On June 15, 1215, England’s King John put his seal to the Magna Carta at Runnymede.
In 1520 Pope Leo X threatened to excommunicate Martin Luther if he did not recant his religious beliefs.
In 1752 Benjamin Franklin demonstrated the relationship between lightning and electricity when he launched a kite in a Philadelphia storm.
In 1775 the Second Continental Congress voted unanimously to appoint George Washington commander of the Continental Army.
In 1836 Arkansas became the 25th state.
In 1843 composer Edvard Grieg was born in Bergen, Norway.
In 1844 Charles Goodyear received a patent for his process to strengthen rubber through a process called vulcanizing.
In 1846 the U.S. and Britain signed a treaty settling the Canadian boundary in the Pacific Northwest.
In 1864 Secretary of War Edwin Stanton signed an order establishing the military burial ground that would become Arlington National Cemetery.
In 1904 more than 1,000 people died in a fire aboard the steamboat General Slocum in New York’s East River.
In 1932 former New York Gov. Mario Cuomo was born in Queens, N.Y.
In 1937 country singer Waylon Jennings was born in Littlefield, Texas.
In 1938 Cincinnati Reds left-hander Johnny Vander Meer became the only major leaguer to pitch successive no-hit, no-run games.
In 1944 American forces began their successful invasion of Saipan during World War II.
In 1977 voters went to the polls in Spain’s first democratic parliamentary election in more than four decades.
In 1978 Jordan’s King Hussein married 26-year-old American Lisa Halaby and proclaimed her Queen Noor.
In 1992 Vice President Dan Quayle erroneously instructed a Trenton, N.J., elementary school pupil to spell potato as “potatoe” during a spelling bee.
In 1993 former Texas Gov. John Connally, who had been wounded in the gunfire that killed President John F. Kennedy in Dallas, died in Houston; he was 76.
In 1994 Israel and the Vatican established full diplomatic relations.
In 1996 singer Ella Fitzgerald died in Beverly Hills, Calif.; she was 78. Also in 1996 Joseph Jeremiah McCarthy, the Chicago firefighter whose heroic dash across a killing field in World War II’s Battle of Iwo Jima earned him a Medal of Honor, died in Delray Beach, Fla.; he was 83.
In 1998 the Supreme Court ruled that state prison inmates are protected by the Americans with Disabilities Act.
In 1999 a magnitude-6.7 earthquake in central Mexico killed at least 17 people.
In 2000 Al Gore named Commerce Secretary William Daley to take over his presidential campaign, replacing Tony Coelho, who had abruptly resigned, citing health problems.
In 2001 the Los Angeles Lakers defeated the Philadelphia 76ers 108-96 in Game 5 to win their second straight NBA championship.
In 2002 the Chicago-based accounting firm Arthur Andersen was convicted of obstruction of justice for shredding audit documents of Enron Corp.
In 2003 actor Hume Cronyn died in Fairfield, Conn., at 91.
In 2004 the Southern Baptist Convention quit a global federation of Baptist denominations as SBC leaders denounced the Baptist World Alliance and other groups for accepting liberal theology.
In 2005 the autopsy released on Terri Schiavo backed the contention of her husband, Michael, that she was in a persistent vegetative state, finding she was severely and irreversibly brain-damaged and blind.
