June 30

1688 – The ‘Immortal Seven’ issue the Invitation to William, Prince of Orange, which would culminate in the British Glorious Revolution. The letter informed William that if he were to land in England with a small army, the signatories, 6 Earls, the Bishop of London, and their allies would rise up and support him.  The next year, The English Bill of Rights would become law, which was part of the basis from where our current Bill Of Rights came from, a hundred years later.

1794 – During the Northwest Indian War – the ‘northwest’ then being the Ohio region – a greatly superior force of the indian tribes of the Western Confederacy under Shawnee War Chief Blue Jacket attack Fort Recovery, in modern Ohio, inflicting heavy casualties but still failing to take the fort and retreat after 2 days fighting.

1805 – The earlier act of Congress, dividing part of the Indiana Territory and establishing the Michigan Territory, takes effect

1859 – French acrobat Charles Blondin crosses Niagara Falls on a tightrope.

1864 – President Lincoln grants Yosemite Valley to California for “public use, resort and recreation”. Apparently a guy named Sam got all riled up about it.

1882 – Charles Guiteau is executed by hanging in Washington, D.C. for the assassination of President Garfield, nearly a year after shooting him.

1905 – Albert Einstein sends the article On the Electrodynamics of Moving Bodies, in which he introduces special relativity, for publication in the Annalen der Physik.

1908 – The Tunguska Event, the largest impact event on Earth in human recorded history by a celestial object, results in a massive explosion over Eastern Siberia.

1921 – President Harding appoints former President Taft as Chief Justice of the United States.

1922 – In Washington D.C., U.S. Secretary of State Charles Evans Hughes and Dominican Ambassador Francisco J. Peynado sign the Hughes–Peynado agreement, which ends U.S. occupation of the Dominican Republic.

1934 – The Night of the Long Knives, Adolf Hitler’s violent purge of his political rivals in Germany, takes place.

1936 – Emperor Haile Selassie of Abyssinia appeals for aid to the League of Nations against Italy’s invasion of his country.

1937 – The world’s first emergency telephone number, 999, is introduced in London.

1944 – The Battle of Cherbourg ends with the fall of the peninsula and its port to American forces.

1956 – Trans World Airlines Flight 2, a Lockheed L-1049 Super Constellation, and United Airlines Flight 718, a Douglas DC-7, collide above the Grand Canyon in Arizona and crash, killing all 128 passengers and crew on board both airliners.

1971 – Ad Astra Per Aspera – The crew of Soyuz 11, Georgy Dobrovolsky, Vladislav Volkov, and Viktor Patsayev are killed in orbit when their air supply escapes through a faulty valve during reentry preparations.

1985 – 39 American hostages from the hijacked TWA Flight 847 are freed in Beirut after being held for 17 days.

1986 – In the case of Bowers v. Hardwick, the Supreme Court rules that states can outlaw homosexual acts between consenting adults.

1990 – Der Deutschen Einheit – East Germany and West Germany merge after 45 years of being politically separated at the end of World War II.

2013 – 19 of the 20 members of the Granite Mountain Hotshots team of the Prescott Arizona Fire Department are killed while attempting to control a wildfire near Yarnell, Arizona.

2019 – President Trump becomes the first sitting US President to visit North Korea

2021 – The ‘Tiger Fire’ caused by a dry lightning strike in the Prescott National Forest, ignites near Black Canyon City, Arizona, and goes on to burn 16,278 acres of land before being fully contained on July 30.