On This Day — 10 June
2000s
2025
Eleven people are killed, including the perpetrator, and eleven others are injured, in a mass shooting at a secondary school in Graz, Austria.
2025 Graz school shooting
2024
A plane crash in Malawi leaves 10 people dead, including the country's Vice President Saulos Chilima.
2024 Chikangawa Dornier 228 crash
2018
Opportunity rover, sends it last message back to Earth. The mission was finally declared over on February 13, 2019.
Opportunity (rover)
2009
Eighty-eight year-old James Wenneker von Brunn opens fire inside the United States Holocaust Memorial Museum and fatally shoots Museum Special Police Officer Stephen Tyrone Johns. Other security guards returned fire, wounding von Brunn, who was apprehended.
United States Holocaust Memorial Museum
2008
Sudan Airways Flight 109 crashes at Khartoum International Airport, killing 30 people.
Sudan Airways Flight 109
2003
The Spirit rover is launched, beginning NASA's Mars Exploration Rover mission.
Spirit (rover)
2002
The first direct electronic communication experiment between the nervous systems of two humans is carried out by Kevin Warwick in the United Kingdom.
Kevin Warwick
2001
Pope John Paul II canonizes Lebanon's first female saint, Saint Rafqa.
Pope John Paul II
1900s
1999
Kosovo War: NATO suspends its airstrikes after Slobodan Milošević agrees to withdraw Serbian forces from Kosovo.
Kosovo War
1997
Before fleeing his northern stronghold, Khmer Rouge leader Pol Pot orders the killing of his defense chief Son Sen and 11 of Sen's family members.
Khmer Rouge
1996
Peace talks begin in Northern Ireland without the participation of Sinn Féin.
Northern Ireland
1994
China conducts a nuclear test for DF-31 warhead at Area C (Beishan), Lop Nur, its prominence being due to the Cox Report.
DF-31
1991
Eleven-year-old Jaycee Lee Dugard is kidnapped in South Lake Tahoe, California; she would remain a captive until 2009.
Kidnapping of Jaycee Dugard
1990
British Airways Flight 5390 lands safely at Southampton Airport after a blowout in the cockpit causes the captain to be partially sucked from the cockpit. There are no fatalities.
British Airways Flight 5390
1987
June Democratic Struggle: The June Democratic Struggle starts in South Korea, and people protest against the government.
June Democratic Struggle
1982
Lebanon War: The Syrian Arab Army defeats the Israeli Defense Forces in the Battle of Sultan Yacoub.
1982 Lebanon War
1980
The African National Congress in South Africa publishes a call to fight from their imprisoned leader Nelson Mandela.
African National Congress
1977
James Earl Ray escapes from Brushy Mountain State Penitentiary in Petros, Tennessee. He is recaptured three days later.
James Earl Ray
1967
The Six-Day War ends: Israel and Syria agree to a cease-fire.
Six-Day War
1964
United States Senate breaks a 75-day filibuster against the Civil Rights Act of 1964, leading to the bill's passage.
Filibuster
1963
The Equal Pay Act of 1963, aimed at abolishing wage disparity based on sex, was signed into law by John F. Kennedy as part of his New Frontier Program.
Equal Pay Act of 1963
1960
Trans Australia Airlines Flight 538 crashes near Mackay Airport in Mackay, Queensland, Australia, killing 29.
Trans Australia Airlines Flight 538
1957
John Diefenbaker leads the Progressive Conservative Party of Canada to a stunning upset in the 1957 Canadian federal election, ending 22 years of Liberal Party government.
John Diefenbaker
1947
Saab produces its first automobile.
Saab Automobile
1945
Australian Imperial Forces land in Brunei Bay to liberate Brunei.
Second Australian Imperial Force
1944
World War II: Six hundred forty-three men, women and children massacred at Oradour-sur-Glane, France.
Oradour-sur-Glane massacre
1944
World War II: In Distomo, Boeotia, Greece, 228 men, women and children are massacred by German troops.
Distomo
1944
In baseball, 15-year-old Joe Nuxhall of the Cincinnati Reds becomes the youngest player ever in a major-league game.
Baseball
1942
World War II: The Lidice massacre is perpetrated as a reprisal for the assassination of Obergruppenführer Reinhard Heydrich.
Lidice massacre
1940
World War II: Fascist Italy declares war on France and the United Kingdom, beginning an invasion of southern France.
World War II
1940
World War II: U.S. President Franklin D. Roosevelt denounces Italy's actions in his "Stab in the Back" speech at the graduation ceremonies of the University of Virginia.
Franklin D. Roosevelt
1940
World War II: Military resistance to the German occupation of Norway ends.
German occupation of Norway
1935
Dr. Robert Smith takes his last drink, and Alcoholics Anonymous is founded in Akron, Ohio, United States, by him and Bill Wilson.
