June 3

2024 Calendar

June 3 is the 154th day of the year (155th in leap years) in the Gregorian calendar. There are 211 days remaining until the end of the year.

Events

Up to 1950

350 - Roman usurper Nepotianus, of the Constantinian dynasty, proclaims himself Roman Emperor, ending Rome, leading a group of gladiators.
1326 – The Treaty of Novgorod determines the border between Russia and the Finnmark region of northern Norway.
1539 – Hernando de Soto claims Florida for Spain.
1608 – Samuel de Champlain completes his 3rd voyage to New France at Tadoussac, Quebec.
1621 – The Dutch West India Company receives a charter for the New Netherlands.
1665 - Future-King James II of England/James VII of Scotland defeats the Dutch fleet off Lowestoft, Suffolk, England.
1769 – At Tahiti, James Cook observes the transit of Venus.
1781 - American Revolutionary War: Jack Jouett makes a midnight ride to warn Thomas Jefferson and the Virginia Legislature of coming British cavalry who had been sent to capture them.
1789 – From Fort Chipewyan, a Alexander MacKenzie-led expedition, to find a river link to the Pacific Ocean coast of Canada, sets off.
1839 - In Humen, China, Lin Tse-hsu destroys 1.2 million kilograms of opium taken from British merchants, providing the United Kingdom with the "casus belli" to begin hostilities, resulting in the First Opium War.
1858 – Francis Thomas Gregory climbs the world's biggest monolith (single piece of rock), Mount Augustus in Western Australia. He names the rock after his brother, Augustus Gregory.
1861 – American Civil War: Union troops defeat Confederate forces in the Battle of Philippi in Virginia.
1864 – American Civil War: Battle of Cold Harbor - Union forces attack Confederate troops in Hanover County, Virginia.
1885 - Last military engagement on Canadian soil - Cree leader Big Bear escapes from the North-West Mounted Police.
1889 – The Transcontinental Canadian Pacific Railway is completed.
1889 – The first long-distance electric power transmission line in the United States is completed, 14 miles (23 kilometres) from a Generator at Willamette Falls in Oregon to Portland, Oregon.
1916 - The National Defense Act is signed into law, increasing the size of the United States National Guard.
1937 – Almost 6 months after his abdication as King, Edward VIII of the United Kingdom marries Wallis Simpson.
1940 – World War II: The Battle of Dunkirk ends, as Allied forces retreat.
1940 – World War II: The Luftwaffe bombs Paris.
1940 - Franz Redemacher proposes Madagascar as the "Jewish Homeland".
1941 – World War II: The Wehrmacht razes the village of Kandanos, Greece, to the ground, killing 180 of its residents.
1942 – World War II: Japan begins its Aleutian Islands campaign by attacking Unalaska Island.
1947 - Viceroy Louis Mountbatten, 1st Earl Mountbatten of Burma announces the planned Partition of India.
1950 – Maurice Herzog and Louis Lachenal climb Annapurna in the Himalayas. It is the first successful ascent of a mountain higher than 8000 metres.

