May 28, 1977: The Beverly Hills Supper Club Fire kills 165 in Southgate, Kentucky.
May 29, 1985: The Heysel Stadium Disaster
39 football fans are killed in a stampede/crush prior to a football game in Brussels, Belgium. Over 600 are injured.
May 29, 1953: Edmund Hillary and Sherpa Tenzing Norgay become the first people to reach the summit of Mount Everest, on Tenzing Norgay’s (adopted) 39th birthday.
May 30, 1948: The Vanport Flood wipes out what was at the time Oregon’s second largest city. 15 die and tens of thousands are left homeless.
May 30, 1883: A stampede on the recently-opened Brooklyn Bridge kills twelve people.
May 31, 1970: The Ancash Earthquake in Peru kills about 70,000. Another 140,000 are injured.
May 31, 1909: The National Negro Committee, forerunner to the National Association for the Advancement of Colored People (NAACP), convenes for the first time.
June 1 1974: A chemical plant explosion in Flixborough, England kills 28 and injures 36.
June 1, 1967: The Beatles’ Sgt. Pepper’s Lonely Hearts Club Band is released.
June 1, 2009: Air France Flight 447 crashes into the Atlantic Ocean off the coast of Brazil, on a flight from Rio de Janeiro to Paris. All 228 passengers and crew are killed.
June 2, 1983: Air Canada Flight 797 from Dallas to Montreal is forced to land at Cincinnati International Airport due to a bathroom fire. When the doors of the plane are opened after landing, the fresh oxygen causes a flashover throughout the plane’s interior. Many make it out unharmed but 23 are trapped and killed in the expanded flames.
June 3, 1962: Air France flight 007 crashes during takeoff in Orly, France. 130 are killed. 2 flight attendants in the back of the plane miraculously survive. At the time this was the deadliest single plane accident in history.
June 3, 1932 - Lou Gehrig set a major league baseball record when he hit four consecutive home runs.
June 3, 1943: In Los Angeles, white U.S. Navy sailors and Marines clash with Latino youths in the Zoot Suit Riots.
June 3, 1937: The duke of Windsor (formerly King Edward VIII of Great Britain) marries Wallis Warfield, the American divorcee for whom he abdicated the British throne.
June 4, 1974: It was “10-cent Beer Night” in Cleveland for the baseball game between the Indians and the Billy Martin managed Texas Rangers. The teams had already had a bench clearing brawl the week before in Texas. The legal drinking age was still 18. Each fan could buy up to 6 dime twelve ounce beers at a time, and then go back for more. There was a lot of trash talk before the game. Only 50 security personnel were on duty and the crowd was more than double the expected number. What could possibly go wrong?
The ESPN Sports Center video included with the linked article is well worth the watch.
Not in play: I did watch the ESPN video regarding 10-cent Beer Night in Cleveland. Fascinating stuff.
June 4, 1919: The 19th Amendment to the U.S. Constitution, guaranteeing women the right to vote, is passed by Congress and sent to the states for ratification.
June 4, 1989 : the Chinese military goes in to clear protestors in Tiananmen Square eventually using live ammunition and resulting in the deaths of hundreds of protestors. That was 29 years ago already. Tempis fugit!
Big day in the history of methods of transportation:
June 4, 1783: The Montgolfier brothers publicly demonstrate their montgolfière (hot air balloon).
June 4, 1784: Élisabeth Thible becomes the first woman to fly in an untethered hot air balloon. Her flight covers four kilometres in 45 minutes, and reached 1,500 metres altitude (estimated).
June 4, 1896: Henry Ford completes the Ford Quadricycle, his first gasoline-powered automobile, and gives it a successful test run.
June 4, 2010: Falcon 9 Flight 1 is the maiden flight of the SpaceX Falcon 9 rocket, which launches from Cape Canaveral Air Force Station Space Launch Complex 40.
June 5, 1946: The LaSalle Hotel Fire in Chicago kills 61 and injures 200.