This Day in History

1337: The Hundred Years' War begins with French king Philip VI's seizure of Guyenne from the English.
1819: The Savannah, , the first steam-powered vessel to cross the Atlantic Ocean, sails from Savannah, Ga., reaching Liverpool, England on June 20.
1822: Ecuador is liberated from Spanish colonial rule when a patriot army triumphs over the Royalist forces at Pichincha.
1830: The first stretch of railroad in the U.S. opens to the public. It runs from Baltimore to Ellicott's Mills, a distance of 21 km (13 mi).
1844: Samuel Morse sends the first official message over a telegraph line--"What hath God wrought?"--from Washington, DC, to Baltimore.
1856: Abolitionist John Brown and his sons kill five pro-slavery adherents at Pottawatomie Creek, Kansas.
1883: The Brooklyn Bridge opens in New York City.
1935: The first night baseball game is played, at Crosley Field in Cincinnati, OH.
1962: Scott Carpenter circles the Earth 3 times, in the Aurora 7, becoming the 2nd American to orbit the Earth.
1976: The Concorde, a supersonic transport airplane, begins flights to the U.S., flying from London and Paris to Dulles International Airport near Washington, D.C.
1993: Eritrea, formerly part of Ethiopia, becomes independent.
2000: Israel ends its 22-year military occupation of Southern Lebanon.
2001: Senator James Jeffords of Vermont switches his party affiliation from Republican to Independent, breaking a 50-50 tie in the U.S. Senate and throwing control of the organization to the Democrats.
2002: Pres. George W. Bush and Russian Pres. Vladimir Putin sign a treaty in Moscow which binds both nations to cut nuclear weapons forces by two-thirds.