In Music Fund Hall in Philadelphia, the first national convention of the Republican Party, founded two years before, comes to its conclusion. John Charles Fremont of California, the famous explorer of the West, was nominated for the presidency, and William Lewis Dayton of New Jersey was chosen as the candidate for the vice presidency. In […]

In what is now known as Juneteenth, on June 19, 1865, Union soldiers arrive in Galveston, Texas with news that the Civil War is over and slavery in the United States is abolished.

Attempting to convince local Native Americans to make peace with the United States, the Jesuit missionary Pierre-Jean De Smet meets with the Sioux leader Sitting Bull in present-day Montana. A native of Belgium, De Smet came to the United States in 1821 at the age of 20. He became a novice of the Jesuit order in […]

On June 19, 1892, Francesca Rojas’ two young children—a six-year-old boy and a four-year-old girl—are stabbed to death in their home in the small town of Necochea, Argentina. Rojas tells police that a man named Velasquez had threatened her when she rejected his sexual advances earlier in the day. Upon returning home later, Rojas claimed […]

On June 19, 1944, the U.S. begins a two-day attack that decimates Japan’s aircraft carrier force—and shifts the balance of naval air power in World War II‘s Pacific theater. The Battle of the Philippine Sea, an epic carrier duel that came to be known as the “Marianas Turkey Shoot,” would incur only a minimum of […]

On June 19, 1968, a long-term anti-poverty demonstration known as Resurrection City reaches its high-water mark. On “Solidarity Day,” over 50,000 people flock to the Lincoln Memorial in Washington, D.C. to protest, sing, hear speeches and demonstrate on behalf of national legislation to address the plight of the American poor. “Today is really only the […]

Chinese American Vincent Chin, 27, is beaten in the head with a baseball bat by two white autoworkers in Detroit on June 19, 1982. Chin died in a hospital four days later, on June 23.  During his bachelor party at a club on the night of June 19, Chin and three friends were singled out by Ronald […]

On June 19, 2006, on the remote island of Spitsbergen halfway between mainland Norway and the North Pole, the prime ministers of Norway, Sweden, Finland, Denmark and Iceland lay the ceremonial first stone of the Global Seed Vault. The vault, which now has the capacity to hold 2.25 billion seeds, is intended to “provide insurance […]

When the clock struck midnight on June 19, 2014, King Juan Carlos I of Spain’s nearly 40-year reign came to an end. Two weeks after abdicating the Spanish throne amidst sagging approval ratings, Juan Carlos symbolically removed his red sash—signifying his status as leader of the Spanish military—and wrapped it around the waist of his […]