Today in History ...

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338 BC – A Macedonian army led by Philip II defeated the combined forces of Athens and Thebes in the Battle of Chaeronea, securing Macedonian hegemony in Greece and the Aegean. 216 BC – Second Punic War: Battle of Cannae: The Carthaginian army led by Hannibal defeats a numerically superior Roman army under command of consuls Lucius Aemilius Paullus and Gaius Terentius Varro. 461 – Majorian is arrested near Tortona (Northern Italy) and deposed by the Suebian general Ricimer as puppet emperor. 1274 – Edward I of England returns from the Ninth Crusade and is crowned King seventeen days later. 1343 – Olivier de Clisson is found guilty of treason and beheaded at Les Halles in Paris. As a result, his wife, Jeanne de Clisson, sold their holding, bought a fleet of ships, and took to the sea as a pirate to seek revenge against King Philip VI of France and the nobility. 1377 – Russian troops are defeated in the Battle on Pyana River. 1610 – Henry Hudson sails into what is now known as Hudson Bay thinking he had made it through the Northwest Passage and reached the Pacific Ocean. 1776 – The signing of the United States Declaration of Independence took place. 1790 – The first United States Census is conducted. 1798 – French Revolutionary Wars: The Battle of the Nile concludes in a British victory. 1830 – Charles X of France abdicates the throne in favor of his grandson Henri. 1869 – Japan's samurai, farmer, artisan, merchant class system (Shinōkōshō) is abolished as part of the Meiji Restoration reforms. (Traditional Japanese date: June 25, 1869). 1870 – Tower Subway, the world's first underground tube railway, opens in London, England, United Kingdom. 1873 – The Clay Street Hill Railroad begins operating the first cable car in San Francisco's famous cable car system. 1897 – Anglo-Afghan War: The Siege of Malakand ends when a relief column is able to reach the British garrison in the Malakand states adjacent to India's North West Frontier Province. 1903 – Fall of the Ottoman Empire: An unsuccessful uprising led by the Internal Macedonian Revolutionary Organization against Ottoman Turkey, also known as the Ilinden–Preobrazhenie Uprising, takes place. 1916 – World War I: Austrian sabotage causes the sinking of the Italian battleship Leonardo da Vinci in Taranto. 1918 – Japan announces that it is deploying troops to Siberia in the aftermath of World War I. 1918 – The first general strike in Canadian history takes place in Vancouver. 1922 – A typhoon hits Shantou, Republic of China killing more than 50,000 people. 1923 – Vice President Calvin Coolidge becomes U.S. President upon the death of President Warren G. Harding. 1932 – The positron (antiparticle of the electron) is discovered by Carl D. Anderson. 1934 – Gleichschaltung: Adolf Hitler becomes Führer of Germany following the death of President Paul von Hindenburg. 1937 – The Marihuana Tax Act of 1937 is passed in America, the effect of which is to render marijuana and all its by-products illegal. 1939 – Albert Einstein and Leo Szilard write a letter to Franklin D. Roosevelt, urging him to begin the Manhattan Project to develop a nuclear weapon. 1943 – Jewish prisoners stage a revolt at Treblinka, one of the deadliest of Nazi death camps where approximately 900,000 persons were murdered in less than 18 months. 1943 – World War II: The Motor Torpedo Boat PT-109 is rammed by the Japanese destroyer Amagiri and sinks. Lt. John F. Kennedy, future U.S. President, saves all but two of his crew. 1944 – ASNOM: Birth of the Socialist Republic of Macedonia, celebrated as Day of the Republic in the Republic of Macedonia. 1944 – World War II: The largest trade convoy of the world wars arrives safely in the Western Approaches. 1945 – World War II: End of the Potsdam Conference. 1947 – A British South American Airways Avro Lancastrian airliner crashes into a mountain during a flight from Buenos Aires, Argentina to Santiago, Chile. The wreckage would not be found until 1998. 1964 – Vietnam War: Gulf of Tonkin incident: North Vietnamese gunboats allegedly fire on the U.S. destroyer USS Maddox. 1968 – An earthquake hits Casiguran, Aurora, Philippines killing more than 270 people and wounding 261. 1973 – A flash fire kills 51 at the Summerland amusement centre at Douglas, Isle of Man. 1980 – A bomb explodes at the railway station in Bologna, Italy, killing 85 people and wounding more than 200. 1985 – Delta Air Lines Flight 191, a Lockheed L-1011 TriStar, crashes at Dallas/Fort Worth International Airport killing 137. 1989 – Pakistan is re-admitted to the Commonwealth of Nations after having restored democracy for the first time since 1972. 1989 – A massacre is carried out by an Indian Peace Keeping Force in Sri Lanka killing 64 ethnic Tamil civilians. 1990 – Iraq invades Kuwait, eventually leading to the Gulf War. 1998 – The Second Congo War begins. 2005 – Air France Flight 358, lands at Toronto Pearson International Airport, and runs off the runway causing the plane to burst into flames leaving 12 injuries and no fatalities. 2014 – At least 146 people were killed and more than 114 injured in an explosion at a factory near Shanghai.