This date in history

[Aktungbby]

NOPE the deciding factor was :

Originally Posted by several sources

The Prussian army was defeated by the French two days before the Battle of Waterloo, at the Battle of Ligny on 16 June 1815. Blücher himself was knocked off his horse and almost killed by the French cavalry. However, he rejoined his army, who regrouped and moved north toward the Anglo-Allied army. Blücher claimed he recovered from his injuries by being rubbed with brandy and drinking champagne.

The Prussian army arrived on the battlefield of Waterloo at about 4.00pm, after over four hours of brutal combat between the French and British. The Duke of Wellington, believing that his army was on the point of being overwhelmed, at one point remarked: “Give me night or give me Blücher!”
Often overlooked amid the tales of heroism and sacrifice that characterize the Battle of Waterloo is the decision made by the 72-year-old Blücher to come to Wellington’s support rather than retiring eastward. Although he was advanced in age,Blücher remained energetic and possessed a keen tactical military sense. He discounted the advice of his chief of staff Field Marshal August Neidhardt von Gneisenau, who doubted the capabilities of Wellington’s army to stand up to Napoleon. Nevertheless, once the task was placed before him Gneisenau urged the Prussian Army forward toward Waterloo with the corps of Marshal Friedrich Wilhelm Freiherr von Bülow, relatively unscathed during the defeat at Ligny, in the van.
The Prussians had marched since 4.00am along muddy country roads, but even exhausted they quickly threatened to overwhelm the French. Napoleon had to order increasing numbers of troops east to try and hold off the approaching Prussians, while his main force still tried to finally break the British to his north. When the Prussians reached Waterloo, their heavy pressure on Napoleon’s right flank coupled with an advance by Wellington’s forces finally routed the French Army.

"Come general, the affair is over, we have lost the day," Napoleon told one of his officers. "Let us be off." The day was June 18, 1815. By about 8 p.m., the emperor of France knew he had been decisively defeated at a village called Waterloo, and he was now keen to escape from his enemies, some of whom—such as the Prussians—had sworn to execute him.

<"please don't leave us Boss!!??" Additionally and overlooked in history:

In addition, the Prussian rearguard of 17,000 troops had tied down 33,000 French troops that could have otherwise taken part at Waterloo. Thus, for the Prussians, the battle was a strategic success, as it contributed to the decisive victory at Waterloo. Both offensive on Napoleon's flank and defensive simultaneously- now that's serious multi-tasking!

Alas: Ol' Boney's horse, (d. 1833) poor Marengo's, hoof(s) ended up as a snuff box: one at at St James palace in London.... a footing end to a titanic struggle. Considering the futility of the Imperial Guard's advance and 'Recule'; a whole lotta bears died for nuthin:

[Jimbuna]

It is not hard to attribute whoever or whatever tipped the balance in the allies favour but much is dependant on who you prefer to believe and therefore support.

[Rockstar]

17 June 1462, Vlad III the Impaler, Prince of Wallachia, tries to kill Sultan Mehmed II when his troops attack Ottoman forces at Târgovişte in present day Romania. Vlad's refusal to pay the jizya (tax on non-Muslims) led to the conflict.



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In the glorious year 1775, The brave valiant freedom fighters for truth justice and the American way entrenched near Bunker Hill inflict heavy casualties on the British oppressors before withdrawing to finish their honey-do-list. While not a victory for the fledgling American independence, the battle shows that colonials can indeed stand up to redcoats, just not their wives.




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1885, The remaining parts to the Statue of Liberty arrives in New York from France. The hand and torch had been on display at the 1876 Centennial Exhibition in Philadelphia 10 years before the rest of it was completed by French sculptor Frédéric Auguste Bartholdi.



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Richmond Times-Dispatch 17 June 1917 prints this J Crowley graphic of an idea proposed by Doctor Gernsback in the journal Electrical Experimenter. He wanted to convert obsolete American battleships into super-Tanks.



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17 June 1940 Soviet Foreign Minister Molotov sends German Ambassador Schulenburg a message congratulating Germany on its victory over France, saying it should put an end to distrust England and France tried to sow between Germany and the USSR.

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17 June 1944, Two weeks after the allies' D-Day invasion, Field Marshal Erwin Rommel warns German dictator Adolf Hitler that troops in the west might collapse after the Normandy invasion takes hold, encouraging Hitler to seek a negotiated settlement.



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17 June 1944, Normandy. Men from 5 Welsh Guards, moving up to the front line.



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in 1944, Normandy. Off-duty, time to write a letter home, or clean a rifle. Bofors anti-aircraft gun crews from 393 Light Anti-Aircraft Battery.



