June 22

1593 – The allied Christian armies of Austria and Croatia under Ruprecht von Eggenberg and Tamás Erdődy, defeat the moslem Ottoman army of Gazi Telli Hasan Pasha, at Sisak in central Croatia, at the confluence of the Sava and Kupa rivers.

1633 – The Holy Office in Rome forces Galileo Galilei to recant his view that the Sun, not the Earth, is the center of the Universe in the form he presented it in.

1807 – In the Chesapeake–Leopard Affair, the British warship HMS Leopard attacks and boards the American frigate USS Chesapeake off the coast of Norfolk, Virginia in the search for deserting British sailors.

1839 – Cherokee leaders Major Ridge, John Ridge, and Elias Boudinot are assassinated in Indian Territory for signing the Treaty of New Echota, which had resulted in the removal of most members of the tribe to Indian Territory referred to as the Trail of Tears.

1870 – The United States Department of Justice is created by the U.S. Congress.

1898 – During the Spanish-American War,  6,000 men of the U.S. Fifth Army Corps begin landing at Daiquirí, Cuba, unopposed against a force nearly double in size.

1918 – The collision of a Michigan Central Railroad troop train running into the rear of the Hammond Circus train, near Hammond, Indiana, kills 86 people and injures 127 more.

1940 – France is forced to sign the Second Compiègne armistice with Germany, in the same railroad car in which the Germans signed the Armistice in 1918.

1941 – Nazi Germany invades the Soviet Union in Operation Barbarossa.

1942 – The Pledge of Allegiance is formally adopted by Congress.

1944 –President Roosevelt signs the Servicemen’s Readjustment Act of 1944, commonly known as the G.I. Bill, into law

1948 – Due to the introduction of the West German Deutsche Mark the previous day, making the Reichsmark, which was still legal tender in the Soviet zone worthless, the East German puppet government introduces their version of the Deutsche Mark.

1969 – The Cuyahoga River catches fire in Cleveland, Ohio, spurring the passing of the Clean Water Act and the creation of the Environmental Protection Agency.

1978 – Charon, the first of Pluto’s satellites to be discovered, is first seen by astronomer James W. Christy, at the United States Naval Observatory, in Washington D.C.

1984 – Virgin Atlantic beings service with a flight from London to Newark.

1990 – Checkpoint Charlie is dismantled in Berlin.

2009 – A Washington D.C Metro train traveling southbound near Fort Totten station collides into another train waiting to enter the station killing 9 people including the train operator and injuring 80 more.