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HISTORY & TIMELINE
22 June

A journey through
22 June in history

The story of 22 June runs from a Roman victory at Pydna in 168 BC to the discovery of Pluto’s largest moon in 1978. In between come a church council at Ephesus, a Swiss rout of Burgundy beside the lake at Murten, the capture of a Javanese port, a royal warrant for an observatory at Greenwich, a painter’s wedding in Friesland, a new constitution for Quebec, a long walk through the Niagara woods, the largest invasion in history, a troopship’s arrival on the Thames, a treaty between Japan and South Korea and two goals by Diego Maradona that nobody who saw them has forgotten.

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JUMP THROUGH TIME
I
EARLIEST RECORDS

Ancient & Early History

The earliest worthwhile records and events connected with this date.

-168
Aemilius Paullus and the captive Perseus, painted by Jean-François-Pierre Peyron in 1802Aemilius Paullus and the captive Perseus, painted by Jean-François-Pierre Peyron in 1802Image: Jean-François Pierre Peyron · Public domain
world · Europe

Rome ends the Macedonian kingdom at Pydna

The Roman consul Lucius Aemilius Paullus drew King Perseus of Macedon down from a strong position on the Elpeus river to fight on the plain near Pydna. On 22 June 168 BC, the day after an eclipse of the Moon that the Macedonians took as an evil omen, the Roman legions broke the Macedonian phalanx. Perseus fled and was later captured and led through Rome in Paullus’s triumph, and the kingdom of Alexander the Great’s successors was abolished.

Source: Britannica: Battle of Pydna ↗
431
The Council of Ephesus shown in a mosaic in the basilica of Notre-Dame de Fourvière, LyonThe Council of Ephesus shown in a mosaic in the basilica of Notre-Dame de Fourvière, LyonImage: User:Palamède · CC BY-SA 4.0
culture · Middle East

Bishops at Ephesus depose the patriarch of Constantinople

Nestorius, patriarch of Constantinople from 428, caused uproar by objecting to the popular title Theotokos, ‘God-bearer’, for the Virgin Mary. He preferred to call her the mother of Christ, arguing that the human and divine natures in Jesus should be kept distinct. His great rival, Cyril, patriarch of Alexandria, accused him of splitting Christ in two, and the emperor Theodosius II called a general council of the church to meet at Ephesus, on the Aegean coast of Asia Minor, in 431. Cyril did not wait for everyone to arrive. On 22 June 431 he opened the council without the bishops travelling from Syria under John of Antioch, and in a single day’s sitting the assembly condemned Nestorius’s teaching and deposed him, with about 200 bishops signing the sentence. When John arrived five days later he held a rival meeting that deposed Cyril in turn. The emperor finally let the verdict against Nestorius stand, and he died in exile. The council’s affirmation of Mary as Theotokos became part of mainstream Christian doctrine, while churches further east that honoured Nestorius went their own way.

Source: Catholic Encyclopedia (New Advent): Council of Ephesus ↗
II
THE MIDDLE AGES

Medieval History

Kingdoms, conflict, faith, power and the changing medieval world.

1476
The Battle of Murten in the illustrated Swiss chronicle of Diebold Schilling the Elder, about 1480The Battle of Murten in the illustrated Swiss chronicle of Diebold Schilling the Elder, about 1480Image: Diebold Schilling der Ältere · Public domain
world · Europe

The Swiss rout Charles the Bold at Murten

Charles the Bold, Duke of Burgundy, was humiliated by the Swiss Confederates at Grandson in March 1476 and returned that summer with a new army to besiege Murten (Morat), on the road to Bern. On 22 June 1476 a Swiss relief army fell on his lines and routed the Burgundians, many of whom were driven into the lake. The victory made the Swiss infantry famous across Europe, and Charles was killed at Nancy the following January.

Source: Britannica: Battle of Morat ↗
III
A CHANGING WORLD

Early Modern Era

Exploration, political change, scientific development and expanding global connections.

