July 6

• July 6, 1189
  Richard I, known as Richard the Lionheart, ascends the throne of England after his father Henry II of England dies at age 56
• July 6, 1253
  Mindaugas, the ruler of Lithuania, is crowned in city of Novgorodok, modern-day Belarus, becoming the first and only King of Lithuania
• July 6, 1415
  Jan Hus, Bohemian religious reformer who spoken out against Church corruption, is burned as a heretic at the stake at Constance, Germany
• July 6, 1495
  The Holy League beat French army and temporarily expel them from the Italian Peninsula in the Battle of Fornovo, the first battle of series of conflicts known as the Italian Wars
• July 6, 1519
  Charles I of Spain is elected Holy Roman emperor as Charles V in Barcelona combining the crowns of Spain, Burgundy with the Netherlands, Austria and Germany
• July 6, 1535
  Sir Thomas More is beheaded in England for refusing to renounce the Catholic church in favor of King Henry VIII's Church of England
• July 6, 1553
  Edward VI Tudor, King of England, died of tuberculosis at the age of nine, making lady Jane Grey, an English noblewoman, becomes the Queen of England
• July 6, 1685
  Royal army of James II defeat Rebel army of James Scott, the Duke of Monmouth, at the Battle of Sedgemoor, the last major battle to be fought on English soil
• July 6, 1687
  Isaac Newton, an English physicist and mathematician, publishes Philosophiae Naturalis Principia Mathematica where he formulates law of universal gravitation and stats laws of motion, forming the foundation of classical mechanics
• July 6, 1699
  Captain William Kidd, a Scottish pirate, is arrested in Boston
• July 6, 1777
  British forces under General Burgoyne capture Fort Ticonderoga, on Lake Champlain, from the Americans
• July 6, 1781
  In Virginia the Battle of Green Spring on the Jamestown Peninsula and becomes the last major engagement of the Revolutionary War prior to the Colonial's final victory at Yorktown
• July 6, 1785
  US Congress decides that the country's monetary system would be based on a silver coin called a dollar, similar to that of the Spanish dollar and adopt the first nation decimal money system
• July 6, 1788
  Bad harvests and harsh winters in France lead to bread riot in the poorer districts
• July 6, 1809
  Napoleon beat Austria's archduke Charles at the Battle of Wagram, crushing the Fifth Coalition
• July 6, 1836
  French General Thomas Robert Bugeaud defeats Abdelkader El Djezairi's forces beside the Sikkak River in Algeria
• July 6, 1885
  French scientist Louis Pasteur successfully tests an anti-rabies vaccine on a boy bitten by an infected dog, owing to the fact that the death rate from rabies dropped to almost zero by 1888
• July 6, 1892
  Homestead Strike, a major labor dispute between union steelworkers and the Carnegie Steel Company in Homestead, Pennsylvania, culminates in a battle between strikers and private security agents
• July 6, 1964
  Nyasaland gains independence from Britain and is renamed in Malawi
• July 6, 1967
  Biafran War, or Nigerian Civil War, erupts as Nigerian forces invade Biafra, seceded May 30
• July 6, 1994
  Forrest Gump, romantic-comedy-drama film depicts several decades in the life of a slow-witted man, is released in the United States
• July 6, 1995
  IBM completes its US$3.5 billion acquisition of Lotus Development, making it a wholly-owned subsidiary

