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HISTORY & TIMELINE
7 June

A journey through
7 June in history

The story of 7 June runs from an Athenian teacher’s daughter marrying the Eastern Roman emperor in 421 to scientists announcing in 2017 that fossils from a Moroccan hillside push back the origins of our species. In between come crusaders camping before the walls of Jerusalem, two kings meeting in splendour on the Field of the Cloth of Gold, Charles I accepting the Petition of Right, the storming of the Morro de Arica, the first climbers on the summit of Denali, an Israeli air raid on an Iraqi reactor and Roger Federer’s long-awaited win in Paris.

Begin the Timeline ↓ ← Back to Explore This Day
JUMP THROUGH TIME
I
EARLIEST RECORDS

Ancient & Early History

The earliest worthwhile records and events connected with this date.

421
Theodosius II and Eudocia in a 14th-century miniature from the Chronicle of Constantine ManassesTheodosius II and Eudocia in a 14th-century miniature from the Chronicle of Constantine ManassesImage: Original: Constantine Manasses · Public domain
politics · Europe

An Athenian scholar’s daughter marries the emperor

Athenaïs, daughter of the Athenian teacher of rhetoric Leontius, came to Constantinople to contest her father’s will. The emperor’s powerful elder sister, Pulcheria, was struck by her learning and chose her as a bride for the young Theodosius II. She was baptised a Christian with the name Eudocia, and on 7 June 421 she married the emperor. A gifted writer, she composed poetry on Christian themes and ended her days in Jerusalem.

Source: Britannica: Eudocia ↗
II
THE MIDDLE AGES

Medieval History

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

1099
The siege of Jerusalem during the First Crusade, in a 14th-century manuscript illuminationThe siege of Jerusalem during the First Crusade, in a 14th-century manuscript illuminationImage: Unknown author · Public domain
world · Middle East

The First Crusade reaches the walls of Jerusalem

In 1095 Pope Urban II called on the knights of western Europe to march east and win Jerusalem for Christendom. After three years of hunger, disease and hard fighting across Anatolia and Syria, including a long siege of Antioch, the surviving crusaders turned south towards the Holy City. Jerusalem was then held by the Fatimid rulers of Egypt, whose governor was well supplied and expected help to arrive from Cairo. On 7 June 1099 the crusader army, by then shrunk to perhaps 1,200 to 1,500 knights and some 12,000 foot soldiers, camped before the walls. They had few siege engines until Genoese and English ships reached the port of Jaffa ten days later with rope and timber, which the crusaders used to build siege towers, ladders and a battering ram. On 15 July they broke into the city, and a massacre of its Muslim and Jewish inhabitants followed. The kingdom they founded lasted less than a century.

Source: Britannica: The Crusades, the siege of Jerusalem ↗
1494
Henry Harrisse's 1897 chart of the South American coast, showing where different mapmakers placed the Tordesillas lineHenry Harrisse’s 1897 chart of the South American coast, showing where different mapmakers placed the Tordesillas lineImage: Henry Harrisse (c.1830–1910) · Public domain
politics · Europe

Spain and Portugal divide the world at Tordesillas

When Christopher Columbus came home in 1493 with news of lands across the Atlantic, Spain moved quickly to secure them. Pope Alexander VI issued a series of bulls drawing a line down the ocean and granting Spain the lands to the west of it. King John II of Portugal was unhappy: the line left his sailors too little room on their routes down the coast of Africa, and he opened direct talks with Ferdinand and Isabella. Their envoys reached agreement in the Castilian town of Tordesillas, and the treaty was signed on 7 June 1494. It moved the line to 370 leagues west of the Cape Verde Islands, running from pole to pole: new lands to the east would belong to Portugal, those to the west to Spain. Nobody could yet measure longitude accurately, so its exact position was argued over for centuries. But the shift gave Portugal its claim to Brazil, reached by Pedro Álvares Cabral in 1500, which is why Brazilians speak Portuguese today. The treaty is now on UNESCO’s Memory of the World register.

