| 10 June 1190 | Holy Roman Empire [Crusades (1095–1272)] | When the Holy Roman Emperor Frederick I Barbarossa is drowned in the River Saleph (now Göksu) in Lesser Armenia (Cilicia) while on the Third Crusade, his son Frederick of Swabia takes command, but his German army is demoralized by the death of the emperor and begins to break up. |
| 10 June 1190 | Germany, Holy Roman Empire [births and deaths] | Frederick I Barbarossa, Holy Roman Emperor 1152–90 and German king, drowns in Lesser Armenia (Cilicia) during the Third Crusade (c. 67). |
| 10 June 1580 | Portugal [births and deaths] | Luís Vaz de Camões, national poet of Portugal, whose best-known work is Os lusíadas/The Lusiads (1572), dies in Lisbon (c. 56). |
| 10–21 June 1605 | Russia [political events] | With the ‘false Dmitri’ (the monk Grigorii Otrepiev) at the gates of Moscow, the Russian tsar Fyodor II Godunov is murdered by a Muscovite mob incited by the boyar (noble) faction of Vasily Shuysky. ‘Dmitri’ is crowned tsar by the army on 21 June and begins radical reforms. |
| 10 June 1650 | UK [political events] | Charles II, the son and heir of the late King Charles I of Great Britain and Ireland, sails for Scotland. Before he arrives at Speymouth, he swears the Covenant, abandoning his anti-Presbyterian Royalist supporters and throwing in his lot with the Scottish Presbyterians who have the resources and support to assist him in his bid for the restoration of his throne. |
| 10 June 1793 | France [everyday life] | The world's first public zoo opens in Paris, France. |
| 10 June 1829 | UK [sports] | The Oxford and Cambridge University Boat Race is first rowed, on the River Thames at Henley, Oxfordshire, England. Oxford wins the 3.6-km/2.25-mi race from Hambledon Lock to Henley Bridge in 14 min 30 sec, represented entirely by students from Christchurch College. |
| 10 June 1836 | France [births and deaths] | André Marie Ampère, French physicist who founded the science of electromagnetism, dies in Marseille, France (61). |
| 10 June 1868 | Serbia [political events] | King Michael III of Serbia is murdered by followers of the Karageorgevic dynasty and succeeded by his cousin Milan IV. |
| 10 June 1942 | Czechoslovakia, Germany [World War II (1939–45)] | The German Gestapo (secret police) destroys the village of Lidice, Czechoslovakia, in reprisal for the killing of Reinhard Heydrich, the Nazi ‘protector’ of Bohemia and Moravia, by Czech resistance fighters; 198 men are shot, 184 women sent to the Ravensbrück concentration camp, and 98 children deported. |
| 10 June 1946 | USA [births and deaths] | Jack Johnson, US boxer and the first black person to win the world heavyweight boxing championship (1908–15), dies in Raleigh, North Carolina (68). |
| 10–19 June 1953 | USA [civil rights] | A bus boycott in Baton Rouge, Louisiana, results in an amendment of the rules requiring blacks to sit at the back of buses; it is the first major action of the modern civil-rights movement. |
| 10 June 1967 | Israel, USSR [Six Day War (1967)] | The Six Day War ends with Israeli victory, and the USSR breaks off diplomatic relations with Israel. |
| 10 June 1971 | USA, China [diplomacy] | The USA ends its 21-year embargo on trade with China, which had been imposed by US president Harry S Truman during the Cold War. |
| 10 June 1996 | Northern Ireland [political events] | All-party talks on the future of Northern Ireland begin at Stormont Castle, Belfast, Northern Ireland; Sinn Fein, the political wing of the Irish Republican Army (IRA), is not admitted because of the IRA's ceasefire violations. |
| 10 June 1999 | Federal Republic of Yugoslavia [Balkan conflicts (c. 1991–2000)] | As Serb troops start to withdraw from Kosovo, NATO general secretary Javier Solana officially declares an end to the alliance's 78 days of bombing in the Federal Republic of Yugoslavia, marking an end to the war. NATO makes final preparations for Operation Joint Guardian, the largest peacekeeping force in modern history, which will facilitate the return of up to one million ethnic Albanian refugees to their homes in Kosovo. |
| 10 June 2004 | USA [births and deaths] | Ray Charles, legendary US soul, blues, and jazz singer, dies in Beverly Hills, California (73). |