May 30

• May 30, 1381
  Peasants' Revolt begins in Essex, England due to the high taxes resulting from the conflict with France during the Hundred Years War
• May 30, 1416
  Jerome of Prague, a Czech church reformer and one of the chief followers of Jan Hus, is burned as a heretic at the Council of Constance
• May 30, 1431
  Joan of Arc, the leader of the French army during Hundred Years War, condemned as a heretic by an English-backed church court, is burned at the stake in Rouen, France, at age 19
• May 30, 1434
  An army of Utraquists and Catholics, called the Bohemian League, defeat the radical Taborites and Orphans, led by Prokop the Great and Prokop the Lesser, who both fell in the battle of of Lipany, which marks the end of the Hussite wars
• May 30, 1498
  Columbus departs with six ships for third trip to America
• May 30, 1536
  English king Henry VIII marries Jane Seymour
• May 30, 1588
  The Spanish Armada of 130 ships with 30,000 men under Alonso Pérez de Guzmán leaves Lisbon for England
• May 30, 1635
  Emperor Ferdinand II and Electorate of Saxony representing most of the Protestant states of the Holy Roman Empire sign Peace of Prague, which effectively beings to an end the civil war aspect of the Thirty Years' War
• May 30, 1814
  In Paris, France, the Treaty of Paris is signed, bringing peace between Great Britain and her allies and France and returning France to its 1792 borders
• May 30, 1848
  Mexico ratifies the Treaty of Guadalupe Hidalgo ending Mexican–American War and giving US New Mexico, California and parts of Nevada, Utah, Arizona and Colorado in return for $15 million
• May 30, 1854
  The Kansas-Nebraska Act, passed by the US Congress, repeals the Missouri Compromise and allows people in the territories of Kansas and Nebraska to decide for themselves whether or not to allow slavery within their borders, opens north slavery
• May 30, 1866
  The Bartered Bride, the comic opera written by Bedřich Smetana, the father of Czech national music, is first performed at the Provisional Theatre, Prague
• May 30, 1868
  The United States establish Memorial Day, initially Decoration Day, to honor Union soldiers killed in the Civil War, later expanded to honor all soldiers killed in the service of the country
• May 30, 1896
  1,389 people die during a human stampede on Khodynka Field in Moscow, Russia during the festivities following the coronation of the last Russian Emperor Nicholas II
• May 30, 1942
  1047 bombers attack Cologne, dropping 915 tons of incendiaries and 840 tons of high explosives during Operation Millennium with 41 aircraft as total loss of British planes
• May 30, 1968
  French president Charles de Gaulle dissolves the National Assembly and calls for new parliamentary elections as a result of May 1968 protests in France
• May 30, 1975
  European Space Agency, an intergovernmental organization dedicated to the exploration of space, forms

May 25

• May 25, 1521
  Charles V, Emperor of the Holy Roman Empire, officially declares Martin Luther a criminal and heretic for refusing to recant at the Diet of Worms
• May 25, 1624
  The Parliament of England issues Statute of Monopolies, the first statutory expression of English patent law
• May 25, 1659
  Richard Cromwell resigns as English Lord Protector
• May 25, 1720
  Great Plague of Marseille, which kills 100,000 people in the city, begins
• May 25, 1810
  Argentina declares independence from Napoleonic Spain
• May 25, 1812
  92 miners are killed during a series of coal mine explosions, which take place around the Felling Colliery in Durhamshire, England
• May 25, 1844
  The first telegraphed news dispatch, sent from Washington, D.C., to Baltimore, appears in the Baltimore "Patriot"
• May 25, 1887
  In France, a gas lamp at the Paris Opera catches fir; 200 die
• May 25, 1895
  Playwright Oscar Wilde is convicted of a morals charge in London and is sentenced to two years in prison
• May 25, 1911
  Revolution in Mexico overthrows President Porfirio Díaz
• May 25, 1915
  Second Battle of Ypres ends leaving 105,000 casualties
• May 25, 1945
  Arther C Clark, a British science fiction writer, proposes relay satellites in geosynchronous orbit
• May 25, 1946
  The United Nations approve the end of the British Mandate and recognize Transjordan as an independent sovereign kingdom Jordan
• May 25, 1961
  United States President John Kennedy appeals to Congress that the nation should commit to "landing a man on the moon and returning him safely to Earth" by the end of the decade
• May 25, 1963
  Organization for African Unity is formed by Chad, Mauritania, and Zambia
• May 25, 1977
  "Star Wars Episode IV: A New Hope", the first release in the Star Wars saga created by American filmmaker George Lucas, is released
• May 25, 2000
  Israel withdraws military forces from southern Lebanon after 22 years of occupation
• May 25, 2002
  China Airlines Flight 611 breaks up near the Penghu Islands at Taiwan Strait, killing all 225 people on board

