313Licinius publishes the promise of freedom agreed at Milan
Early in 313 the two most powerful men in the Roman world met at Milan. Constantine, master of the West, and Licinius, who was about to fight for control of the East, agreed a policy that would change the history of Europe: Christians, and everyone else, were to be free to follow whatever religion they chose, and churches and property seized from Christians during the persecutions were to be handed back.
There was no single decree signed in Milan. What survives are letters Licinius sent to his provincial governors once he had beaten his rival Maximinus Daia that spring. The writer Lactantius, who lived in Nicomedia, records that Licinius entered the city and on the Ides of June, 13 June 313, had the letter to the governor of Bithynia made public there. It brought the last great persecution of the Christians to an end and made theirs a lawful faith across the empire.
Read the full storyHistory & Timeline →Source: Britannica: Edict of Milan ↗
1381The rebels of 1381 enter London and burn the Savoy
In 1380 the English government imposed its third poll tax in four years, a flat charge on almost every adult to pay for the war with France. Anger that had been building since the Black Death boiled over in Essex and Kent in the early summer of 1381. The Kentish men chose Wat Tyler as their captain on 7 June, took Canterbury on 10 June and marched on London, where King Richard II was just fourteen years old.
On 13 June the rebels crossed into the city. They made for the Savoy, the grand riverside palace of the king’s uncle John of Gaunt, whom many blamed for the tax, and burned it to the ground; Flemish merchants in the city were also hunted down and killed. Within two days the rebels had seized the Tower and Tyler had been killed at Smithfield in front of the king, and the rising soon fell apart.
Read the full storyHistory & Timeline →Source: Britannica: Peasants’ Revolt ↗
1971The New York Times begins printing the Pentagon Papers
In 1967 the US defence secretary Robert McNamara ordered a secret history of American involvement in Vietnam. The finished study ran to 47 volumes, written by 36 analysts, and it showed that the Truman, Eisenhower, Kennedy and Johnson administrations had misled the public about how deeply the country was committed. One of the analysts, Daniel Ellsberg, turned against the war, copied the report and, after failing to interest senators, took it to a reporter at The New York Times.
On 13 June 1971 the Times began publishing it. The Nixon administration went to court and won an order stopping further instalments, but on 30 June the Supreme Court ruled 6 to 3 that the press could go on printing. Ellsberg and his colleague Anthony Russo were charged under the Espionage Act; in 1973 the case was thrown out when evidence of gross government misconduct came to light.
Read the full storyHistory & Timeline →Source: Britannica: Pentagon Papers ↗
2000The leaders of the two Koreas meet for the first time
The Korean War ended in 1953 with an armistice, not a peace, and for almost half a century the leaders of North and South never met face to face. Kim Dae-jung, a veteran campaigner for democracy who became South Korea’s president in 1998, set out to change that with a policy of patient engagement with the North, known as the Sunshine Policy.
On 13 June 2000 his plane landed at Sunan airport in Pyongyang, and Kim Jong-il was waiting at the foot of the steps to greet him, the first meeting of the two Koreas’ leaders since the peninsula was divided. After three days of talks they signed a joint declaration on 15 June, promising to work towards reunification and to cooperate more closely. The United Nations General Assembly hailed the summit as a breakthrough, and later that year Kim Dae-jung was awarded the Nobel Peace Prize.
Read the full storyHistory & Timeline →Source: Korea.net (Government of the Republic of Korea): the inter-Korean summits ↗
1898The Klondike gold rush gives Canada a new territory
When gold was found in the Klondike in 1896, the far north-west of Canada was a thinly peopled corner of the vast Northwest Territories, governed from a long way off. Within two years tens of thousands of prospectors had poured in, most of them over the mountain passes from Alaska, and the federal government in Ottawa wanted a much firmer hand on the region.
On 13 June 1898 the Yukon Act made the Yukon a separate territory, with Dawson, at the meeting of the Klondike and Yukon rivers, as its capital. For a short time Dawson was one of the largest towns in western Canada, with around 40,000 people in 1898 and 1899. As the gold ran out the population fell away, and in 1953 the capital moved south to Whitehorse.
Read the full storyHistory & Timeline →Source: The Canadian Encyclopedia: Yukon and Confederation ↗
