History Bubbles

June 9th, 1537: Pope Paul III declares that Indians are “truly men”, being with the qualities and faults of other humans; they should not be enslaved.

June 9, 1973: Secretariat wins the Triple Crown the highest accolade in horse racing. The Triple Crown is achieved by winning the Kentucky Derby, The Belmont Stakes and the Preakness. Secretariat was the first horse since Citation in 1948 to win the Triple Crown.

June 8th, 1968: James Earl Ray is arrested on charges of the assassination of Martin Luther King Jr. Ray was arrested in London, England with plans on escaping to Rhodesia (modern day Zimbabwe. Ray would plead guilty, in order to avoid the electric chair, and was sentenced to 99 years in prison. 

June 7th, 1893: Mohandas Ghandi (later to be known as Mahatma) commits his first act of civil disobedience. While working as a lawyer in South Africa, he refuses to comply with the racial segregation of the train and is forcibly removed in Pietermaritzburg. 

June 7, 1948: Czechoslovakian president Eduard Benes resigns in his extended refusal to sign a constitution that made Czechoslovakia a communist state. He had been elected as the ‘president for life’ only a couple years earlier but with a surge in popularity for the Communist Party he was pushed out.

June 6th, 1933: The first drive in movie theatre opens. Located in Camden, New Jersey, U.S.A. the theatre held an estimated 400 cars and only charged 25 cents per car and a further 25 cents per person. 

June 6th, 1944: D-Day. American, Canadian and British troops stormed the beaches of Normandy to combat Nazi soldiers. For Operation Overlord, 176,000 allied troops were sent to France. It is known as the beginning of the end for Hitler’s Nazi forces.

June 4th, 1940: The Dunkirk Evacuation ends. The 9 day evacuation of allied forces from Belgium was estimated to have saved 338,000 troops from the impending Nazi takeover. 

June 4th, 1972: Two trains crash in Jessore, Bangladesh (western side of the map). The crash occurred when a stationmaster through the wrong switch sending an overloaded express train onto local tracks; hitting a second train in station. The crash killed 76 people and seriously injured another 500.

June 2nd, 1953: Queen Elizabeth II is crowned Queen of Britain and the Commonwealth. The ceremony was the first of its kind to be available for public consumption with it being broadcast on television. It is considered to be the reason ownership of televisions skyrocketed that year.

June 1st, 1967: The Beatles release Sgt. Pepper’s Lonely Hearts Club Band. At the time, it was considered the best rock album ever.