June 23

1280 – During the Reconquista, in the Battle of Moclín,  the Emirate of Granada ambush a superior pursuing force, killing most of them in a military disaster for the Kingdom of Castile.

1683 – William Penn signs a friendship treaty with Lenni Lenape Indians in Pennsylvania.

1780 – American General Nathaniel Greene, commanding 1500 men of the New Jersey Militia, defeats a 5000 man force of British Army troops and Hessian mercenaries at the Battle of Springfield, effectively ending British ambitions in New Jersey.

1810 – John Jacob Astor forms the Pacific Fur Company and orders the construction of a base of operations; Fort Astoria, present-day Astoria, Oregon – at the mouth of the Columbia River.

1812 – During the War of 1812, Britain revokes the restrictions on American commerce it had try to enforce, thus eliminating one of the chief reasons for going to war.

1865 – Confederate Brigadier General Stand Watie surrenders his army at Fort Towson in the Oklahoma and Indian Territory

1868 – Christopher Latham Sholes received a patent for an invention he calls the “Type-Writer.”

1894 – At the initiative of Baron Pierre de Coubertin, the International Olympic Committee is founded at the Sorbonne in Paris to organize modern athletic competition modeled after the ancient Olympic Games.

1914 – Pancho Villa defeats Victoriano Huerta at Zacatecas

1926 – The College Board administers the first SAT exam.

1931 – Pilot Wiley Post and Navigator Harold Gatty take off from Roosevelt Field, Long Island, in the Lockheed Vega Winne Mae, to make the first circumnavigation of the world in a single engine plane.

1938 – The Civil Aeronautics Act is signed into law, forming the Civil Aeronautics Authority in the United States.

1947 – The Senate follows the House of Representatives in overriding President Truman’s veto of the Taft–Hartley Act, restricting the power of labor unions

1959 – Convicted Manhattan Project spy Klaus Fuchs is released after only 9 years in prison and allowed to emigrate to Dresden, East Germany.

1960 – The FDA declares G. D. Searle & Company’s Enovid to be the first officially approved combined oral contraceptive pill in the world.

1961 – The Antarctic Treaty, which sets aside Antarctica as a scientific preserve and bans military activity on the continent, comes into force

1969 – Warren E. Burger is sworn in as Chief Justice of the United States Supreme Court by retiring Chief Justice Earl Warren.

1972 – Title IX of the United States Civil Rights Act of 1964 is amended to prohibit sexual discrimination to any educational program receiving federal funds.

2013 – Nik Wallenda becomes the first man to successfully walk across the Grand Canyon on a tight rope.

2016 – The United Kingdom votes in a referendum to leave the European Union, by 52% to 48%.