EVENTS:
- 1631 – Mumtaz Mahal dies during childbirth. Her husband, Mughal emperor Shah Jahan I, will spend the next 17 years building her mausoleum, the Taj Mahal.
- 1673 – French explorers Jacques Marquette and Louis Jolliet reach the Mississippi River and become the first Europeans to make a detailed account of its course.
- 1885 – The Statue of Liberty arrives in New York Harbor.
- 1944 – Iceland declares independence from Denmark and becomes a republic.
- 1948 – A Douglas DC-6 carrying United Airlines Flight 624 crashes near Mount Carmel, Pennsylvania, killing all 43 people on board.
- 1958 – The wooden roller coaster at Playland, which is in the Pacific National Exhibition, Vancouver, British Columbia, Canada opens. It is still open today.
- 1967 – The People’s Republic of China announces a successful test of its first thermonuclear weapon.
- 1985 – STS-51-G Space Shuttle Discovery launches carrying Sultan bin Salman bin Abdulaziz Al Saud, the first Arab and first Muslim in space, as a Payload Specialist.
- 2015 – Nine people are killed in a mass shooting at Emanuel African Methodist Episcopal Church in Charleston, South Carolina.
- 2017 – A series of wildfires in central Portugal kill at least 64 people and injure 204 others.
- 2021 – Juneteenth National Independence Day, was signed into law by President Joe Biden, to become the first federal holiday established since Martin Luther King Jr. Day in 1983.
BIRTHS:
- 1902 – Alec Hurwood, Australian cricketer (d. 1982)
- 1920 – François Jacob, French biologist, Nobel Prize laureate (d. 2013)
- 1923 – Elroy Hirsch, American football player (d. 2004)
- 1930 – Brian Statham, English cricketer (d. 2000)
- 1940 – George Akerlof, American economist, Nobel Prize laureate
- 1942 – Mohamed ElBaradei, Egyptian politician, Vice President of Egypt, Nobel Prize laureate
- 1973 – Leander Paes, Indian tennis player
- 1981 – Shane Watson, Australian cricketer
- 1985 – Rafael Sóbis, Brazilian footballer
- 1989 – Ben Coker, English footballer
- 1990 – Jordan Henderson, English footballer
- 1992 – Ryan Allsop, English footballer
HOLIDAYS and OBSERVANCES:
