What Happened on June 3rd in History
30 historical events on this date
Liverpool F.C. is founded by John Houlding.
Liverpool Football Club is a professional football club based in Liverpool, Merseyside, England. The club competes in the Premier League, the top tier of English football. Founded in 1892, the club...
The National Defense Act is signed into law, increasing the size of the United States National Guard by 450,000 men.
The National Defense Act of 1916, Pub. L. 64–85, 39 Stat. 166, enacted June 3, 1916, was a United States federal law that updated the Militia Act of 1903, which related to the organization of the...
One thousand unemployed Canadian workers board freight cars in Vancouver, beginning a protest trek to Ottawa.
The On-to-Ottawa Trek was a mass protest movement in Canada in 1935 sparked by unrest among unemployed single men in federal relief camps principally in Western Canada. The trek started in Vancouver...
The Duke of Windsor (the former King Edward VIII of the United Kingdom) marries Wallis Simpson.
Edward VIII, later known as the Duke of Windsor, was King of the United Kingdom and the British Dominions, and Emperor of India, from 20 January 1936 until his abdication in December of the same year.
World War II: During the Battle of France, the Luftwaffe bombs Paris.
World War II, or the Second World War, was a global conflict between two coalitions: the Allies and the Axis powers. Nearly all of the world's countries participated. Tanks and aircraft played major...
Franz Rademacher proposes plans to make Madagascar the "Jewish homeland", an idea that had first been considered by 19th century journalist Theodor Herzl.
Franz Rademacher was a German lawyer and diplomat. As an official in the Nazi government of the Third Reich during World War II, he was known for initiating action on the Madagascar Plan.
World War II: The Wehrmacht razes the Greek village of Kandanos to the ground and murders 180 of its inhabitants.
The Wehrmacht were the unified armed forces of Nazi Germany from 1935 to 1945. It consisted of the Heer (army), the Kriegsmarine (navy) and the Luftwaffe. The designation "Wehrmacht" replaced the...
World War II: Japan begins the Aleutian Islands Campaign by bombing Unalaska Island.
The Empire of Japan, also known as the Japanese Empire or Imperial Japan, was the period of Japanese history spanning 79 years, starting with the Meiji Restoration on 3 January 1868, and ending with...
In Los Angeles, California, white U.S. Navy sailors and Marines attack Latino youths in the five-day Zoot Suit Riots.
Los Angeles, also known as L.A., is the most populous city in the U.S. state of California, and the commercial, financial, and cultural center of Southern California. With an estimated 3.87 million...
Herzog and Lachenal of the French Annapurna expedition become the first climbers to reach the summit of an 8,000-metre peak.
Maurice André Raymond Herzog was a French mountaineer and administrator who was born in Lyon, France. He led the 1950 French Annapurna expedition that first climbed a peak over 8000m, Annapurna, in...
At Paris Orly Airport, Air France Flight 007 overruns the runway and explodes when the crew attempts to abort takeoff, killing 130.
Paris Orly Airport is one of two international airports serving Paris, France, the other one being Charles de Gaulle Airport (CDG). It is located partially in Orly and partially in...
Soldiers of the South Vietnamese Army attack protesting Buddhists in Huế with liquid chemicals from tear-gas grenades, causing 67 people to be hospitalized for blistering of the skin and respiratory ailments.
The Huế chemical attacks occurred on 3 June 1963, when soldiers of the Army of the Republic of Vietnam (ARVN) poured liquid chemicals from tear gas grenades onto the heads of praying Buddhists in...
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.
Gemini 4 was the second crewed spaceflight in NASA's Project Gemini, occurring in June 1965. It was the tenth crewed American spaceflight. Astronauts James McDivitt and Ed White orbited the Earth 66...
Melbourne-Evans 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, resulting in 74 deaths.
The Melbourne–Evans collision was a collision between the light aircraft carrier HMAS Melbourne of the Royal Australian Navy (RAN) and the destroyer USS Frank E. Evans of the United States Navy...
A Soviet supersonic Tupolev Tu-144 crashes near Goussainville, France, killing 14, the first crash of a supersonic passenger aircraft.
The Soviet Union, officially the Union of Soviet Socialist Republics (USSR), was a transcontinental country that spanned much of Eurasia from 1922 until its dissolution in 1991. It was the world's...
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.
Ixtoc 1 was an exploratory oil well being drilled by the semi-submersible drilling rig Sedco 135 in the Bay of Campeche of the Gulf of Mexico, about 100 km (62 mi) northwest of Ciudad del Carmen,...
