June 2
455 – Due to a perceived violation of a peace treaty, the Germanic tribe of Vandals led by their king Genseric, sack Rome.
1098 – During the First Crusade, Crusader forces take the city of Antioch.
1763 – After the end of the French and Indian War in the colonies, Chippewas, under Chief Pontiac capture Fort Michilimackinac – now Mackinaw City, Michigan.
1774 –Parliament in London, passes the The Quartering Act – one of the ‘Intolerable Acts’ – for the colonies, allowing a colonial governor to house British soldiers in uninhabited houses, outbuildings, barns, or other buildings if suitable quarters are not provided.
1835 – P. T. Barnum and his circus start their first tour of the U.S.
1896 – Guglielmo Marconi applies for a patent for his wireless telegraph.
1919 – Followers of the Italian anarchist Luigi Galleani simultaneously set off bombs in 8 separate U.S. cities killing 2 people and wounding another 2.
1924 – U.S. President Calvin Coolidge signs the Indian Citizenship Act into law, granting citizenship to all members of Indian tribes born within the territorial limits of the United States.
1930 – Astronaut Pete Conrad, the 3rd man to walk on the moon, is born in Philadelphia, Pennsylvania.
1966 – The Surveyor 1 probe lands in Oceanus Procellarum on the Moon, becoming the first U.S. spacecraft to soft land on another world.
1967 – Luis Monge is executed in Colorado’s gas chamber, the last execution in the U.S. before the Supreme Court rules the death penalty unconstitutional in Furman v. Georgia in 1972.
1983 – Enroute from Dallas to Toronto, Air Canada Flight 797, a McDonnell Douglas DC-9, is forced to make an emergency landing at Cincinnati because of an in flight fire. After landing, 23 passengers aboard are killed when a flashover occurs as the plane’s doors open.
1990 – The Lower Ohio Valley tornado outbreak spawns 66 confirmed tornadoes in Illinois, Indiana, Kentucky, and Ohio, killing 12 people.
1997 – In Denver, Timothy McVeigh is convicted on 15 counts of murder and conspiracy for his role in bombing of the Murrah Federal Building in Oklahoma City and sentenced to the death penalty.