on this day in June

June 1	1958 Charles de Gaulle became prime minister of France
June 2	1988 Steven Venables became the first Briton to climb Mount Everest without oxygen
June 3	1956 Third class rail travel was abolished in the UK
June 4	1970 Tonga became independent 1958 The first Duke of Edinburgh awards were presented 1940 The evacuation from Dunkirk was completed 1913 Suffragette Emily Davidson was fatally injured when she tried to stop the King's Horse during the Derby
June 5	1975 The Suez canal was re-opened after eight years of closure 1916 Lord Kitchener was lost at sea
June 6	1978 The world's largest hedge maze was opened at Longleat, Wiltshire
June 7	1942 The first UK massed start bicycle race of modern times and on open roads was held Llangollen to Wolverhampton
June 8	1968 James Earl Ray was arrested and charged with the murder of Martin Luther King 1924 The mountaineer George Mallory disappeared on Mount Everest 1376 Edward the Black Prince died
June 9	1940 The Duke of Windsor was appointed Governor of the Bahamas
June 10	1968 The last original episode of Round the Horne was broadcast 1909 The SOS distress signal was transmitted for the first time 1829 The first Oxford and Cambridge University boat race took place
June 11	1987 Diane Abbott, Paul Boeteng and Bernie Grant are elected the first British black MPs
June 12	1837 Sir William Cooke and Sir Charles Wheatcroft patented the first electric telegraph
June 13	1991 Leningrad reverted to its pre-revolutionary name of St Petersburg
June 14	1968 The Basil Brush Show was first seen on television
June 15	1919 Alcock and Brown completed the first non-stop Atlantic crossing by aeroplane
June 16	1963 Russian astronaut Valentina Tereshkova became the first woman in space 1960 Psycho was premiered in New York
June 17	1959 Liberace won £8,000 libel charges from The Daily Mirror for implying he was a homosexual 1939 The last public execution in France by guillotine took place 1860 Brunel's ship The Great Eastern began her maiden voyage
June 19	1910 Father's Day was initiated in the USA
June 20	1960 Nan Winton became the first woman to read the news on BBC tv
June 21	1970 Tony Jacklin became the first Englishman for 50 years to win the US Open golf championship 1854 Charles Lucas won the first Victoria Cross when he retrieved and disposed of an unexploded enemy bomb
June 22	1867 Barbed wire was patented
June 23	1924 The seeding system was introduced to the Wimbledon tennis championships
June 24	1992 Steel making in Scotland ended with the last production shift at the Ravenscraig steel works in Motherwell 1314 Robert the Bruce defeated the English at the Battle of Bannockburn
June 25	1988 David Galloway and Andrew Muirhead sheared 706 sheep in 9 hours at Lesmahagow, Strathclyde
June 26	1960 Madagascar became independent 1959 The St Lawrence Seaway was officially opened by Elizabeth II and President Eisenhower
June 27	1787 Edward Gibbon finished writing "The Decline and Fall of the Roman Empire" 1743 George II, the last British monarch to command their army in the field, defeated the French at the battle of Dettingen
June 28	2001 Comic actress Joan Sims died 1914 Gavrillo Princip assassinated the Archduke Franz Ferdinand and his wife at Sarajevo 1838 Queen Victoria was crowned
June 29	1966 Barclays Bank launched Barclaycard - the first British credit card
June 30	1980 Vigdis Finnbogadottir was elected President of Iceland - the first democratically elected female head of state 1991 The last five Shackleton aircraft were withdrawn from service with the RAF

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