On July 2, 1776, the Continental Congress un-tabled the Lee Resolution and voted to sever ties with the Kingdom of Great Britain.
One year later, to the day, Vermont became the first American territory to abolish slavery.
On July 1, 1858, a joint reading at the Linnean Society of London of papers by Charles Darwin and Alfred Russel Wallace debuted a new explanation of speciation and biological evolution.
Linnean Society records record that eminent scientists Charles Lyell and Joseph Dalton Hooker “communicated” the papers of the two breakthrough theorists:
Though attended by about 30 prominent intellectuals and scientists of the day, conspicuously not in attendance were either Wallace (who was in the East Indies) or Darwin (whose son Charles Waring Darwin had died two days earlier).
The event proved to be one of the more significant scientific presentations in the history of western civilization.
Charles Julius Guiteau met his death on June 30, 1882, at the end of a rope (as was commonly said at the time), three days shy of a year after shooting newly elected President James A. Garfield.
Guiteau was a member of the “Stalwart” faction of the Republican Party, devoted to the continuation of the kind of job-seeking corruption that Garfield, the reformer, opposed on principle. Despite being on the opposite team, so to speak, Guiteau was an ardent supporter of Garfield in the election campaign, and expected a diplomatic position in return. Failing to gain such a position in the new administration, Guiteau decided upon a sort of mad revenge as the apt response to Garfield’s “betrayal.”
While it took a year to finalize Guiteau’s execution, it took much less time — if itself an excruciatingly long time — for Garfield to die of the wound and the subsequent doctoring, on September 19th, 1881.
On June 29, 1914, the day after the shooting of the Archduke Ferdinand and his wife, Austrian interrogations confirmed — to the satisfaction of Gavril Princip’s interrogators and their government, anyway — that the Serbian state was behind the assassination. Serbia denied involvement.
Thus continued the series of events that led to “The Great War,” now known as “World War I.”
On the 28th of June in 1914, 19-year-old Gavril Princip assassinated Archduke Franz Ferdinand, heir to the Austrian throne, and the Archduke’s wife Sophie. The Archduke had earlier missed a bomb thrown at his car, which necessitated a change in the motorcade route, which the driver forgot, which is why the car paused at the precise intersection in which Princip fired his fatal shots.
The shooting began a series of events that led to “The Great War,” now known as “World War I.”
In 1556 on the 27th of June, the thirteen Stratford Martyrs were burned at the stake near London for their Protestant beliefs.
In 1844, on this date, Joseph Smith, founder of the Latter Day Saint movement, and his brother Hyrum Smith were killed by a mob at the Carthage, Illinois, jail.
Paul von Mauser was born on June 27, 1838, and would go on to become a weapons designer. Other June 27th birthdays include Emma Goldman, born in 1869, to later become known as a feminist, anarchist and early leftist opponent of Soviet Communism; and Helen Keller, born in 1880 — and she, too, was an anarchist “of the left.”
On June 26, 1783, William Herschel presented his calculation of the Solar Apex to the Royal Society, identifying the direction of the Sun’s motion through space for the first time in history.
Scientists today say Herschel was off by 10 degrees, but still got the constellation right: Hercules. The actual direction is towards a spot near the star Vega.
Virginia became the tenth state to ratify the U.S. Constitution, on June 25, 1788.
Other events on the 25th of June include Custer dying at the Battle of Little Bighorn (1876); Igor Stravinsky’s ballet The Firebird debuting (1910), with the composer becoming an instant celebrity; and Civil War veterans arriving at the Great Reunion of 1913 at Gettysburg.
John Cabot landed in North America a Newfoundland on June 24, 1497, leading the first European exploration of the region since the Vikings.
In 1535 on this date, the Anabaptist state of Münster was conquered and disbanded.
June 24 birthdays include Henry Ward Beecher, clergyman and reformer (1813; died 1887); Ambrose Bierce, author of “An Occurrence at Owl Creek Bridge” and The Devil’s Dictionary — his dark, cynical wit earned him the epithet “Bitter Bierce” (1842; disappeared 1914); Richard Timberlake, American free-market economist (1922; died 2020).
Today is Estonia’s Victory Day, which has been celebrated on June 23 every year since 1934. The date recalls the victory in the 1919 Battle of Vonnu of the Estonian military forces (and Latvian North brigade) and their allies over German forces (Baltische Landeswehr) who sought to re-assert Baltic-German control over the region. The battle was part of the 1918-1920 Estonian War of Independence, where the main adversary of the newly independent Estonia was Communist Russia.
Today, Victory Day also marks the contributions of all Estonians in their fight to regain and retain their independence. Estonian celebration of June 23 is ceremonially tied to the following Midsummer Day celebrations on the 24th.
According to Estonian laws, the state flags are not to be lowered during the night between days.