June 29

1149 – During the Second Crusade, the army of Raymond of Poitiers, Prince of Antioch is defeated and he is also killed at the Battle of Inab by Nur ad-Din Zangi, leading to the pillage of the whole principality.

1444 – The Albanian Warlord Skanderbeg defeats the Ottoman invasion force of Ali Pasha at Torvioll.

1620 – King James of England bans tobacco growing in England, giving the Virginia Company a monopoly in exchange for tax of one shilling per pound.

1659 – During the Russo-Polish War, the Ukrainian coalition armies of Ivan Vyhovsky take the opportunity to attack and defeat Russian forces led by Prince Trubetskoy, relieving the siege of Konotop in eastern Ukraine

1807 – During the Russo-Turkish War, Russian Admiral Dmitry Senyavin destroys the Ottoman fleet off Mount Athos between the island of Lemnos in the Aegean Sea.

1880 – France annexes Tahiti, renaming the independent Kingdom of Tahiti as “Etablissements de français de l’Océanie”

1889 – Hyde Park and several other Illinois townships vote to be annexed by Chicago, forming the largest U.S. city in area and second largest in population at the time.

1927 – The Bird of Paradise, a U.S. Army Air Corps Fokker tri-motor, crewed by 1st Lt. Lester J. Maitland and 1st Lt. Albert F. Hegenberger, completes the first transpacific flight, from the mainland United States to Hawaii.

1950 – President Truman authorizes a sea blockade of North Korea.

1956 – The Federal Aid Highway Act of 1956 is signed by President Eisenhower, creating the United States Interstate Highway System.

1972 – In the case of Furman v. Georgia, the Supreme Court rules that the then current method of how the death penalty was imposed by the judicial system was unconstitutionally cruel and unusual punishment……..
North Central Airlines Flight 290 a Convair CV-580, collides in mid-air with Air Wisconsin Flight 671, a De Havilland Canada DHC-6 Twin Otter above Lake Winnebago near Appleton, Wisconsin, killing all 13 passengers and crew aboard both aircraft.

1975 – Steve Wozniak tests his first prototype of the Apple I computer.

1995 – On NASA Mission STS-71, Shuttle Atlantis docks with the Russian space station Mir for the first time.

2006 – In the case of Hamdan v. Rumsfeld, the Supreme Court rules that President Bush’s plan to try Guantanamo Bay detainees in military tribunals violates U.S. and international law.

2007 – Apple releases its first mobile phone, the iPhone, and away we went to the ‘smart phone’ races

2012 – A derecho – a straight line wind storm -sweeps across a large section of the Midwestern U.S. and across the central Appalachians into the mid-Atlantic states, leaving at least 22 people dead and millions more without power, causing damage totaling $2.9 billion

2014 – The ‘Junior Varsity’ Islamic State of Iraq and the Levant – ISIL – self declares its caliphate in Syria and northern Iraq.