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17 June 1944: Iceland declares its independence from Denmark, becoming a republic. The Danish–Icelandic Act of Union expired on Dec. 31, 1943 after 25 years. Voters went to the polls in May and 97% voted to dissolve the union.



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1953, Soviet tanks crushed workers protests in East Germany. Up to 125 were killed.



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1960, The Boston Red Sox outfielder Ted Williams, the greatest hitter of all time, hits his 500th home run against the Cleveland Indians, becoming only the third player to reach that plateau.

[Jimbuna]

1579 English navigator Francis Drake lands on the coast of California at Drakes Bay, names it "New Albion"

1631 Mumtaz Mahal dies during childbirth. Her husband, Mughal emperor Shah Jahan I, then spends more than 20 years building her tomb, the Taj Mahal.

1856 Republican Party opens its 1st national convention in Philadelphia.

1885 Statue of Liberty arrives in NYC aboard French ship `Isere'

1938 Japan declares war on China.

1939 Last public guillotining in France. Eugen Weidmann, a convicted murderer, is guillotined in Versailles outside the prison Saint-Pierre.

1940 France asks Germany for terms of surrender in WW II

1940 Sinking of the RMS Lancastria by the Luftwaffe near Saint-Nazaire, France.

1944 Hitler secretly meets with Field Marshals von Rundstedt and Rommel in Marjival, Soissons, France to assess response to Normandy Invasion.

1953 US Supreme Court Justice William O. Douglas stays executions of spies Julius & Ethel Rosenberg scheduled for next day their 14th anniversary.

1965 1st bombing by B-52 (50 km north of Saigon)

1967 China becomes world's 4th thermonuclear power by exploding a hydrogen bomb.

1972 Five men arrested after trying to bug Democratic National Committee office in Watergate Complex, Washington.

1974 The Provisional Irish Republican Army bombs the Houses of Parliament in London, injuring 11 people and causing extensive damage.

1982 President of Argentina Leopoldo Galtieri resigns as commander in chief of the army and as president after leading Argentina to a disastrous defeat against the British in the Falkland Islands War.

[Jimbuna]

1812 War of 1812 begins as US declares war against Britain.

1815 Battle of Waterloo; Napoleon Bonaparte and France defeated by British forces under Duke of Wellington and Prussian troops under Field Marshall von Blücher.

1940 General Charles de Gaulle makes his first speech on the BBC to the French people, since arriving in London, an appeal to defy Nazi occupiers - regarded as the beginning of French Resistance during WWII

1940 Winston Churchill gives his "this was their finest hour" speech to the House of Commons urging perseverance in the war after the Dunkirk evacuation and the fall of France.

1944 German submarine U-767 sunk by the Royal Navy destroyers HMS Fame, HMS Inconstant and HMS Havelock in the English Channel

1945 William Joyce (Lord Haw-Haw), fascist politician and Nazi propaganda broadcaster, charged with treason in England.

1953 USAF C-124 Globemaster crashes shortly after takeoff from Tachikawa Air Base, Japan, killing 129 servicemen; at the time, it was the deadliest incident in aviation history.

1972 3 members of the British Army are killed by an Irish Republican Army (IRA) bomb in a derelict house near Lurgan, County Down.

[Aktungbby]

1865: Union troops arrived in Galveston Texas with news that the Civil War was over, and that all remaining slaves in Texas were free- an event known as "Juneteenth". Oddly, there is a movement to amend the Constitution's exception to prohibition of slavery "except as punishment for crime"; particularly used by Southern states and others well into the 20th century, during the lengthy Jim Crow era to target and incarcerate 'persons of color' compelling forced prison labor as a source of income to state and County governments. The proposed legislation to eliminate the 'remaining vestige' of slavery would still permit 'voluntary' employment..... Junteenth being a new national holiday, I didn't get my copy of the Wall Street Journal, which I rely on for clear, concise, and (relatively) unbiased points-of-view over my morning cuppa-joe! DAMN!

[Jimbuna]

1819 HMS Kite chases the steamship SS Savannah on its historic voyage across the Atlantic for 3 hours off the coast of Ireland believing it to be on fire. Unable to catch the steamship HMS Kite fires warning shots forcing it to stop and be inspected to the amazement of the British.

1829 Robert Peel introduces the Metropolitan Police Act 1829 into Parliament to establish a unified police force for London, the city's first modern police force.

1917 The British Royal Family, which has had strong German ties since George I, renounces its German names and titles and adopts the name of Windsor.

