June 12

• June 12, 1665
  England installs a municipal government in New York City, the former Dutch settlement of New Amsterdam
• June 12, 1701
  The Act of Settlement establishes the order of succession to the English throne and gives English crown to Sophia, Princess of Hanover
• June 12, 1776
  Virginia's colonial legislature becomes the first to adopt a Bill of Rights which grants every individual the right to the enjoyment of life and liberty and to acquire and possess property
• June 12, 1792
  George Vancouver discovers site of Vancouver, British Columbia, Canada
• June 12, 1849
  Gas mask is patented by Lewis Haslett
• June 12, 1898
  Emilio Aguinaldo, rebel leader and the first president, proclaims Philippine independence from Spain
• June 12, 1944
  Germany launches the first V-1 flying bombs against Britain: from 55 launch sites, seven are able to launch a total of ten flying bombs during the night, of which three reach England
• June 12, 1963
  African-American civil rights leader Medgar Evers, aged 37, is gunned down in the driveway of his home in Jackson, Mississippi, United States
• June 12, 1964
  South African justice Quartus de Wet sentences anti-apartheid politician Nelson Mandela and two of his co-accused to life imprisonment
• June 12, 1967
  Six-Day War between Israel and the neighboring states of Egypt, Jordan, and Syria ends with conquest of Sinai Peninsula and the West Bank of the Jordan River by Israel
• June 12, 1982
  Israel invades Lebanon after an attempt of Abu Nidal Organization to assassinate Shlomo Argov, Israel's ambassador to the United Kingdom
• June 12, 1987
  During a visit to Berlin, Germany, U.S. President Ronald Reagan challenges Soviet Premier Mikhail Gorbachev to tear down the Berlin Wall
• June 12, 1991
  Boris Yeltsin is elected President of Russia, the largest and most populous of the fifteen Soviet republics
• June 12, 1997
  The Globe Theater, a theatre in London associated with William Shakespeare, is reopened by Queen Elizabeth II
• June 12, 1999
  NATO-led United Nations peacekeeping forces KFOR enter the province of Kosovo in the Federal Republic of Yugoslavia
• June 12, 2008
  A public vote in Ireland on the European Union's Lisbon treaty results in a "no" decision, by 53.4 percent to 46.6, while all members of the European Union must ratify the treaty for it to take effect
• June 12, 2009
  Official results of presidential election in Iran show Mahmoud Ahmadinejad defending his re-election with 62.6 percent of votes which lead to a series of sustained protests

June 8

• June 8, 68
  Galba, a commander of Roman forces in Spain, assumes the title of Caesar beginning a year of civil war known as the Year of the Four Emperors
• June 8, 452
  Attila, military leader of Huns and one of the greatest of the barbarian rulers, invades Italy
• June 8, 632
  Mohammed, the founder of Islam and unifier of Arabia, dies, and Abu Bakr, his father-in-law, becomes the first Caliph of Rashidun Caliphate, the term comprising the first four "Rightly Guided" caliphs in Islam's history
• June 8, 793
  Vikings, seafaring north Germanic people, raid the Northumbrian coast in England and sack the city of Lindisfarne, beginning the Viking Age of Scandinavian history
• June 8, 1675
  Three Wampanoag Indians are hanged in Plymouth, Massachusetts for the recent murder of John Sassamon, an advisor to Metacom, a Native American Christian convert, triggering King Philip's War
• June 8, 1783
  Laki Volcano in southern Iceland begins 18-month eruption, pumping more ash into the atmosphere than any previous volcano in recorded history and wiping out 75% of the crops, which led to a severe famine that killed some 10,000 people or 20% of the population
• June 8, 1815
  The Congress of Vienna ends with creation of German Confederation, a loose association of 39 German states in Central Europe
• June 8, 1861
  One the second referendum Tennessee vote to secede from the Union and join the Confederacy, becoming the last state to do so
• June 8, 1869
  Ives W McGaffey of Chicago patents first vacuum cleaner, working with a belt driven fan cranked by hand
• June 8, 1906
  Antiquities Act, an act giving the President of the United States the authority to restrict the use of particular public land owned by the federal government, is signed by Theodore Roosevelt
• June 8, 1948
  Texaco Star Theater, one of the first successful examples of American television broadcasting, hosted by an American comedian Milton Berle, starts
• June 8, 1949
  English novelist George Orwell publishes his dystopian novel Nineteen Eighty-Four, in which describes totalitarian practices
• June 8, 2009
  American car-maker General Motors files for bankruptcy, the third-largest in U.S. history and the largest ever in United States manufacturing, forcing the United States government provide US$30 billion of additional taxpayer funds to restructure

April 15

• April 15, 1205
  Bulgaria under Emperor Kaloyan beats and captures the Latin Emperor Baldwin I at the Battle of Adrianople
• April 15, 1450
  French defeat English at Battle of Formigny in Hundred Years War
• April 15, 1452
  Leonardo da Vinci, an Italian painter, sculptor, scientist and visionary, is born in Vinci near Florence
• April 15, 1469
  Guru Nanak, the founder of the religion of Sikhism, is born
• April 15, 1472
  Leon Battista Alberti, Italian humanist, architect, writes his classic architectural treatise De Re Aedificatoria
• April 15, 1738
  The first bottle opener is invented by unknown person
• April 15, 1874
  The Societe Anonyme Cooperative des Artistes Peintres, Sculpteurs, and Graveurs, better known today as the Impressionists organize and present their first public group exhibition at the Paris studio of the photographer Nadar
• April 15, 1892
  General Electric is formed by the merger of the Edison Electric Light Co. and other firms in New York State
• April 15, 1896
  The first modern Olympic Games are closed in Athens
• April 15, 1931
  The Castellammarese War ends with the assassination of Joe "The Boss" Masseria, briefly leaving Salvatore Maranzano as capo di tutti i capi and undisputed ruler of the American Mafia
• April 15, 1936
  Assailants shot two Jewish drivers during an attack on a convoy of trucks on the Nablus to Tulkarm road, starting Arab Revolt against the British in purpose to oppose Jewish immigration in Palestine
• April 15, 1947
  Jackie Robinson becomes the first African American to play in the major leagues in the modern era
• April 15, 1989
  The death of Hu Yaobang, a high-ranking official of the People's Republic of China, sparks the beginning of the Tiananmen Square protests in Beijing, China
• April 15, 1996
  The treasure of Primos found by Heinrich Schliemann in 1873 in Troy and taken from Berlin in 1945 by Russians is exhibited in Moscow for the first time
• April 15, 2013
  Two Chechen Islamist brothers explode two bombs at the Boston Marathon in Boston, Massachusetts, in the United States, killing 3 and injuring 264 others