1527
The stone padrão set up by the Portuguese at Sunda Kelapa, now in the National Museum of Indonesia, JakartaThe stone padrão set up by the Portuguese at Sunda Kelapa, now in the National Museum of Indonesia, JakartaImage: Hadiyana (id.wikipedia) · CC BY-SA 3.0
world · Asia

Fatahillah drives the Portuguese from the port that became Jakarta

Sunda Kelapa, at the mouth of the Ciliwung river on the north coast of Java, was the chief port of the Hindu kingdom of Sunda, busy with the pepper trade. In the early 1520s the kingdom, worried by the rise of the Muslim sultanate of Demak, made an agreement with the Portuguese, who had taken Malacca in 1511, allowing them to build a fort at the harbour. A carved stone pillar, or padrão, marked the pact. The Portuguese never secured their foothold. Forces from Demak and Cirebon under the commander Fatahillah seized Sunda Kelapa, and when Portuguese ships arrived they were driven off. The city’s own government records the attack on 22 June 1527, and Jakarta has kept that day as its anniversary. Fatahillah renamed the port Jayakarta, meaning roughly ‘great victory’. In 1619 the Dutch East India Company took the town and built Batavia on its ruins, but the old name survived, and as Jakarta it became the capital of independent Indonesia.

Source: Jakarta Provincial Government: Sejarah Jakarta ↗
1634
Saskia van Uylenburgh, painted by Rembrandt in a portrait probably begun soon after their marriage (National Gallery of Art, Washington)Saskia van Uylenburgh, painted by Rembrandt in a portrait probably begun soon after their marriage (National Gallery of Art, Washington)Image: Rembrandt · Public domain
culture · Europe

Rembrandt marries Saskia van Uylenburgh

By the early 1630s Rembrandt van Rijn, a miller’s son from Leiden, had moved to Amsterdam and was becoming the city’s most sought-after portrait painter. He worked through the business of the art dealer Hendrick Uylenburgh, and through him met Saskia van Uylenburgh, Hendrick’s cousin and the orphaned daughter of a burgomaster of Leeuwarden in Friesland. The two were betrothed in June 1633. They married on 22 June 1634 in the church at Sint Annaparochie in Friesland. The match brought Rembrandt a wife from a well-connected family, and Saskia became one of his most frequent models, appearing in drawings, etchings and paintings, sometimes dressed as a goddess or shepherdess. Their married life was also marked by grief: of their four children only their son Titus, born in 1641, survived infancy, and Saskia died the following year, aged about 29.

Source: Rembrandt House Museum: Rembrandt’s life and work, important dates ↗
1675
Flamsteed House, the original building of the Royal Observatory, on its hilltop above Greenwich ParkFlamsteed House, the original building of the Royal Observatory, on its hilltop above Greenwich ParkImage: JaneArt · CC BY-SA 3.0
science · Europe

Charles II orders an observatory to be built at Greenwich

Finding longitude at sea was the great unsolved problem of seventeenth-century navigation. One proposed answer was to use the Moon’s movement against the stars as a clock in the sky, but that needed far better star charts and tables of the Moon than anyone possessed. In March 1675 Charles II appointed the young astronomer John Flamsteed as his ‘astronomical observator’ to produce them. On 22 June 1675 the king issued a warrant for building ‘a small observatory within our park at Greenwich, upon the highest ground’. Sir Christopher Wren designed it, the foundation stone was laid that August, and Flamsteed moved in the following year, spending decades on the observations that became his great star catalogue. The Royal Observatory went on to give its name to Greenwich Mean Time, and in 1884 an international conference chose the meridian passing through its transit instrument as the prime meridian of the world.