1941 Soviet anthropologist Michael Gerasimov opens tomb of Timurid Empire founder Timur and allegedly finds the inscription that whoever opens the tomb shall "unleash an invader more terrible than I." Three days later Germany invades Russia.

1944 Heavy air raid on US fleet at Guam "Turkey Shoot"

1972 A Catholic civilian is shot dead by the Provisional Irish Republican Army in the Cracked Cup Social Club, Belfast.

1972 Secretary of State for Northern Ireland William Whitelaw concedes 'special category' status, or 'political status' for paramilitary prisoners in Northern Ireland.

[Rockstar]

19 June 1269, King Louis IX of France orders Jews found in public without a yellow badge to be fined ten livres of silver.

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1787, Framers of the U.S. Constitution tentatively decide senators should serve 7 yrs; House members should serve 3 yrs; Congress should elect the president and they should serve 7 yrs; and the Senate should appoint Supreme Court justices.

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1865, Choctaw Indian tribe leader Peter Pitchlynn surrenders to the U.S. during the U.S. Civil War. In 1864 the leaders of the “Five Civilized Tribes” agreed to make peace with the Union as independent nations and not part of the Confederacy.
(It’s been said much of the ill treatment, distrust and removal of indigenous tribes can attributed to the fact many of them fought for and alongside the British and later the Confederacy).

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1867, Emperor Maximilian I of Mexico is executed by a firing squad in Santiago de Querétaro, Mexico after Republican forces, led by Mexican President Benito Juárez, captured him. Juárez had been supported by the U.S.

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1933, Due to increased subversive activities, the Austrian government under Engelbert Dollfuss bans the Austrian Nazi party. On March 12, 1938 Germany would absorb Austria into Germany.


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1944, Tilly-sur-Seulles area, France. Men from 2 Essex passing a knocked out Panther tank.


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1944, Normandy. A damaged Spitfire from 403 Squadron at a forward airstrip in Normandy.


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1963, Soviet cosmonaut Valentina Tereshkova returns to Earth after spending nearly three days in space. She was the first woman to travel to space.


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1968, Lt. j.g. Clyde Lassen and crew, flying a UH-2A helicopter, launch a rescue mission of two downed U.S. aviators in North Vietnam. Despite heavy anti-aircraft fire, the crew rescues the men. For his actions, Lassen receives the Medal of Honor.


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The Tonca is an event in Trento, Italy, where every 19th of June a ceremonial jury sentences the local politician that committed the year's worst blunder to be locked in a cage and dunked in the river. Tradition is important. Happy June 19th !!!

[Rockstar]

19 June 1940, Congress passed the Vinson-Walsh "Two-Ocean Navy" Act which increased the size of the U.S. Navy by 70%. It was the largest naval procurement bill in U.S. history, adding 18 carriers, 7 battleships, 33 cruisers, 115 destroyers, 43 subs and 15k aircraft to the fleet.

[Aktungbby]

Originally Posted by Rockstar

1867, Emperor Maximilian I of Mexico is executed by a firing squad in Santiago de Querétaro, Mexico after Republican forces, led by Mexican President Benito Juárez, captured him. Juárez had been supported by the U.S.

'Twas the lesser of two evils. Revolution on the US southern boarder is one thing, particularly as the political high handedness of France was conducted while the American attention was on the Civil War; but having a major European power in place is a clear violation of the Montroe Doctrine. The firing squad saved us the trouble of invading from the North under General W.T.Sherman. It would be enforced again under Kennedy against Russian missiles in Cuba.

[Jimbuna]

1819 The SS Savannah reaches Cork in Ireland after a 29 day and 11 hour voyage from Savannah, Georgia to become the 1st steamship to cross the Atlantic or any other ocean.

1837 Queen Victoria at 18 ascends British throne following death of uncle King William IV. She rules for 63 years till 1901.

1900 Baron Von Ketteler, German Minister, decides to go to the Chinese authorities to demand more guards for European protection from Boxers and is killed by Boxers en route.

1919 Philipp Scheidemann resigns as chancellor of the new German Republic, which he helped establish, refusing to sign the Treaty of Versailles.

1942 Adolf Eichmann proclaims deportation of Dutch Jews.

1944 Nazis begin mass extermination of Jews at Auschwitz.

1945 U.S. Secretary of State Edward Stettinius Jr. approves transfer of German rocket scientist Wernher von Braun and his specialists to the US

1979 US President Jimmy Carter unveils 32 solar panels installed on the roof of the White House; his immediate successor has them removed.

