Today in History: Friday, June 30

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350 – Roman usurper Nepotianus, of the Constantinian dynasty, is defeated and killed in Rome by troops of the usurper Magnentius. 763 – The Byzantine army of emperor Constantine V defeats the Bulgarian forces in the Battle of Anchialus. 1422 – Battle of Arbedo between the duke of Milan and the Swiss cantons. 1520 – Spanish conquistadors led by Hernán Cortés fight their way out of Tenochtitlan. 1521 – Spanish forces defeat a combined French and Navarrese army at the Battle of Noáin during the Spanish conquest of Iberian Navarre. 1559 – King Henry II of France is mortally wounded in a jousting match against Gabriel, comte de Montgomery. 1651 – The Deluge: Khmelnytsky Uprising: The Battle of Berestechko ends with a Polish victory. 1688 – The Immortal Seven issue the Invitation to William (continuing the English rebellion from Rome), which would culminate in the Glorious Revolution. 1758 – Seven Years' War: The Battle of Domstadtl takes place. 1794 – Native American forces under Blue Jacket attack Fort Recovery. 1805 – The U.S. Congress organizes the Michigan Territory. 1859 – French acrobat Charles Blondin crosses Niagara Falls on a tightrope. 1860 – The 1860 Oxford evolution debate at the Oxford University Museum of Natural History takes place. 1864 – U.S. President Abraham Lincoln grants Yosemite Valley to California for "public use, resort and recreation". 1882 – Charles J. Guiteau is hanged in Washington, D.C. for the assassination of U.S. President James Garfield. 1886 – The first transcontinental train trip across Canada departs from Montreal. It arrives in Port Moody, British Columbia on July 4. 1892 – The Homestead Strike begins near Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania. 1905 – Albert Einstein sends the article On the Electrodynamics of Moving Bodies, in which he introduces special relativity, for publication in Annalen der Physik. 1906 – The United States Congress passes the Meat Inspection Act and Pure Food and Drug Act. 1921 – U.S. President Warren G. Harding appoints former President William Howard Taft Chief Justice of the United States. 1922 – In Washington D.C., U.S. Secretary of State Charles Evans Hughes and Dominican Ambassador Francisco J. Peynado sign the Hughes–Peynado agreement, which ends the United States occupation of the Dominican Republic. 1934 – The Night of the Long Knives, Adolf Hitler's violent purge of his political rivals in Germany, takes place. 1936 – Emperor Haile Selassie of Abyssinia appeals for aid to the League of Nations against Italy's invasion of his country. 1937 – The world's first emergency telephone number, 999, is introduced in London 1944 – World War II: The Battle of Cherbourg ends with the fall of the strategically valuable port to American forces. 1953 – The first Chevrolet Corvette rolls off the assembly line in Flint, Michigan. 1956 – A TWA Super Constellation and a United Airlines DC-7 collide above the Grand Canyon in Arizona and crash, killing all 128 on board both airliners. 1959 – A United States Air Force F-100 Super Sabre from Kadena Air Base, Okinawa, crashes into a nearby elementary school, killing 11 students plus six residents from the local neighborhood. 1960 – Congo gains independence from Belgium. 1963 – Ciaculli bombing: a car bomb, intended for Mafia boss Salvatore Greco, kills seven police officers and military personnel near Palermo. 1966 – The National Organization for Women, the United States' largest feminist organization, is founded. 1968 – Pope Paul VI issues the Credo of the People of God. 1971 – The crew of the Soviet Soyuz 11 spacecraft are killed when their air supply escapes through a faulty valve. 1972 – The first leap second is added to the UTC time system. 1974 – The Baltimore municipal strike of 1974 begins. 1977 – The Southeast Asia Treaty Organization disbands. 1985 – Thirty-nine American hostages from the hijacked TWA Flight 847 are freed in Beirut after being held for 17 days. 1986 – The U.S. Supreme Court rules in Bowers v. Hardwick that states can outlaw homosexual acts between consenting adults. 1990 – East Germany and West Germany merge their economies. 1997 – The United Kingdom transfers sovereignty over Hong Kong to the People's Republic of China. 2013 – Nineteen firefighters die controlling a wildfire in Yarnell, Arizona. 2015 – A Hercules C-130 military aircraft with 113 people on board crashes in a residential area in Medan, Indonesia, resulting in at least 116 deaths.