Source: Royal Museums Greenwich: The founding of the Royal Observatory ↗
1774
The original parchment of the Quebec Act, 1774, held in the Parliamentary Archives, LondonThe original parchment of the Quebec Act, 1774, held in the Parliamentary Archives, LondonImage: Parliamentary Archives, London · Public domain
world · Americas

The Quebec Act gives French Canada its own law and faith

After Britain won New France in the Seven Years’ War, it tried at first to govern the St Lawrence colony like any other British province, with English law and oaths that barred Roman Catholics from office. That made little sense in a colony whose people were almost all French-speaking Catholics, and governors James Murray and Guy Carleton urged London to change course. The Quebec Act, which received the royal assent on 22 June 1774, did so. It guaranteed Catholics the free practice of their religion, let the church collect its tithes, restored French civil law for property and family matters while keeping English criminal law, and replaced the anti-Catholic oath with one of loyalty to the king. It also stretched Quebec’s borders south-west into the Ohio valley. To the thirteen colonies further south, already angry over the punishment of Boston, the act looked like a threat, and it was counted among the grievances that led to the American Revolution. For French Canadians it became a foundation of their survival as a distinct people.

Source: The Canadian Encyclopedia: Quebec Act, 1774 ↗
IV
THE NINETEENTH CENTURY

The 1800s

Industry, empire, invention, reform and a century of enormous transformation.

1813
Laura Secord warning Lieutenant James FitzGibbon, painted by Lorne Kidd Smith around 1920Laura Secord warning Lieutenant James FitzGibbon, painted by Lorne Kidd Smith around 1920Image: Lorne Kidd Smith (1880-1966) · Public domain
world · Americas

Laura Secord sets out to warn the British at Beaver Dams

During the War of 1812 Laura Secord, living at Queenston in Upper Canada, learned that American troops planned a surprise attack on the British outpost at Beaver Dams. Early on 22 June 1813 she set out on foot and walked some 30 kilometres through woods and fields to warn Lieutenant James FitzGibbon. Two days later Indigenous warriors allied to Britain ambushed the American column, and FitzGibbon accepted its surrender. She became one of Canada’s best-known heroines.

Source: Government of Canada: Laura Secord ↗
V
THE TWENTIETH CENTURY

The 1900s

War and peace, technological leaps, social change, politics, sport and popular culture.

1941
The Kholm Gate of the Brest Fortress in Belarus, whose garrison, on the Soviet border, was attacked in the first hours of the invasionThe Kholm Gate of the Brest Fortress in Belarus, whose garrison, on the Soviet border, was attacked in the first hours of the invasionImage: Alexxx1979 · CC BY-SA 4.0
world · Europe

Germany invades the Soviet Union

In August 1939 Hitler and Stalin had signed a non-aggression pact, and for almost two years the two dictatorships traded with each other while Germany conquered much of Europe. But Hitler had long seen the east as ‘living space’ for Germans, and he regarded the Soviet state as his real enemy. In December 1940 he ordered plans for an invasion under the code name Barbarossa. At about 3.15 on the morning of Sunday 22 June 1941 more than three million German troops, with their Finnish, Romanian and other allies, attacked along a front stretching from the Baltic to the Black Sea. It was the largest invasion force in history. Stalin had ignored many warnings, and in the first weeks the Red Army lost vast numbers of men in great encirclements. Yet the Soviet Union did not collapse. The German advance was halted before Moscow in December, and the war in the east, the most destructive in human history, went on for nearly four more years until the Red Army reached Berlin.

Source: Britannica: Operation Barbarossa ↗
1948
HMT Empire Windrush, the troopship that brought passengers from the Caribbean to Tilbury in 1948HMT Empire Windrush, the troopship that brought passengers from the Caribbean to Tilbury in 1948Image: Royal Navy official photographer · Public domain
world · Europe

The Windrush passengers step ashore at Tilbury

The Empire Windrush was a troopship on its way back to Britain from Australia when it called at Kingston, Jamaica, in May 1948. Britain was short of workers after the war, and the British Nationality Act passing through Parliament that year confirmed the rights of people across the empire as British subjects. Tickets were advertised, and many of those who bought them had served in the Royal Air Force or other forces during the war. The ship anchored in the Thames at Tilbury on 21 June 1948, and the next day, 22 June, its passengers came ashore. The passenger list held by the National Archives records 1,027 people, more than 800 of whom gave a last address in the Caribbean. Some stayed at first in a deep shelter under Clapham Common and found work nearby in Brixton. The ship’s name came to stand for the whole generation who came to Britain from the Caribbean between 1948 and the early 1970s, and since 2018 the United Kingdom has marked 22 June as Windrush Day.

