June 26
1901: The first Grand Prix motor racing event was held in Le Mans, France.
1927: The Cyclone roller coaster opened on Coney Island.
1934: President Franklin D. Roosevelt signed the Federal Credit Union Act, which established credit unions.
1945: The United Nations Charter was signed in San Francisco.
1948: The Western allies began an airlift to Berlin after the Soviet Union blockaded West Berlin.
1960: Madagascar gained its independence from France.
1974: The Universal Product Code was scanned for the first time to sell a package of Wrigley’s chewing gum at the Marsh Supermarket in Troy, Ohio.
1997: The U.S. Supreme Court ruled that the Communications Decency Act violated the First Amendment to the U.S. Constitution.
2000: President Clinton announced the completion of the first survey of the entire human genome.
2003: The U.S. Supreme Court ruled in Lawrence v. Texas that gender-based sodomy laws are unconstitutional.
June 27
1946: The Parliament of Canada established the legal definition of Canadian citizenship.
1974: President Richard Nixon visited the Soviet Union.
1985: U.S. Route 66 was officially removed from the U.S. highway system.
2007: Tony Blair resigned as British prime minister, a position he had held since 1997.
June 28
1894: Labor Day became an official U.S. holiday.
1902: Congress passed the Spooner Act, authorizing President Theodore Roosevelt to acquire rights from Colombia for the Panama Canal.
1919: The Treaty of Versailles was signed in Paris, bringing fighting to an end between Germany and the Allies of World War I.
1926: Mercedes-Benz was formed when Gottlieb Daimler and Karl Benz merged their two companies.
1969: The Stonewall Riots began at the Stonewall Inn in the Greenwich Village neighborhood in New York City, marking the start of the gay rights movement.
1982: A 30-minute hailstorm in Helena, Mont., caused $35 million in damage. No deaths or serious injuries.
1997: In the ‘Holyfield vs. Tyson II’ fight in Las Vegas, Mike Tyson was disqualified in the third round for biting off a piece of Evander Holyfield’s ear. Tyson was also fined $3 million and his boxing license was revoked.
June 29
1974: Russian ballet dancer Mikhail Baryshnikov defected from the Soviet Union to Canada while on tour with the Kirov Ballet.
1975: Steve Wozniak tested his first prototype of the Apple I computer.
2006: In Hamdan v. Rumsfeld, the U.S. Supreme Court ruled that President George W. Bush’s plan to try Guantánamo Bay detainees in military tribunals violated U.S. and international law.
2007: Apple Inc. released its first mobile phone, the iPhone.
June 30
1937: The world’s first emergency telephone number, 999, was introduced in London
1953: The first Chevrolet Corvette rolled off the assembly line in Flint, Mich
1966: The National Organization for Women, the United States’ largest feminist organization, was founded in New York.
1987: The Royal Canadian Mint introduced the $1 coin, known as the Loonie.
July 1
1903: The first Tour de France bicycle race began in Montgeron.
1908: The international distress signal SOS was adopted.
1963: ZIP codes were introduced for U.S. mail.
1979: Sony introduced the Walkman, revolutionizing the way people listen to music.
1984: The PG-13 rating was introduced.
2007: Smoking in England was banned in all public indoor spaces.
July 2
1843: During a thunderstorm in Charleston, South Carolina, a full-grown alligator fell from the sky.
1937: Pilot Amelia Earhart and her co-pilot and navigator Fred Noonan disappeared in the Pacific Ocean while on the next-to-last leg of their flight around the world.
1962: The first Wal-Mart store opened for business in Rogers, Arkansas.
2002: Steve Fossett became the first person to fly solo around the world nonstop in a balloon.