillary Clinton as having become the presumptive nominee for US president, the first female in a major party to do so in the country’s 240-year history.
Births
1599 – Diego Velázquez, Spanish painter (d. 1660)
1755 – Nathan Hale, American Revolutionary War patriot (d. 1776)
1901 – Sukarno, first President of Indonesia (1945-67), (d. 1970)
Deaths
1941 – Louis Chevrolet, American automotive pioneer (b. 1878)
1944 – Danny Brotheridge, British lieutenant, first to die during D-Day landing WWII
1968 – Robert F. Kennedy, assassinated (b. 1925)
Edited from various sources including historyorb.com, the NYTimes.com
Wikipedia and other internet searches