On July 12 in …

1429 –- In the Hundred Years War, Joan of Arc leads the French army in the capture of the city and the English commander, Duke William de la Pole, in the second day of the Battle of Jargeau, France.

1775 –- British General Sir Thomas Gage declares martial law in the Massachusetts colony. The British offer a pardon to all colonists who lay down their arms except for Samuel Adams and John Hancock who they say, if captured, will be hanged.

1939 –- The National Baseball Hall of Fame officially opens in Cooperstown, NY, the result of an effort by Stephen Carlton Clark, owner of a local hotel.

1967 -– The United States Supreme Court, in the case of Loving v. Virginia, declares all state laws prohibiting interracial marriage to be unconstitutional.

1994 –- Nicole Brown Simpson and Ronald Goldman are murdered outside her home in Los Angeles, CA. Celebrity athlete/actor O.J. Simpson, her estranged husband, will be acquitted in a criminal court of the killings, but later held liable in a wrongful death civil suit.

On June 11 in …

1184 B.C. –- The city-state of Troy, located in a portion of Asia Minor that today is part of Turkey,  is sacked and burned during the Trojan War, according to calculations by Eratosthenes, the Greek scholar, librarian, poet, and inventor.

1895 –- The Paris–Bordeaux–Paris Run, widely acknowledged as the first automobile race in history, is completed. The curiosity of it is that the car finishing first is not declared the winner. Paul Koechlin, who arrives third in his four-seat Peugeot, is declared the winner even though he is 11 hours behind two other finishers. The reason: the race is for four-seaters, and the first two finishers were two-seaters.

1919 –- The thoroughbred race horse Sir Barton becomes the first horse to win the Triple Crown by taking the Belmont Stakes  at Belmont Park in Elmwood, Queens, New York, after having won the Kentucky Derby in Lousiville, KY, and the Preakness Stakes in Baltimore, MD.

1944 –- The USS Missouri, the last battleship built by the U.S. Navy and future site of the signing of the Japanese “Instrument of Surrender” in World War II, is commissioned.

2001 –- Domestic terrorist Timothy McVeigh is executed by lethal injection in the federal penitentiary in Terre Haute, IN, for his role in the Oklahoma City bombing of April 19, 1995. The attack on the Alfred P. Murrah Federal Building in downtown Oklahoma City, carried out by McVeigh and Terry Nichols, destroyed one-third of the building, killed 168 people, injured more than 680 others, destroyed or damaged 324 other buildings within a 16-block radius, shattered glass in 258 nearby buildings, and destroyed or burned 86 cars, causing an estimated $652 million worth of damage.

On June 10 in …

1692 –- Bridget Bishop is hanged at Gallows Hill near Salem, MA, for “certaine Detestable Arts called Witchcraft & Sorceries,” part of the infamous Salem Witch Trials.

1898 — U.S. Marines land in Cuba during the Spanish-American War.

1903 – Binney & Smith Company of New York City begins developing a product line of wax crayons. The product is named Crayola.

1935 –- Dr. Robert Smith takes his last drink, and Alcoholics Anonymous is founded in Akron, OH, by him and Bill Wilson.

1940 –- Italy declares war on France and the United Kingdom, broadening the early scope of World War II.

On June 9 in …

A.D. 68 –- The Roman emperor Nero commits suicide, after quoting Homer’s “Iliad.” His death ends the Julio-Claudian dynasty and starts the civil war known as “The Year of the Four Emperors.”

1732 –- James Edward Oglethorpe, a British general, Member of Parliament, and philanthropist, is granted an English Royal Charter for the colony of the future U.S. state of Georgia.

1934 –- The iconic cartoon character Donald Duck makes his debut in “The Wise Little Hen.”

1968 –- President Lyndon B. Johnson declares a national day of mourning following the assassination of Senator Robert F. Kennedy (D-NY) three days earlier in Los Angeles.

1973 –- In thoroughbred horse racing, Secretariat wins the Belmont Stakes at Belmont Park in Elmwood, Queens, NY, the final race in the Triple Crown. Earlier, the horse had captured the Kentucky Derby at Churchill Downs in Louisville, KY, and the Preakness Stakes at Pimlico Race Course in Baltimore, MD.

On July 8 in …

1099 –- On the First Crusade, 15,000 thousand starving Christian soldiers march in a religious procession around Jerusalem as its Muslim defenders look on.

1831 -– John Pemberton is born in Knoxville, GA. He will go on to become a chemist and pharmacist and the person who created the secret formula for Coca-Cola.

1932 –- The Dow Jones Industrial Average reaches its lowest level of the Great Depression, closing at 41.22.

1948 –- The United States Air Force accepts its first female recruits into a program called Women in the Air Force (WAF).

2011 -– The space shuttle Atlantis is launched in the final mission of the U.S. shuttle program.

On July 7 in …

1456 –- A posthumous retrial results in a verdict acquitting Joan of Arc 25 years after she was burned at the stake on charges of heresy and witchcraft.

1846 -– American troops occupy the towns of Monterey and Yerba Buena during the Mexican-American War, thus beginning the American acquisition of California.

1928 –- Pre-sliced bread is sold for the first time, by the Chillicothe Baking Company of Michigan.

1947 –- It initially is reported that an alien spacecraft has crashed near Roswell, NM, but the government quickly declares it a downed weather balloon. Conspiracy theories and speculation erupt, giving rise to a cottage industry in Roswell books, documentaries, and broad public debate about extraterrestrial life and government coverups that thrives to this day.

1981 –- President Ronald Reagan appoints Sandra Day O’Connor the first female member of the Supreme Court of the United States.