The 1980 Grand Island tornado outbreak hits Nebraska, United States, causing five deaths and $300 million (equivalent to $1172 million in 2025) worth of damage.
The 1980 Grand Island tornado outbreak, also known as The Night of the Twisters, was a tornado outbreak that produced a series of destructive and exceptionally erratic tornadoes that affected the...
The Israeli ambassador to the United Kingdom, Shlomo Argov, is shot on a London street; he survives but is left paralysed.
Shlomo Argov was an Israeli diplomat. He was the Israeli ambassador to the United Kingdom, whose attempted assassination led to the 1982 Lebanon War.
Operation Blue Star, a military offensive, is launched by the Indian government at Harmandir Sahib, also known as the Golden Temple, the holiest shrine for Sikhs, in Amritsar. The operation continues until June 6, with casualties, most of them civilians, in excess of 5,000.
Operation Blue Star was a military operation by the Indian Armed Forces conducted between 1 and 10 June 1984, with the stated objective of removing Damdami Taksal leader Jarnail Singh Bhindranwale...
The government of China sends troops to force protesters out of Tiananmen Square after seven weeks of occupation.
Tiananmen Square or Tian'anmen Square is a city square in the city centre of Beijing, China, named after the Tiananmen located to its north, which separates it from the Forbidden City imperial...
Mount Unzen erupts in Kyūshū, Japan, killing 43 people, all of them either researchers or journalists.
Mount Unzen is an active stratovolcano of several overlapping small, volcanic cones, near the city of Shimabara, Nagasaki on the island of Kyushu, Japan's southernmost main island.
Australian Aboriginal land rights are recognised in Mabo v Queensland (No 2), a case brought by Torres Strait Islander Eddie Mabo which led to the Native Title Act 1993 overturning the long-held colonial assumption of terra nullius.
Mabo v Queensland is a landmark decision of the High Court of Australia that recognised the existence of Native Title in Australia. It was brought by Eddie Mabo and others against the State of...
After suffering a mechanical failure, a high speed train derails at Eschede, Germany, killing 101 people.
On 3 June 1998, part of an ICE 1 train on the Hanover–Hamburg railway near Eschede in Lower Saxony, Germany, derailed and crashed into an overpass that crossed the railroad, which then collapsed...
The union of Serbia and Montenegro comes to an end with Montenegro's formal declaration of independence.
The State Union of Serbia and Montenegro, known until 2003 as the Federal Republic of Yugoslavia (FRY) and commonly referred to as Yugoslavia, was a country in the Balkans in Southeast Europe that...
A plane carrying 153 people crashes in a residential neighborhood in Lagos, Nigeria, killing everyone on board plus six people on the ground.
Dana Air Flight 0992 was a scheduled Nigerian domestic passenger flight from Nnamdi Azikiwe International Airport to Murtala Muhammed International Airport. On 3 June 2012, the McDonnell Douglas...
The pageant for the Diamond Jubilee of Elizabeth II takes place on the River Thames.
The Thames Diamond Jubilee Pageant was a parade on 3 June 2012 of 670 boats on the Tideway of the River Thames in London as part of the celebrations of the Diamond Jubilee of Elizabeth II. The...
The trial of United States Army private Chelsea Manning for leaking classified material to WikiLeaks begins in Fort Meade, Maryland.
United States v. Manning was the court-martial of Chelsea Manning, a former United States Army Private First Class.
At least 119 people are killed in a fire at a poultry farm in Jilin Province in northeastern China.
On 3 June 2013, a fire at the Jilin Baoyuanfeng (吉林宝源丰) poultry processing plant in Mishazi (米沙子镇), a town about 35 km (22 mi) from Changchun, in Jilin province, People's Republic of China, killed...
Khartoum massacre: In Sudan, over 100 people are killed when security forces accompanied by Janjaweed militiamen storm and open fire on a sit-in protest.
The Khartoum massacre occurred on 3 June 2019, when the armed forces of the Sudanese Transitional Military Council, headed by the Lieutenant-General Abdel Fattah Abdelrahman Burhan of the Sudanese...
Reconstitution of the Academy of the Distrustful in the Sala Dalmases of the Historical Archive of the City of Barcelona in Barcelona.
The Academy of the Distrustful, or Distrustful Academy, is an academy of letters founded on 3 June 1700 in Barcelona as a Baroque literary and musical academy with the aim of promoting the study of...