June 3
1539
Hernando de Soto claims
Florida for Spain.
1608
Samuel de Champlain completes his third voyage to
New France at Tadoussac, Quebec.
1621 The
Dutch West India Company receives a charter for
New Netherland.
1781
Jack Jouett begins his midnight ride to warn Thomas Jefferson and the Virginia legislature of an impending raid by
Banastre Tarleton.
1839 In Humen, China,
Lin Tse-hsό destroys 1.2 million kg of opium confiscated from British merchants, providing Britain with a casus belli to open hostilities, resulting in the
First Opium War.
1885 In the last military engagement fought on Canadian soil, the
Cree leader,
Big Bear, escapes the North-West Mounted Police.
1888 The poem
"Casey at the Bat", by
Ernest Lawrence Thayer, is published in
The San Francisco Examiner.
1889 The first long-distance
electric power transmission line in the United States is completed, running 14 miles (23 km) between a generator at Willamette Falls and downtown Portland, Oregon.
1916 The
National Defense Act is signed into law, increasing the size of the
United States National Guard by 450,000 men.
1937 The
Duke of Windsor marries
Wallis Simpson.
1942 World War II: Japan begins the
Aleutian Islands Campaign by
bombing Unalaska Island.
1943 In Los Angeles, California, white U.S. Navy sailors and Marines clash with Latino youths in the
Zoot Suit Riots.
1953 - Elvis Presley graduated from
L.C. Humes High School in Memphis. He was the first member of his family to graduate high school.
1962 At Paris' Orly Airport,
Air France Flight 007 overruns the runway and explodes when the crew attempts to abort takeoff, killing 130 people.
1965 The launch of
Gemini 4, the first multi-day space mission by a NASA crew.
Ed White, a crew member, performs the first American
spacewalk.
1969
MelbourneEvans collision: off the coast of South Vietnam, the Australian aircraft carrier
HMAS Melbourne cuts the U.S. Navy destroyer
USS Frank E. Evans in half.
1970 -
The Kinks' Ray Davies was forced to make a 6,000 mile round trip from New York to London to record one word in a song. Davies had to change the word 'Coca- Cola' to 'Cherry Cola' on the bands forthcoming single '
Lola' due to an advertising ban at BBC Radio.
1973 A Soviet supersonic T
upolev Tu-144 crashes near Goussainville, France, killing 14, the first crash of a supersonic passenger aircraft.
1979 A blowout at the
Ixtoc I oil well in the southern Gulf of Mexico causes at least 3,000,000 barrels (480,000 m3) of oil to be spilled into the waters, the second-worst accidental oil spill ever recorded.
1980 The
1980 Grand Island tornado outbreak: Seven tornadoes hit Grand Island, Nebraska, which take five lives, 357 single-family homes, 33 mobile homes, 85 apartments, 49 businesses and cause $300 million in damages.
1983 - US session drummer
Jim Gordon, murdered his mother by pounding her head with a hammer. A diagnosed
schizophrenic, it was not until his trial in 1984 that he was properly diagnosed. Due to the fact that his attorney was unable to use the insanity defense, Gordon was sentenced to sixteen years-to-life in prison in 1984. A Grammy Award winner for co-writing
"Layla" with Eric Clapton, Gordon worked with The Beach Boys, John Lennon, George Harrison, Frank Zappa and many other artists.
1989 The government of China sends troops to force protesters out of
Tiananmen Square after seven weeks of occupation.
1991
Mount Unzen erupts in Kyūshū, Japan, killing 43 people, all of them either researchers or journalists.
2012 A plane carrying 153 people on board
crashes in a residential neighborhood in Lagos, Nigeria, killing everyone on board and 10 people on the ground.
2012 The pageant for the
Diamond Jubilee of Elizabeth II takes place on the River Thames.
Births
1808 Jefferson Davis; 1864 Ransom E. Olds (founder
Oldsmobile &
REO Motor Car Co.); 1911 Ellen Corby ('Grandma Walton'); 1917 Leo Gorcey; 1924 Colleen Dewhurst; 1924 Jimmy Rogers (no,
the black one); 1925 Tony Curtis; 1926 Allen Ginsberg; 1927 Boots Randolph (
"Yakety Sax"); 1929 Chuck Barris; 1931 Raϊl Castro; 1936 Larry McMurtry; 1942 Curtis Mayfield; 1945 Hale Irwin; 1946 Tristan Rogers ('Robert Scorpio' on
"General Hospital"); 1947 Mickey Finn; 1950 Suzi Quatro; 1950 Deniece Williams (
"Let's Hear It For The Boy"), Robert Z'Dar (
"Maniac Cop"); 1951 Jill Biden; 1952 Billy Powell; 1964 James Purefoy; 1967 Anderson Cooper; 1976 Jamie McMurray
Deaths
1861 Stephen A. Douglas; 1875 Georges Bizet; 1899 Johann Strauss II; 1955
Barbara Graham; 1973 Dory Funk; 1975 Ozzie Nelson; 1987 Will Sampson ('Chief Bromden' in
"One Flew Over the Cuckoo's Nest"); 1990 Robert Noyce (co-founder
Intel); 1991
Katia Krafft, Maurice Krafft; 2001 Anthony Quinn; 2002 Lew Wasserman; 2009 David Carradine; 2011 James Arness; 2011 Jack Kevorkian; 2013 Deacon Jones