On This Day in History - "General News"

[Boatbuilder]

2024

June 5th:  Four Slovaks and Ukrainians are killed and more than 20 others are injured when a passenger train collides with a freight train in Pardubice, Czech Republic.

[Dave]

1982

June 8th: Up to fifty British servicemen were killed in an Argentine air attack on two supply ships in the Falklands. Sir Galahad and Sir Tristram were anchored at Bluff Cove when they were hit by missiles in a surprise raid by five Argentine Skyhawks.

[Boatbuilder]

1667

June 9th:  Second Anglo-Dutch War: The Raid on the Medway by the Dutch fleet begins. It lasts for five days and results in the worst ever defeat of the Royal Navy.

[Dave]

1977

June 10th: James Earl Ray, the convicted assassin of the Rev. Dr. Martin Luther King Jr., broke out of the Brushy Mountain state prison with five other convicts tonight and fled into the mountains of northeast Tennessee.

[Boatbuilder]

1987

June 11th:  Conservative Prime Minister Margaret Thatcher has been celebrating her third general election win after beating Labour by 376 to 229 seats.

The victory makes her the first prime minister for more than 160 years to win three successive terms of office.

[Dave]

1964

June 12th: The leader of the anti-apartheid struggle in South Africa, Nelson Mandela, has been jailed for life for sabotage. Seven other defendants, including the former secretary-general of the banned African National Congress (ANC), Walter Sisulu, were also given life prison sentences.

[Boatbuilder]

1981

June 13th:   A man from Kent tried to assassinate Queen Elizabeth II.  Marcus Sarjeant, a 17-year-old boy at the time, fired six times at the monarch on June 13, 1981, while she was taking part in the Trooping the Colour celebration that marks the head of state's official birthday.

[Dave]

1919

June 14th: A century ago, over the night of 14–15 June 1919, Captain John Alcock and Lieutenant Arthur Whitten Brown became the first people to fly non-stop across the Atlantic Ocean. Competing for a prize of £10,000 offered by the Daily Mail, they flew from St John’s, Newfoundland, to Clifden in Ireland, a distance of 1,890 miles, in their twin-engined Vickers Vimy biplane.

[Boatbuilder]

1996

June 15th:  A bomb that exploded close to the Arndale Centre, Manchester on 15 June 1996 was the second largest used by the IRA in an attack on the British mainland. 

[Dave]

2016

June 16th: A man shouted "This is for Britain" as he killed Labour MP Jo Cox, the Old Bailey has heard. She was stabbed 15 times and shot three times outside her constituency surgery in Birstall, near Leeds, on 16 June - a week before the EU referendum.

[Boatbuilder]

2000

June 17th:  A strong earthquake hit Iceland on Saturday, but caused no deaths or serious injuries.

 The quake was centred in a region near Mount Hekla, 55 miles (88 km) southeast of the capital Reykjavik.

The video below is not of the earthquake mentioned but references the number of earthquakes that Iceland can experience.

[Dave]

1984

June 18th: In June 1984, striking coal miners from across Britain descended on South Yorkshire’s Orgreave coking plant in an attempt to disrupt deliveries and were met with force by thousands of police officers.

What became known as the Battle of Orgreave was a pivotal moment in the year-long miners’ strike and one of the most violent episodes in British industrial history.

[Boatbuilder]

2010

June 19th:  Sweden's Crown Princess Victoria marries Daniel Westling. Westling becomes Duke of Västergötland.

[Dave]

1837

June 20th: On June 20, 1837, the young Princess Victoria became the Queen of the United Kingdom. She was only 18 years old when she received the news while staying at Kensington Palace, and marked the beginning of one of the most remarkable reigns in British history. King William IV, Victoria's uncle, had been the reigning monarch until he passed away that day at the age of 71.

[Dave]

1948

June 22nd Windrush Day has been held on 22 June since 2018, to celebrate the contribution Caribbean migrants and their families have made to the UK.

HMT Empire Windrush docked in Tilbury, Essex, in 1948, bringing hundreds of passengers from the Caribbean to the UK.

In 2018, it emerged that the government had not properly recorded the details of people granted permission to stay in the UK, and many were wrongly mistreated.