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HISTORIC JUNE

The following historic events happened in June

 

1 June.	1946	Television licences were issued in Britain for the first time; they cost £2.
2 June.	1953	On a cold and wet day in London, the Coronation of Queen Elizabeth II took place in Westminster Abbey.
3 June.	1162	Thomas à Becket was consecrated as Archbishop of Canterbury.
4 June.	1039	Gruffydd ap Llewellyn, Welsh King of Gwynedd and Powys, defeated an English attack.
5 June.	755	English missionary Boniface, 'the Apostle of Germany', is murdered in Germany by unbelievers, along with 53 of his companions.
6 June.	1944	D-Day invasion of Normandy by 1 million Allied troops to liberate Western Europe from German occupation.
7 June.	1329	Scotland mourns the death of King Robert I. Better known as Robert de Bruce, he earned a place in Scottish history for his legendary victory over the English at Bannockburn in 1314.
8 June.	1042	Harthcanute, King of England and Denmark, died drunk; he was succeeded in England by his adopted heir, Edward the Confessor, and in Denmark by Magnus, King of Norway.
9 June.	1870	The nation's best loved author Charles Dickens died of a stroke at his home in Gad's Hill Place, Kent. His sudden death is being blamed upon his punishing work schedule, including tours of England and the USA.
10 June.	1829	The Oxford team won the first-ever Oxford and Cambridge University Boat Race. Two eight-men crews raced each other along the River Thames in a contest of rowing power nicknamed simply "The Boat Race".
11 June.	1509	In a private ceremony in Greenwich, the 18 year old English King Henry VIII married his former sister-in-law Catherine of Aragon, his first wife.
12 June.	1667	The Dutch fleet under Admiral de Ruyter burned Sheerness, sailed up the River Medway, raided Chatham dockyard, and escaped with the royal barge, the Royal Charles; the cheeky monkey!
13 June.	1944	The first VI flying bomb, or "doodle bug" was dropped on London.
14 June.	1645	In the English Civil War, Oliver Cromwell defeated the Royalists at the Battle of Naseby, Northamptonshire.
15 June.	1215	King John and his barons met on the banks of the River Thames at Runnymede and sign the Magna Carta, thus removing total authority from the monarchy forever.
16 June.	1779	Spain declared war on Britain (after France had offered to assist in the recovery of Gibraltar and Florida), and the siege of Gibraltar began.
17 June.	1579	Francis Drake drops anchor off the south-west coast of America and proclaims England's sovereignty over New Albion (California).
18 June.	1815	British and Prussian forces led by the Duke of Wellington and Gebhard von Blücher defeated Napoleon at the Battle of Waterloo, in Belgium.
19 June.	1917	In the midst of WW1 the British royal family renounced German names (Saxe-Coburg-Gotha) and titles, and adopted the name of Windsor.
20 June.	1756	In India, over 140 British subjects were imprisoned in a cell measuring only 5.4m by 4.2m ('the Black Hole of Calcutta'); only 23 came out alive.
21 June.	1675	Construction work starts on Sir Christopher Wren's St. Paul's Cathedral in London.
22 June.	1814	The Marylebone Cricket Club and Hertfordshire play the first match at England's Lord's Cricket Ground.
23 June.	1683	William Penn, the English Quaker, signed a treaty with chiefs of the Lenni Lenade Tribe in an attempt to ensure peace in his new American colony.
24 June.	1277	English King Edward I began his first campaign against the Welsh following Llewelyn ap Gruffydd ap Llewelyn's  refusal to pay him homage.
25 June.	1797	Admiral Horatio Nelson is wounded in the arm in a battle with the French and the limb is amputated. This follows the loss of his sight in his right eye some three years earlier.
26 June.	1483	Richard, Duke of Gloucester, began to rule England as Richard III, having deposed his nephew, Edward V. Edward and his brother, Richard, Duke of York, were imprisoned in the Tower of London and later murdered.
27 June.	1944	After 21 days of bloody fighting through the Normandy countryside, Allied forces took Cherbourg.
28 June.	1838	Since early morning crowds had gathered along the route through London that Queen Victoria would take for her coronation in Westminster Abbey.
29 June.	1613	London's Globe Theatre was destroyed by flames as a cannon is fired to announce the king's entrance in Shakespeare's Henry V.
30 June.	1894	Tower Bridge in London was officially opened by H.R.H. The Prince of Wales. After the ceremony the bascules were raised to allow a flotilla of ships and boats to sail down the Thames.