From 1951

1959 - Singapore is declared a self-governing state, though remaining within the British Empire.
1961 - US President John F. Kennedy and Soviet leader Nikita Khrushchev meet in Vienna, Austria, for talks.
1962 – A Boeing 707 plane crashes near Paris, killing 130 people.
1963 – A Northwest Airlines DC-7 crashes into the Pacific Ocean off British Columbia, Canada, killing 101 people.
1965 – NASA Gemini 4 mission: Crew member Edward Higgins White becomes the first American to perform a spacewalk.
1968 - Valerie Solanas attempts to kill artist Andy Warhol.
1969 – Off South Vietnam, Australian aircraft carrier HMAS Melbourne cuts United States Navy destroyer USS Frank E. Evans in half.
1973 – The Supersonic Tupolev Tu-144 plane crashes in France, killing 14 people.
1979 – The Ixtoc I oil well explodes in the Gulf of Mexico, leading to one of the worst-ever oil spills.
1980 – Seven tornadoes hit Grand Island, Nebraska, killing 5 people and destroying many homes.
1982 - Shlomo Argov, Israel's Ambassador to the United Kingdom, is shot and seriously injured in an assassination attempt in London.
1984 – The Indian government's Operation Blue Star military offensive begins at the Golden Temple in Amritsar.
1989 – The crushing of protests at Tiananmen Square in Beijing begins. Hundreds of people are killed.
1989 – Iran's Supreme Leader Ayatollah Khomeini dies.
1991 – Mount Unzen on Kyushu, Japan, erupts, killing 43 people, all of them researchers or journalists.
1992 - Aboriginal land rights are granted in Australia.
1993 - France and Spain recognize the independence of Andorra.
1998 – A major train derailment occurs in Eschede, Germany, killing 101 people.
2003 - A train crash in Chinchilla, Castile-La Mancha, Spain, kills 19 people and injures around 50.
2006 – Montenegro becomes independent.
2008 – Barack Obama secures the Democratic Party nomination for President of the United States, over Hillary Clinton.
2010 – The name of the Queen Charlotte Islands, British Columbia, Canada, is officially changed back to Haida Gwaii.
2012 – Dana Air Flight 997 crashes into a building in Lagos, Nigeria, killing all 153 people on board and more than 40 on the ground.
2017 - The June 2017 London attack is carried out, killing 8 people in a car-ramming and stabbing attack.
2018 - The Volcan de Fuego volcano in Guatemala erupts, killing at least 69 people.

Births

Deaths

Up to 1975

628 - Liang Shidu, Chinese rebel leader
800 - Staurakios, Byzantine general
1395 - Ivan Shishman of Bulgaria (b. 1350)
1397 - William de Montacute, 2nd Earl of Salisbury, English commander (b. 1328)
1411 – Leopold IV, Regent of Tyrol and Further Austria
1615 - Sanada Yukimura, Japanese samurai (b. 1567)
1649 - Manuel de Faria e Sousa, Portuguese historian and poet (b. 1590)
1657 – William Harvey, English physician (b. 1578)
1780 – Thomas Hutchinson, colonial Governor of Massachusetts (b. 1711)
1826 – Nikolai Karamzin, Russian writer (b. 1766)
1858 – Julius Reubke, German composer (b. 1834)
1861 – Stephen A. Douglas, American politician (b. 1813)
1875 – Georges Bizet, French composer (b. 1838)
1882 - Christian Wiberg, German painter (b. 1839)
1894 – Karl Eduard Zachariae, expert on Byzantine Law (b. 1812)
1899 – Johann Strauss II, Austrian composer (b. 1825)
1900 – Mary Kingsley, English explorer (b. 1862)
1906 - John Maxwell, American golfer (b. 1871)
1918 - Ramon Maximiliano Valdes, 7th President of Panama (b. 1867)
1924 – Franz Kafka, Austrian novelist (b. 1883)
1928 – Li Yüan-hung, Chinese general and political figure (b. 1864)
1946 – Mikhail Kalinin, Soviet-Russian politician (b. 1875)
1963 – Nazim Hikmet (b. 1902)
1963 – Pope John XXIII (b. 1881)
1964 – Frans Eemil Sillanpaa, Finnish writer (b. 1888)
1969 - George Edwin Cooke, American soccer player (b. 1883)
1970 – Hjalmar Schacht, Minister of Economics and President of the Reichsbank under Adolf Hitler (b. 1877)
1971 – Heinz Hopf, German mathematician (b. 1894)
1975 - Eisaku Sato, Prime Minister of Japan (b. 1901)
1975 – Ozzie Nelson, American band leader, producer, director, and actor (b. 1906)