Source: UNESCO Memory of the World: Treaty of Tordesillas ↗
III
A CHANGING WORLD

Early Modern Era

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

1520
The Field of the Cloth of Gold, painted by an unknown British artist in the 16th century, in the Royal CollectionThe Field of the Cloth of Gold, painted by an unknown British artist in the 16th century, in the Royal CollectionImage: Unknown British artist · Public domain
politics · Europe

Two kings meet on the Field of the Cloth of Gold

On 7 June 1520 Henry VIII of England and Francis I of France rode to meet each other in the Val Doré, a small valley between English-held Guînes and French Ardres, near Calais. Arranged by Cardinal Wolsey to seal a new friendship, the meeting lasted more than two weeks, with jousting, feasting, a temporary palace for Henry and tents so richly hung with gold cloth that they gave the event its name. The kings parted on good terms on 24 June, but within two years their countries were at war.

Source: Historic Royal Palaces: The Field of Cloth of Gold ↗
1628
The Petition of Right of 1628, held in the Parliamentary ArchivesThe Petition of Right of 1628, held in the Parliamentary ArchivesImage: Parliament of England. · Public domain
politics · Europe

Charles I accepts the Petition of Right

Angered by forced loans, imprisonment without trial and soldiers billeted in private homes, the English House of Commons drew up a Petition of Right and presented it to Charles I on 28 May 1628. His first reply, on 2 June, satisfied nobody. On 7 June, under heavy pressure, he gave his answer in the form that gave it the effect of law: no taxes without the consent of Parliament, no imprisonment without cause shown, no billeting of soldiers and no martial law in peacetime.

Source: UK Parliament: Charles I and the Petition of Right ↗
1692
A map of Port Royal comparing the shoreline before and after the earthquake of 1692 with the present-day coastA map of Port Royal comparing the shoreline before and after the earthquake of 1692 with the present-day coastImage: Unknown author · Public domain
world · Americas

An earthquake drags Port Royal into the sea

After England seized Jamaica from Spain in 1655, the town of Port Royal grew up at the tip of the long sandy spit that guards Kingston Harbour. Merchants, sailors and privateers made it the busiest and richest English port in the Americas, and a notorious haven for buccaneers. By 1690 between 8,000 and 10,000 people lived there, crowded into brick and timber buildings on ground that was little more than loose sand. A few minutes before noon on 7 June 1692 a violent earthquake struck. The sandy ground turned to liquid, and about 32 acres of the town slid beneath the waters of the harbour, while a wave swept across the bay. Around 2,000 people died that day, and many more in the sickness that followed. Survivors moved across the harbour to found the new town of Kingston, now Jamaica’s capital. The sunken streets of old Port Royal are one of the most important underwater archaeological sites in the Americas.

Source: Texas A&M University, Nautical Archaeology Program: History of Port Royal ↗
IV
THE NINETEENTH CENTURY

The 1800s

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

1810
The first page of the first issue of the Gazeta de Buenos-Ayres, dated Thursday 7 June 1810The first page of the first issue of the Gazeta de Buenos-Ayres, dated Thursday 7 June 1810Image: Gazeta de Buenos-Ayres (1810) · Public domain
culture · Americas

The Gazeta de Buenos Ayres goes on sale

In May 1810 the people of Buenos Aires removed the Spanish viceroy and set up their own governing council, the Primera Junta. Within days the Junta ordered a new weekly newspaper, so that the public could follow what their government was doing. Its secretary, the young lawyer Mariano Moreno, took charge, helped by fellow revolutionaries such as Manuel Belgrano and Juan José Castelli. The first issue of the Gazeta de Buenos Ayres appeared on 7 June 1810, its masthead carrying a line from the Roman historian Tacitus in praise of times when people may think what they like and say what they think. It printed the Junta’s decrees, news of the revolution and Moreno’s own essays on free government, and it became the voice of the movement towards independence. Since 1938 Argentina has marked 7 June as Journalists’ Day in its honour.

Source: Biblioteca Nacional Mariano Moreno: 7 de junio de 1810, comienza a publicarse La Gazeta de Buenos Ayres ↗
1880
The Morro de Arica, the headland above the port of Arica in northern ChileThe Morro de Arica, the headland above the port of Arica in northern ChileImage: Alexson Scheppa Peisino(AlexSP) · Public domain
world · Americas

Chile storms the Morro de Arica

In the War of the Pacific, Chile fought Peru and Bolivia for the nitrate-rich deserts of the coast. The Peruvian garrison of the port of Arica, commanded by Colonel Francisco Bolognesi, refused to surrender, Bolognesi declaring that he would fight to the last cartridge. At dawn on 7 June 1880 Chilean infantry stormed the forts and the Morro, the steep headland above the town, in fierce hand-to-hand fighting. Bolognesi was killed. Arica has been Chilean ever since, and Peru marks the day as its Flag Day.