Source: The National Archives: Empire Windrush, Caribbean migration ↗
1965
Park Chung Hee, the South Korean president whose government concluded the 1965 treaty with JapanPark Chung Hee, the South Korean president whose government concluded the 1965 treaty with JapanImage: Korea.net / Korean Culture and Information Service · CC BY-SA 2.0
world · Asia

Japan and South Korea sign a treaty restoring relations

Twenty years after the end of Japanese colonial rule in Korea, Japan and the Republic of Korea signed the Treaty on Basic Relations in Tokyo on 22 June 1965. It established diplomatic relations and declared the old treaties of annexation already null and void, and a separate agreement gave South Korea 300 million dollars in grants and 200 million in loans while settling claims between the two countries. It was bitterly opposed by many South Koreans and came into force that December.

Source: United Nations Treaty Series: Treaty on Basic Relations, Japan and Republic of Korea ↗
1978
The US Naval Observatory photographs of 1978 in which Pluto appears with a bulge, revealing CharonThe US Naval Observatory photographs of 1978 in which Pluto appears with a bulge, revealing CharonImage: U.S. Naval Observatory · Public domain
science · Americas

An astronomer spots a bump on Pluto and finds its moon Charon

On 22 June 1978 James Christy of the US Naval Observatory was measuring photographic plates of Pluto taken at the observatory’s station at Flagstaff, Arizona, when he noticed that the tiny image of the planet sometimes had a bump on one side. With his colleague Robert Harrington he showed that the bump came and went on a regular cycle: Pluto had a large moon. Christy named it Charon, after the ferryman of the dead in Greek myth.

Source: NASA: 45 years ago, astronomers discover Pluto’s moon Charon ↗
1986
Diego Maradona celebrates his second goal against England at the Estadio Azteca, as England defender Terry Butcher sits on the pitchDiego Maradona celebrates his second goal against England at the Estadio Azteca, as England defender Terry Butcher sits on the pitchImage: Dani Yako · Public domain
sport · Americas

Maradona’s ‘Hand of God’ and the goal of the century

Argentina and England met in the quarter-finals of the 1986 World Cup at the Estadio Azteca in Mexico City on 22 June 1986, four years after the two countries had fought over the Falkland Islands. The first half was goalless. Six minutes after the break Diego Maradona rose with the England goalkeeper Peter Shilton for a looping ball and knocked it into the net with his hand. The Tunisian referee did not see the handball and the goal stood. Afterwards Maradona said it was scored ‘a little with the head of Maradona and a little with the hand of God’. Four minutes later he scored a goal of an entirely different kind, picking up the ball in his own half and running past England player after player before rounding Shilton to score. Gary Lineker pulled one back, but Argentina won 2-1 and went on to win the tournament. The second goal was later voted the goal of the century in a poll run by FIFA, and the match remains the most famous of Maradona’s career.

Source: FIFA: Diego Maradona, Hand of God, Argentina v England 1986 ↗
RESEARCH

Sources & Further Reading

Selected authoritative references supporting the events on this page.

WHY THESE MOMENTS?

Significance before volume

This page is not the longest possible list of events. It is a chronological journey through 22 June, where each entry is chosen for historical significance, human interest and reliability.

Facts are checked against authoritative museums, archives, universities and reference works. Where sources disagree, the page says so.

EXPLORED THE DEEPER STORY?

Return to the highlights of 22 June

Discover the lighter side of the date with famous birthdays, culture, firsts and lives remembered.

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