2020 Highest-ever temperature recorded in the Arctic circle, 38C (100F) in Verkhoyansk, Siberia.

[Rockstar]

20 June 451, A coalition led by Roman General Flavius Aetius and Visigoth King Theodorid defeat Attila the Hun at the Battle of Châlons. Theodorid was killed at the battle. It was one of the last major military operations of the Western Roman Empire.

1837, The United Kingdom’s Queen Victoria begins her reign at the age of 18. She was crowned on June 28, 1838 and ruled until her death on January 22, 1901.

1921, Congresswoman Alice Mary Robertson, a Republican from Oklahoma, becomes the first woman to preside over a session of the House of Representatives. She was the first woman to serve from Oklahoma and the second woman to serve in Congress.

1840, U.S. inventor Samuel Morse receives a patent for the telegraph. He also co-invented Morse code. Before becoming an inventor, he was a well known portrait painter.

1942 ,Estevan Point Lighthouse & Wireless Station on Vancouver Island Canada is shelled by Japanese submarine I-26.

[Rockstar]

20 June 1963, The United States, Britain and the Soviet Union agreed to establish a "hotline" between the two nations due to tensions between the countries.



1898, USS Charleston captured Guam. The island's garrison was unaware that there was a state of war between the US and Spain, so they mistook salvos from the Charleston as a salute. When officials went to greet the ship, they were shocked to learn that they had become PoWs.

[Jimbuna]

1854 First Victoria Cross won during bombardment of Bomarsund in the Aland Islands (Crimean War)

1887 Britain celebrates the golden jubilee of Queen Victoria.

1900 In the Philippines, General Arthur McArthur, US military governor of the Philippines, issues an amnesty proclamation to those Filipinos who will renounce the insurgent movement and accept US sovereignty.

1919 The German Navy, feeling betrayed by the terms of the Versailles Treaty, scuttles most of its ships interned at Great Britain's Scapa Flow Naval base in the Orkney Islands.

1948 HMT Empire Windrush with the first 800 emigrants from the West Indies to the UK arrives at Port of Tilbury near London.

1964 Three civil rights workers, Michael Schwerner, Andrew Goodman and James Chaney, disappear after being released from a Mississippi jail, later found murdered by members of the Ku Klux Klan.

1975 Elton John, The Eagles and The Beach Boys play to 72,000 fans at Wembley Stadium, London.

1978 The British Army shoots dead 3 Provisional Irish Republican Army volunteers and a passing Ulster Volunteer Force member at a postal depot on Ballysillan Road, Belfast; it is claimed that the PIRA volunteers were about to launch a bomb attack.

[Rockstar]

21 June 1527, Italian Niccolo Machiavelli dies. He was a founder of modern political science and political ethics. The term "Machiavellianism" is used as a negative term to characterize unscrupulous politicians he described in his book The Prince.

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1933. First flight of the Supermarine Walrus amphibious seaplane. Initially a private venture, the first customer was the Australian government (as the Seagull V). The aircraft was then adopted by the RAF and Royal Navy as the Walrus, entering service in 1936. Developed primarily as a reconnaissance aircraft, its most important role would prove to be air-sea rescue, with many a ditched Allied airman relieved to see its approach. Affectionately known as the ‘Shagbat’ or ‘Steam Pigeon’, just under 750 Walruses were produced by January 1944.


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1939, The New York Yankees announce the retirement of Lou Gehrig, who had been recently diagnosed with amyotrophic lateral sclerosis (ALS). He last played on April 30, then a record 2,130 consecutive games played.

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1942, The Japanese submarine I-25 attacks Fort Stevens in Oregon near the mouth of the Columbia River during World War II. The sub fired shots at the fort from its gun deck, but the shots missed. No one was killed or injured.

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1943, Tripoli. Tunisia. HM King George VI riding with Montgomery.


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1948, Columbia Records introduces the 33 1/3 revolutions per minute record at the Waldorf-Astoria Hotel in New York City.

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1957, Soviet spy Rudolph Abel was arrested for espionage. His undoing began when a Brooklyn newsboy found a hollow nickel containing a coded message, drawing FBI interest. Abel was later exchanged for American U-2 pilot Gary Powers, a prisoner of the USSR.

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1970, Brazil, led by Pele, defeats Italy, 4-1, to win its third World Cup.

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1982, John Hinckley, Jr. is found not guilty by reason of insanity for trying to assassinate U.S. President Ronald Reagan on March 30, 1981 at the Washington Hilton Hotel.

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2009, Greenland gains additional self-rule from Denmark. However, the Danish government retains control of foreign affairs and defense.

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2018