Source: Biblioteca Nacional del Perú: BNP conserva material bibliográfico referente a la Batalla de Arica ↗
1893
Pietermaritzburg railway station in Natal, pictured in 1898Pietermaritzburg railway station in Natal, pictured in 1898Image: Unknown author · Public domain
world · Africa

Gandhi is thrown off a train at Pietermaritzburg

In 1893 Mohandas Karamchand Gandhi, a shy young lawyer trained in London, sailed to the British colony of Natal to help an Indian trading firm with a legal case. Soon after landing in Durban he set off by train for Pretoria, with a first-class ticket. Colonial South Africa was bound by rules that kept Indians and Africans out of spaces reserved for white people, and the journey was about to show him what that meant. When the train stopped at Pietermaritzburg on the night of 7 June 1893, a white passenger objected to sharing the compartment. Gandhi refused to move to another carriage, so he was forced off the train and spent a cold night in the station waiting room. He later saw that night as a turning point. He stayed in South Africa for more than twenty years, organising Indians against discriminatory laws and developing satyagraha, his method of non-violent resistance, which he later took home to India.

Source: South African History Online: M.K. Gandhi is forcibly removed from a whites-only train carriage ↗
V
THE TWENTIETH CENTURY

The 1900s

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

1913
Denali seen from an aircraft in 2003Denali seen from an aircraft in 2003Image: ArcticHokie · CC BY-SA 3.0
world · Americas

Climbers stand on top of Denali for the first time

On the afternoon of 7 June 1913, Hudson Stuck, the Episcopal archdeacon of the Yukon, Harry Karstens, Robert Tatum and Walter Harper reached the South Peak of Denali, the true summit of North America’s highest mountain. Harper, a 20-year-old of Koyukon Athabascan descent, was the first to step on to the top. Stuck took readings with a barometer and thermometer at the summit, and argued in his book The Ascent of Denali for the mountain’s Koyukon name.

Source: US National Park Service: A brief account of the 1913 climb of Mount McKinley ↗
1917
The Spanbroekmolen mine crater, now the Pool of Peace, left by the largest of the Messines minesThe Spanbroekmolen mine crater, now the Pool of Peace, left by the largest of the Messines minesImage: en:User:MisterBee1966 · Public domain
world · Europe

Nineteen mines erupt beneath Messines Ridge

Since 1914 German troops had held the low ridge between the Belgian villages of Wytschaete and Messines, south of Ypres, from which they could look down on the British lines. For more than a year British, Canadian and Australian tunnelling companies dug deep shafts and galleries beneath it in secret, fighting an underground war against German miners, and packed the chambers at the end with around a million pounds of explosives. At 3.10 in the morning on 7 June 1917, nineteen mines were fired almost at once. The blast was said to have been heard in London, and it killed thousands of German soldiers in an instant. Behind a creeping barrage from more than 2,000 guns, nine divisions from Britain, Ireland, Australia and New Zealand advanced and took the ridge within hours. The battle ran on until 14 June, a rare clear success on the Western Front. The largest crater, at Spanbroekmolen, is now a quiet pond called the Pool of Peace.

Source: Imperial War Museums: What you need to know about the Battle of Messines ↗
1981
Prime Minister Menachem Begin at a press conference about the raid, 11 June 1981Prime Minister Menachem Begin at a press conference about the raid, 11 June 1981Image: Ilan Meiri · CC BY 4.0
world · Middle East

Israeli jets destroy Iraq’s Osirak reactor

On the evening of 7 June 1981 Israeli warplanes flew hundreds of kilometres across the Middle East and bombed the Osirak nuclear reactor, which Iraq was building with French help at Tuwaitha, just outside Baghdad. Israel said Iraq meant to use it to make nuclear weapons, which Iraq denied. The raid destroyed the reactor’s core and set back Iraq’s nuclear programme, but on 19 June the UN Security Council unanimously condemned the attack in Resolution 487.

Source: Britannica: Osirak ↗
VI
2000 TO TODAY

Modern Day

The events of recent decades that have already become part of the historical record.