1976 – 2010

1977 – Roberto Rossellini, Italian movie director, father of Isabella Rossellini, husband of Ingrid Bergman (b. 1906)
1977 – Archibald Hill, English mathematician, won the 1922 Nobel Prize in Physiology or Medicine (b. 1886)
1986 - Anna Neagle, English actress (b. 1904)
1987 - Will Sampson, American actor and artist (b. 1933)
1989 – Ayatollah Ruhollah Khomeini, Iranian Shi'ite Islamic leader (b. 1900)
1990 – Stiv Bators, American musician, punk rock singer with The Dead Boys (b. October 22, 1949)
1990 – Robert Noyce, American inventor (b. 1927)
1991 – Katia Krafft, French volcanologist (b. 1942)
1991 – Maurice Krafft, French volcanologist (b. 1946)
1991 – Takeshi Nagata, Japanese geophysicist (b. 1913)
1992 – Robert Morley, English actor (b. 1908)
1994 - Puig Aubert, French rugby player (b. 1925)
1997 - Dennis James, American actor and game show host (b. 1917)
2000 - Merton Miller, American economist (b. 1923)
2001 – Anthony Quinn, Mexican-American actor (b. 1915)
2002 - Lew Wasserman, American talent agent and studio executive (b. 1913)
2003 – Felix de Weldon, Austrian sculptor (b. 1907)
2004 – Frances Shand Kydd, mother of Diana, Princess of Wales (b. 1936)
2005 – Harold Cardinal, Cree political leader, writer and lawyer (b. 1945)
2006 - Johnny Grande, American singer (b. 1932)
2009 – Koko Taylor, American musician (b. 1928)
2009 – David Carradine, American actor (b. 1936)
2010 – Vladimir Arnold, Russian mathematician (b. 1937)
2010 – Rue McClanahan, American actress (b. 1934)

From 2011

2011 – Jack Kevorkian, American physician and assisted suicide activist (b. 1928)
2011 – James Arness, American actor (b. 1923)
2012 – Roy Salvadori, British racing driver (b. 1922)
2013 - Frank Lautenberg, United States Senator for New Jersey (b. 1924)
2013 - Jiah Khan, American-born British-Indian actress (b. 1988)
2013 - Atul Chitnis, German-Indian technician (b. 1962)
2014 - Gopinath Munde, Indian politician (b. 1949)
2014 - James Alan Shelton, Australian bluegrass guitarist (b. 1960)
2014 - Karl Harris, British motorcycle racer (b. 1979)
2014 - Svyatoslav Belza, Russian scholar, critic and essayist (b. 1942)
2014 - Virginia Luque, Argentine actress (b. 1927)
2015 - Avi Beker, Israeli academic (b. 1951)
2015 - Margaret Juntwait, American radio host (b. 1957)
2016 - Muhammad Ali, American boxer (b. 1942)
2016 - Jocelyn Lovell, Canadian cyclist (b. 1950)
2016 - Sten Lundin, Swedish motocross racer (b. 1931)
2016 - Luis Salom, Spanish motorcycle racer (b. 1991)
2016 - Dave Swarbrick, English musician and singer-songwriter (b. 1941)
2016 - Adolph Cornelis van Bruggen, Dutch malacologist (b. 1929)
2017 - David Choby, American Roman Catholic prelate (b. 1947)
2017 - Niels Helveg Petersen, Danish politician (b. 1939)
2017 - Jimmy Piersall, American baseball player (b. 1929)
2017 - John K. Watts, Australian footballer and broadcaster (b. 1937)
2017 - Vincent Tshabalala, South African golfer (b. 1942)
2018 - Robert Brylewski, Polish singer-songwriter (b. 1961)
2018 - Frank Carlucci, American politician (b. 1930)
2018 - Jerry Hopkins, American journalist and blogger (b. 1935)
2018 - Miguel Obando y Bravo, Nicaraguan cardinal (b. 1926)
2018 - Mario Toros, Italian politician (b. 1922)
2018 - Georg von Tiesenhausen, German-American rocket scientist (b. 1914)

Observances

World Bicycle Day
European Bicycle Day
Montenegro Independence Day
Confederate Memorial Day (Kentucky, Louisiana, Tennessee)

June 3

Events

Up to 1950

From 1951

Births

Up to 1900

1901 – 1950

1951 – 1975

From 1976

Deaths

Up to 1975

1976 – 2010

From 2011

Observances