Events, Births and Deaths Happening on this Date
Wednesday, June 3, 2026
Today is the 154th day of 2026. There are 211 days left in this year.
Notable Events
1621
The Dutch West India Company received a charter for New Netherlands, now known as New York.
1888
The poem ''Casey at the Bat,'' by Ernest Lawrence Thayer, was first published, in the San Francisco Daily Examiner.
1916
The Reserve Officer Training Corps (ROTC) was officially created by the U.S. National Defense Act.
1937
The Duke of Windsor, who had abdicated the British throne, married Wallis Warfield Simpson in Monts, France.
1943
The infamous Zoot Suit riots began in Los Angeles, with fights between white American soldiers stationed in Southern California and young Latinos in Los Angeles.
1965
Astronaut Edward White became the first American to "walk" in space, during the flight of Gemini 4.
1968
Pop artist Andy Warhol was shot and critically wounded in his New York film studio, known as The Factory, by Valerie Solanas, an actress and self-styled feminist.
1981
Pope John Paul II left a Rome hospital and returned to the Vatican three weeks after the attempt on his life.
1985
The Larry King Live show, starring Larry King, debuted on CNN. It would become the longest-running program in network history, airing until 2010.
1989
Chinese army troops began a sweep of Beijing to crush student-led pro-democracy demonstrations.
1999
Yugoslav President Slobodan Milosevic accepted a peace plan for Kosovo designed to end mass expulsions of ethnic Albanians and 11 weeks of NATO airstrikes.
2020
3 police officers accused of being accomplices with officer Derek Chauvin in the murder of George Floyd are officially criminally charged.
Notable Births
1808
Jefferson Davis - the first and only president of the Confederacy - was born in Christian County, Ky.
Notable Deaths
1963
Pope John XXIII died at the age of 81, ending a papacy marked by innovative reforms in the Roman Catholic Church. He was succeeded by Pope Paul VI.
1983
Gordon Kahl, a militant tax protester wanted in the slayings of two U.S. marshals in North Dakota, was killed in a gun battle with law enforcement officials near Smithville, Ark.
1989
Iran's spiritual leader, Ayatollah Ruhollah Khomeini, died.
2016
Former heavyweight champion boxer Muhammad Ali died at the age of 74.