Magna Carta—a charter of English liberties that occupies a unique place in the popular imagination as a symbol and a battle cry against oppression—was sealed this day, under threat of civil war, by King John in 1215.
| 1944: | | During World War II, U.S. Marines attacked Saipan in the Mariana Islands. |
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| 1903: | | American automobile-racing driver Barney Oldfield accomplished the first mile-a-minute performance in a car at Indianapolis, Indiana. |
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| 1861: | | | Austrian contralto Ernestine Schumann-Heink, one of the principal interpreters of the operas of Richard Wagner and Richard Strauss before the outbreak of World War I, was born. |
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| 1846: | | The United States and Britain signed the Oregon Treaty, establishing the border between Canada and the United States at latitude 49° N. |
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| 1844: | | Charles Goodyear received a patent for the process of rubber vulcanization. |
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| 1775: | | | George Washington was named commander in chief of the colonies by the Continental Congress. |
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| 1752: | | | Benjamin Franklin flew a kite during a storm in Philadelphia to demonstrate the relationship between electricity and lightning. |
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| 1389: | | The Battle of Kosovo, fought between the armies of the Serbian prince Lazar and the forces of the Ottoman sultan Murad I, concluded with an Ottoman victory. |
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