2009
Roger Federer celebrating on the clay of Roland-Garros during the 2009 French OpenRoger Federer celebrating on the clay of Roland-Garros during the 2009 French OpenImage: Yann Caradec · CC BY-SA 2.0
sport · Europe

Federer finally wins the French Open

By 2009 Roger Federer had won 13 Grand Slam singles titles, but the clay of Roland-Garros in Paris had always beaten him. He had lost the three previous finals there to Rafael Nadal, the four-time champion. Then, in the fourth round, the unseeded Swede Robin Söderling did what nobody had managed before: he beat Nadal at the French Open, opening the way for Federer. The two met in the final on 7 June 2009, and Federer won 6-1, 7-6, 6-4. The victory gave him the one major title he lacked, making him only the sixth man to win all four Grand Slam tournaments, and his 14th major singles title equalled the record of Pete Sampras. A month later he broke that record at Wimbledon.

Source: Roland-Garros: 2009, Roger Federer and Svetlana Kuznetsova ↗
2017
A cast of the skull Jebel Irhoud 1, found at the Moroccan site in 1961, at the Smithsonian's National Museum of Natural HistoryA cast of the skull Jebel Irhoud 1, found at the Moroccan site in 1961, at the Smithsonian’s National Museum of Natural HistoryImage: Jonathan Chen · CC BY-SA 4.0
science · Africa

Fossils from Morocco push back the dawn of our species

In the 1960s miners digging at Jebel Irhoud, a hill west of Marrakesh in Morocco, came across a human skull and other bones. For decades they were thought to be around 40,000 years old and were often compared with Neanderthals. From 2004 a team led by Jean-Jacques Hublin of the Max Planck Institute for Evolutionary Anthropology and Abdelouahed Ben-Ncer of Morocco’s national archaeology institute went back to the site, finding more fossils and stone tools. On 7 June 2017 they announced their results. Flint tools that had been heated in ancient fires were dated to about 300,000 years ago, making the Jebel Irhoud people the oldest known members of our species, Homo sapiens, by about 100,000 years. Their faces looked strikingly modern, though their braincases were longer and more old-fashioned. The finds suggest that our species did not arise in one corner of East Africa, but emerged across much of the African continent.

Source: Max Planck Institute for Evolutionary Anthropology: The first of our kind ↗
RESEARCH

Sources & Further Reading

Selected authoritative references supporting the events on this page.

Britannica: Eudocia↗Catholic Encyclopedia: Eudocia↗Britannica: The Crusades, the siege of Jerusalem↗World History Encyclopedia: The Capture of Jerusalem, 1099 CE↗UNESCO Memory of the World: Treaty of Tordesillas↗Britannica: Treaty of Tordesillas↗Historic Royal Palaces: The Field of Cloth of Gold↗Britannica: Field of Cloth of Gold↗UK Parliament: Charles I and the Petition of Right↗Britannica: Petition of Right↗Texas A&M University, Nautical Archaeology Program: History of Port Royal↗Royal Museums Greenwich: Account of the earthquake at Port Royal, 1692↗Biblioteca Nacional Mariano Moreno: 7 de junio de 1810, comienza a publicarse La Gazeta de Buenos Ayres↗Argentina Ministry of Culture: La Gazeta de Buenos Ayres, primer periódico de la etapa independentista↗Biblioteca Nacional del Perú: BNP conserva material bibliográfico referente a la Batalla de Arica↗Ejército de Chile: Asalto y toma del Morro de Arica↗South African History Online: M.K. Gandhi is forcibly removed from a whites-only train carriage↗South African Government News Agency: SA, India to commemorate Gandhi train incident↗US National Park Service: A brief account of the 1913 climb of Mount McKinley↗Britannica: Hudson Stuck↗Imperial War Museums: What you need to know about the Battle of Messines↗Australian War Memorial: Messines, tunnellers and mines↗Britannica: Osirak↗United Nations: Repertoire of the Practice of the Security Council, complaint by Iraq (1981)↗Roland-Garros: 2009, Roger Federer and Svetlana Kuznetsova↗Olympics.com: Roger Federer, five matches that defined his career↗Max Planck Institute for Evolutionary Anthropology: The first of our kind↗Natural History Museum: Oldest known Homo sapiens fossils discovered in Morocco↗
WHY THESE MOMENTS?

Significance before volume

This page is not the longest possible list of events. It is a chronological journey through 7 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 7 June

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

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