June 15 in history — On This Day

A photograph taken after the 1871 fire can make Chicago look as though its future had been decided by a wall of flame. A view from around 1905 tells a different story: tall offices, busy transport routes and commercial streets crowded again.

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Ottoman and Serbian armies fight at Kosovo

This Week in History

Hayabusa returns a capsule from asteroid Itokawa

South Korea’s June Democracy Movement begins

Diefenbaker breaks the Liberals’ long run in Canada

Prince Mihailo is assassinated near Belgrade

AI History Recreations

Politics

Finland’s Russian governor-general is fatally shot

War & Conflict

Ottoman and Serbian armies fight at Kosovo

Space

Shenzhou 9 takes Liu Yang and her crewmates into orbit

Technology

Aurel Vlaicu flies his first aircraft

History

Lux Radio Theatre broadcasts its final episode

The Iași pogrom begins

Radio Free Europe begins broadcasting

Crime & Justice

Nine worshippers are murdered at Emanuel AME Church

France carries out its last public execution

Joetha Collier is murdered in Mississippi

Science

A criticality accident exposes Louis Slotin to radiation

Joseph Priestley isolates the gas later named oxygen

Stones fall from the sky near L’Aigle

Medicine & Health

A French team reports isolating a virus later named HIV

An electron microscope reveals the shape of Ebola virus

Ether Day: The Demonstration That Changed Surgery

Nature & Disasters

A Rachel Carson sculpture is dedicated in Woods Hole

A solar halo over Stockholm inspires a famous city view

Market Street Before and After the 1906 Earthquake

Exploration

Soviet scientists establish North Pole-1 on drifting ice

La Salle is killed by members of his own expedition

The First Flight Around the World Returns to Seattle

Sport

Georgia Tech 222, Cumberland 0: The Game Behind the Impossible Score

Don Larsen’s Perfect Game: No Hits, No Walks, No Baserunners

Reggie Jackson’s Three Home Runs Seal a World Series

Art & Literature

Rudolf Nureyev defects in Paris

James Joyce and Nora Barnacle share the date later called Bloomsday

The Ninth Street Show opens in New York

Music

Britten’s Noye’s Fludde premieres at Aldeburgh

Szymanowski’s King Roger premieres in Warsaw

Evita opens in London’s West End

Film & TV

Parasite wins the Palme d’Or at Cannes

Disney’s Three Little Pigs premieres

Stanley Kubrick’s The Shining begins its theatrical run

The Story Behind the Photo

Chicago After the Fire: From Burned Blocks to a New Skyline

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The Road to the Moon

Fires That Changed Cities

The Age of Invention

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My Birthday in History

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