| 1155 | German-born Frederick I, Barbarossa, is crowned emperor of Rome. | |
| 1667 | The Dutch fleet sails up the Thames River and threatens London. | |
| 1778 | British troops evacuate Philadelphia. | |
| 1812 | The War of 1812 begins when the United States declares war against Great Britain. | |
| 1815 | At the Battle of Waterloo, Napoleon Bonaparte is defeated by an international army under the Duke of Wellington. | |
| 1863 | After repeated acts of insubordination, General Ulysses S. Grant relieves General John McClernand during the Siege of Vicksburg. | |
| 1864 | At Petersburg, Union General Ulysses S. Grant realizes the town can no longer be taken by assault and settles into a siege. | |
| 1873 | Susan B. Anthony is fined $100 for attempting to vote for president. | |
| 1918 | Allied forces on the Western Front begin their largest counterattack yet against the German army. | |
| 1928 | Amelia Earhart becomes the first woman to cross the Atlantic by airplane. | |
| 1936 | Mobster Charles ‘Lucky’ Luciano is found guilty on 62 counts of compulsory prostitution. | |
| 1942 | The U.S. Navy commissions its first black officer, Harvard University medical student Bernard Whitfield Robinson. | |
| 1944 | The U.S. First Army breaks through the German lines on the Cotentin Peninsula and cuts off the German-held port of Cherbourg. | |
| 1945 | Organized Japanese resistance ends on the island of Mindanao. | |
| 1951 | General Vo Nguyen Giap ends his Red River Campaign against the French in Indochina. | |
| 1953 | South Korean President Syngman Rhee releases Korean non-repatriate POWs against the will of the United Nations. | |
| 1959 | A Federal Court annuls the Arkansas law allowing school closings to prevent integration. | |
| 1966 | Samuel Nabrit becomes the first African American to serve on the Atomic Energy Commission. | |
| 1979 | President Jimmy Carter and Leonid Brezhnev sign the Salt II pact to limit nuclear arms. | |
| 1983 | Sally Ride becomes the first American woman in space. |