May 21

• May 21, 987
  French King Louis V dies from a fall while hunting, terminating the Carolingian period of Frankish rule
• May 21, 996
  Otto III is crowned the Roman Emperor by his cousin Pope Gregory V
• May 21, 1420
  King Charles VI of France signs the Treaty of Troyes that recognizes all the territorial gains of King Henry V of England, gives Henry the daughter of Charles in marriage, and acknowledges Henry as the legitimate heir to the French throne
• May 21, 1471
  Henry VI, king of England and France, is killed in the tower of London and Edward IV takes the throne
• May 21, 1535
  Imperial authorities in Antwerp capture and imprison William Tyndale for heresy over his translation of the Bible into English
• May 21, 1542
  Spanish explorer Hernando De Soto dies while searching for gold along the Mississippi River and is buried by his men in the Mississippi River in what is now Louisiana in order that Indians would not learn of his death, and thus disprove de Soto's claims of divinity
• May 21, 1674
  General John Sobieski is chosen King of Poland
• May 21, 1683
  The Society of Suriname, a Dutch private company, is founded by the city of Amsterdam, the Van Aerssen van Sommelsdijck family, and the Dutch West India Company
• May 21, 1809
  Austrian archduke Charles beats Napoleon at Battle of Aspern-Essling when he was crossing the Danube near Vienna, which becomes the first personally defeat of Napoleon over a decade
• May 21, 1840
  New Zealand is founded as a British colony since the Treaty of Waitangi is signed by Māori chiefs of New Zealand and representatives of Queen Victoria
• May 21, 1871
  French government troops enter in Paris and attack the Commune of Paris
• May 21, 1881
  Clara Barton, a hospital nurse, founds American Red Cross
• May 21, 1881
  Standard Oil, an American oil producing founded by John D. Rockefeller, becomes the world's first trust, after thirty-seven stockholders convey their shares
• May 21, 1916
  Britain begins "Summer Time", which becomes the implementation of daylight saving time
• May 21, 1927
  Charles Lindbergh, an American aviator, becomes the first person who makes solo non-stop transatlantic flight, from New York's Long Island to Le Bourget Field in Paris
• May 21, 1945
  German war criminal Heinrich Himmler is captured
• May 21, 1998
  Suharto forced to resign as president of Indonesia after 31-year reign

May 13

• May 13, 609
  Pope Boniface IV turns Pantheon, given him by the Byzantine emperor Phocas, into Christian church
• May 13, 1110
  Crusaders march into Beirut causing a bloodbath and include the city in Kingdom of Jerusalem
• May 13, 1497
  Pope Alexander VI excommunicates Girolamo Savonarola, who preached against corruption in the Church and civil government, for heresy
• May 13, 1607
  Jamestown, Virginia, is settled by English privateer Christopher Newport and 105 followers, which would become the first permanent English colony in North America
• May 13, 1637
  Cardinal Richelieu of France creates the table knife to cure dinner guests of the unsavoury habit of picking their teeth with their knife-points
• May 13, 1654
  Venetian fleet under Admiral Adeler beats Turkish
• May 13, 1779
  War of Bavarian Succession ends with Treaty of Teschen
• May 13, 1830
  Republic of Ecuador is founded after separation from Gran Columbia, with Juan José Flores, a Venezuelan military general, as president
• May 13, 1861
  Queen Victoria announces England's position of neutrality in the War Between the States
• May 13, 1888
  Princess Isabel of Brazil signs a law named "Lei Áurea", abolishing slavery and emancipating some 4 million slaves, the most of any nation in the western hemisphere
• May 13, 1926
  British general strike, involving 2.5 million trade workers, ends, but mine workers go on strike
• May 13, 1943
  The North African campaign of World War II ends as German and Italian forces forces surrender yielding over 275,000 prisoners of war
• May 13, 1950
  The first Formula One season is commenced with British Grand Prix, won by Giuseppe Farina for the Alfa Romeo team
• May 13, 1952
  Jawaharlal Nehru, one of the leaders of the Indian independence movement, becomes premier of India
• May 13, 1968
  1,000,000 French demonstrate against Charles de Gaulle and Pompidou
• May 13, 1981
  Pope John Paul II is shot and seriously wounded by Turkish ultra-nationalist Mehmet Ali Ağca, who makes two shots striking the Pope, while passing through Saint Peter's Square in Rome, in an open car
• May 13, 1992
  Falun Gong, a Chinese spiritual discipline for mind and body, is introduced by Li Hongzhi
• May 13, 1998
  Indonesian natives destroy and burn Chinese Indonesian-owned properties and kill and rape more than 1,000 Chinese Indonesians during riots against Chinese Indonesians