June 15

763 BC – Assyrian astrologers record a solar eclipse that is later used to fix the chronology of Mesopotamian history.

1215 – To make peace between the king and a group of rebel barons, King John of England is forced to affix his seal to Magna Carta, a declaration of certain rights protected from the power of the English throne.

1389 –The invading army of the Ottoman Empire under Sultan Murad Hüdavendigâr, barely defeats an army of Serbs and Bosnians led by the Serbian Prince Lazar Hrebeljanović on the east central plain of Kosovo. Both leaders are killed as both armies are nearly wiped out.

1502 – Christopher Columbus lands on the island of Martinique on his fourth voyage.

1520 – Pope Leo X threatens to excommunicate Martin Luther in Exsurge Domine.

1607 – Virginia colonists finish building James’s Fort – later Jamestown – on the James river southwest of modern Williamsburg, to defend against Spanish and Indian attacks.

1648 – Margaret Jones is hanged in Boston for witchcraft in the first such execution for the Massachusetts Bay Colony.

1776 –Delaware votes to suspend government under the British Crown and separate officially from Pennsylvania.

1804 – New Hampshire approves the Twelfth Amendment to the United States Constitution, ratifying it.

1836 – Arkansas is admitted as the 25th U.S. state.

1844 – Charles Goodyear receives a patent for vulcanization, a process to strengthen rubber.

1846 – The Oregon Treaty of 1846 extends the border between the United States and British North America, established by the Treaty of 1818, westward to the Pacific Ocean.

1859 – Ambiguous language in the Oregon Treaty due to incomplete mapping of the region, leads to the “Northwestern Boundary Dispute” between American and British/Canadian settlers.

1864 – Arlington National Cemetery is established when 200 acres  of the Arlington estate formerly owned by Confederate General Robert E. Lee are officially set aside as a military cemetery by U.S. Secretary of War Edwin M. Stanton.

1877 – Henry Ossian Flipper becomes the first African American cadet to graduate from the United States Military Academy.

1878 – Eadweard Muybridge takes a series of photographs to prove that all four feet of a horse leave the ground when it runs; the study becomes the basis of motion pictures.

1904 – A fire aboard the steamboat SS General Slocum causes it to sink in New York City’s East River killing 1,021 of the 1,342 people on board.

1916 – President Woodrow Wilson signs a bill incorporating the Boy Scouts of America with a federal charter.

1934 – The United States Great Smoky Mountains National Park is founded.

1944 – During World War II, the U.S. invades the island of Saipan, capital of Japan’s South Seas Mandate.

1970 – Charles Manson goes on trial for the Tate–LaBianca murders.

1992 – In the case of United States v. Álvarez-Machaín, the Supreme Court rules in that it is permissible for the United States to forcibly extradite suspects in foreign countries and bring them to the United States for trial, without approval from those other countries.

2012 – Nik Wallenda becomes the first person to successfully tightrope walk directly over Niagara Falls.

2022 – Microsoft retires Internet Explorer after 26 years and introduces a new browser; Microsoft Edge.