Bob Smith (doctor)
1935
Chaco War ends: A truce is called between Bolivia and Paraguay who had been fighting since 1932.
Chaco War
1924
Fascists kidnap and kill Italian Socialist leader Giacomo Matteotti in Rome.
Fascism
1918
The Austro-Hungarian battleship SMS Szent István sinks off the Croatian coast after being torpedoed by an Italian MAS motorboat; the event is recorded by camera from a nearby vessel.
Austro-Hungarian Navy
1916
The Arab Revolt against the Ottoman Empire was declared by Hussein bin Ali, Sharif of Mecca.
Arab Revolt
1800s
1898
Spanish–American War: In the Battle of Guantánamo Bay, U.S. Marines begin the American invasion of Spanish-held Cuba.
Spanish–American War
1886
Mount Tarawera in New Zealand erupts, killing 153 people and burying the famous Pink and White Terraces. Eruptions continue for three months creating a large, 17 km (11 mi) long fissure across the mountain peak.
Mount Tarawera
1878
League of Prizren is established, to oppose the decisions of the Congress of Berlin and the Treaty of San Stefano, as a consequence of which the Albanian lands in the Balkans were being partitioned and given to the neighbor states of Serbia, Montenegro, Bulgaria, and Greece.
League of Prizren
1871
Sinmiyangyo: Captain McLane Tilton leads 109 US Marines in a naval attack on Han River forts on Kanghwa Island, Korea.
United States expedition to Korea
1868
Mihailo Obrenović III, Prince of Serbia is assassinated.
Mihailo Obrenović, Prince of Serbia
1864
American Civil War: Battle of Brice's Crossroads: Confederate troops under Nathan Bedford Forrest defeat a much larger Union force led by General Samuel D. Sturgis in Mississippi.
Battle of Brice's Cross Roads
1863
During the French intervention in Mexico, Mexico City is captured by French troops.
Second French intervention in Mexico
1861
American Civil War: Battle of Big Bethel: Confederate troops under John B. Magruder defeat a much larger Union force led by General Ebenezer W. Pierce in Virginia.
American Civil War
1854
The United States Naval Academy graduates its first class of students.
United States Naval Academy
1838
Myall Creek massacre: Twenty-eight Aboriginal Australians are murdered.
Myall Creek massacre
1829
The first Boat Race between the University of Oxford and the University of Cambridge takes place on the Thames in London.
The Boat Race
1805
First Barbary War: Yusuf Karamanli signs a treaty ending the hostilities between Tripolitania and the United States.
First Barbary War
Before 1800
1793
The Jardin des Plantes museum opens in Paris. A year later, it becomes the first public zoo.
Jardin des plantes
1793
French Revolution: Following the arrests of Girondin leaders, the Jacobins gain control of the Committee of Public Safety installing the revolutionary dictatorship.
French Revolution
1786
A landslide dam on the Dadu River created by an earthquake ten days earlier collapses, killing 100,000 in the Sichuan province of China.
Landslide dam
1782
King Buddha Yodfa Chulaloke (Rama I) of Siam (modern day Thailand) is crowned.
Rama I
1719
Jacobite risings: Battle of Glen Shiel.
Jacobitism
1692
Salem witch trials: Bridget Bishop is hanged at Gallows Hill near Salem, Massachusetts, for "certaine Detestable Arts called Witchcraft and Sorceries".
Salem witch trials
1624
Signing of the Treaty of Compiègne between France and the Netherlands.
Treaty of Compiègne (1624)
1619
Thirty Years' War: Battle of Záblatí, a turning point in the Bohemian Revolt.
Thirty Years' War
1596
Willem Barents and Jacob van Heemskerk discover Bear Island.
Willem Barentsz
1539
Council of Trent: Pope Paul III sends out letters to his bishops, delaying the Council due to war and the difficulty bishops had traveling to Venice.
Council of Trent
1523
Copenhagen is surrounded by the army of Frederick I of Denmark, as the city will not recognise him as the successor of Christian II of Denmark.
Copenhagen
1358
Battle of Mello: The peasant forces of the Jacquerie are crushed by the army of the French nobility.
Battle of Mello
1329
The Battle of Pelekanon is the last attempt of the Byzantine Empire to retain its cities in Asia Minor.
Battle of Pelekanon
1225
Pope Honorius III issues the bull Vineae Domini custodes in which he approves the mission of Dominican friars to Morocco.
Pope Honorius III
1190
Third Crusade: Frederick I Barbarossa drowns in the river Saleph while leading an army to Jerusalem.
Third Crusade
671
Emperor Tenji of Japan introduces a water clock (clepsydra) called Rokoku. The instrument, which measures time and indicates hours, is placed in the capital of Ōtsu.
Emperor Tenji