June 24, 1948: The Soviet Union initiates the Berlin Blockade.
**June 25, 1985 **: The Aerlex Fireworks Factory Explosion in Oklahoma kills 21.
June 25, 1987 — 1987-06-25 is the last date until June 17, 2345 when the digits in yyyy-mm-dd format are all different (2345-06-17). That is a span of almost 358 years.
**June 25, 1876 — **The Battle of Little Big Horn begins.
June 26, 1977: 42 are killed in a prison fire in Columbia, Tennessee.
June 26, 2015: The U.S. Supreme Court ruled, 5–4, that same-sex couples have a constitutional right to marriage under the 14th Amendment to the United States Constitution.
June 26, 2000: The Human Genome Project announces the completion of a “rough draft” sequence of human DNA.
June 26, 1964: Beatles release “A Hard Day’s Night” album.
June 27, 1966: Dark Shadows premieres on ABC.
June 27, 1929: Scientists at Bell Laboratories in New York reveal a system for transmitting television pictures.
June 28, 1896: The Twin Shaft Mining Disaster
A mine shaft in Pittston, Pennsylvania collapses. 58 are killed in the cave-in. Mostly Lithuanian and Irish immigrants, the miners are entombed 434 below the surface and the bodies never recovered.
June 28, 1969: The Stonewall Riots begin after police raid the bar and begin transporting the customers to jail.
June 29, 1864: The St-Hilaire Train Disaster in Quebec kills 99 and leaves another 100 injured.
This is Canada’s deadliest rail accident in history. The eleven train cars and engine were crossing a swing bridge over the Richelieu River. But the swing bridge was not closed. The cars dropped onto each other and a passing barge below.
June 30, 1903: The Hanna Mine Explosion in Wyoming kills at least 169. A miner’s carelessness is blamed for the tragedy and therefore little if any safety precautions are enacted as a result. Five years later in 1908, the mine would again explode, this time killing 59.
June 30, 1948: John Bardeen, Walter Brattain, and William Shockley demonstrate their invention, the transistor, for the first time.
July 1, 1946: Test Able— Bikini Atoll.
July 2, 1990: The 1990 Mecca Tunnel Stampede kills 1426.
July 2, 1980: President Jimmy Carter reinstates draft registration for males 18 years of age.
(Also, BTW, July 2, 1930, my Mother was born. Happy Birthday, Mother!)
July 4,1898: The SS La Bourgogne Disaster.
In thick fog the French passenger ship La Bourgogne collides with the British ship Cromartyshire in the open waters of the North Atlantic. Of the 726 passengers and crew, 549 lives were lost. The deaths included all the children aboard and all the 300 women but one. Stories abound of crew members killing passengers for their spot on the few available lifeboats.
July 4, 1939: Lou Gehrig, recently diagnosed with Amyotrophic lateral sclerosis, informs a crowd at Yankee Stadium that he considers himself “The luckiest man on the face of the earth”, then announces his retirement from major league baseball.