TODAY IN HISTORY

TODAY IS THURSDAY, JUNE 4, 2020

On this day in history:

1615 - The fortress of Osaka, Japan, fell to shogun Ieyasu after a six month siege.

1629 - Dutch trading ship The Batavia is shipwrecked off Australia’s western coast.

1647 - The British army seized King Charles I and held him as a hostage.

1792 - Captain George Vancouver claimed Puget Sound for Britain.

1794 - British troops captured Port-au-Prince, Haiti.

1861 - Explorer William Wills heads for the camp of local Aborigines in his desperate search for survival.

1878 - Turkey turned Cyprus over to Britain.

1918 - French and American troops halted Germany’s offensive at Chateau-Thierry, France.

1940 - The British completed the evacuation of 300,000 troops at Dunkirk, France.

1942 - The Battle of Midway began. It was the first major victory for America over Japan during World War II. The battle ended on June 6 and ended Japanese expansion in the Pacific.

1943 - In Argentina, Juan Peron took part in the military coup that overthrew Ramon S. Castillo.

1944 - During World War II, the US Fifth Army entered Rome, which began the liberation of the Italian capital.

1946 - Juan Peron was installed as Argentina’s president.

1954 - French Premier Joseph Laniel and Vietnamese Premier Buu Loc initialed treaties in Paris giving “complete independence” to Vietnam.

1960 - The Taiwan island of Quemoy was hit by 500 artillery shells fired from the coast of Communist China.