Today is Saturday, June 16, the 167th day of 2018. There are 198 days left in the year.

1586 Mary, Queen of Scots, recognises Philip II of Spain as her heir and successor.

1745 War of the Austrian Succession: New England colonial troops under the command of William Pepperrell capture the Fortress of Louisbourg in Louisbourg, New France ( Old Style date).

1755 French and Indian War: The French surrender Fort Beauséjour to the British, leading to the expulsion of the Acadians.

1846 Spain declares war on the Kingdom of Great Britain, and the Great Siege of Gibraltar begins.

1925 The most famous Young Pioneer camp of the Soviet Union, Artek, is established.

1940 World War II: Marshal Henri Philippe Pétain becomes Chief of State of Vichy France ( Chef de l’État Français).

1948 Members of the Malayan Communist Party kill three British plantation managers in Sungai Siput; in response, British Malaya declares a state of emergency.

1981 US President Ronald Reagan awards the Congressional Gold Medal to Ken Taylor, Canada’s former ambassador to Iran, for helping six Americans escape from Iran during the hostage crisis of 1979- 81; he is the first foreign citizen bestowed the honour.

1989 Revolutions of 1989: Imre Nagy, the former Hungarian Prime Minister, is reburied in Budapest following the collapse of Communism in Hungary.

1997 Daïat Labguer ( M’sila) massacre in Algeria: Fifty people die.

2000 Israel complies with United Nations Security Council Resolution 425 22 years after its issuance, which calls on Israel to completely withdraw from Lebanon. Israel does so, except the disputed Shebaa farms.

2010 Bhutan becomes the first country to institute a total ban on tobacco.

2012 China successfully launches its Shenzhou 9 spacecraft, carrying three astronauts, including the first female Chinese astronaut Liu Yang, to the Tiangong- 1 orbital module.

The United States Air Force’s robotic Boeing X- 37B spaceplane returns to Earth after a classified 469- day orbital mission. 2012 A multi- day cloudburst centered on the North Indian state of Uttarakhand caused devastating floods and landslides becoming the country’s worst natural disaster since the 2004 tsunami. 2013 Shanghai Disneyland Park, the first Disney Park in Mainland China opens.