Chinese crackdown on protests leads to Tiananmen Square Massacre

A mere 83 hours after leaving New York City, the Transcontinental Express train arrives in San Francisco. That any human being could travel across the entire nation in less than four days was inconceivable to previous generations of Americans. During the early 19th century, when Thomas Jefferson first dreamed of an American nation stretching from […]

On June 4, 1916, the Battle of Lutsk marks the beginning of the Brusilov Offensive, the largest and most successful Allied offensive of World War I. When the fortress city of Verdun, France, came under siege by the Germans in February 1916, the French pleaded with the other Allies, Britain and Russia, to mount offensives […]

On June 4, 1940, 22-year-old Carson McCullers’ first novel, The Heart Is a Lonely Hunter, is published. The novel, about misfits in a Georgia mill town, is an instant success. McCullers, born Lula Carson Smith in Columbus, Georgia, in 1917, was strongly encouraged in her childhood artistic endeavors by her mother, who believed she was […]

On June 4, 1942, the Battle of Midway—one of the most decisive U.S. victories against Japan during World War II—begins. During the four-day sea-and-air battle, the outnumbered U.S. Pacific Fleet succeeded in destroying four Japanese aircraft carriers while losing only one of its own, the Yorktown, to the previously invincible Japanese navy. In six months […]

President John F. Kennedy and Premier Nikita Khrushchev of the Soviet Union, meeting in Vienna, strike a bargain to support a neutral and independent Laos. Laos had been the scene of an ongoing communist insurgency by the Pathet Lao guerrillas. In July 1959, the North Vietnamese Politburo had formed Group 959 to furnish weapons and […]

In what has later been called “the gig that changed the world,” the Sex Pistols appear at the Lesser Free Trade Hall in Manchester, England, helping to launch the punk era. By June 1976, the Sex Pistols had been playing together under that name for only seven months, and though their look, their sound and […]

For domestic guru and media mogul Martha Stewart, known for her “good things” tips and tricks, things turn very bad when a federal grand jury serves her and her former stock broker a nine-count indictment, including charges of obstruction of justice, securities fraud, conspiracy and making false statements. Stewart, CEO and chairwoman of Martha Stewart […]