17 June 2002

Wildfires erupted across central Portugal, eventually causing the deaths of 66 people.

Following a petition, the liberal progressive Czech Pirate Party was officially registered as a political party.

Five men were arrested for attempted burglary on the offices of the Democratic National Committee, igniting the Watergate scandal that ultimately led to the resignation of US president Richard Nixon more than two years later.

Riots broke out in Saigon one day after the signing of the Joint Communiqué, an attempt to resolve the Buddhist crisis in South Vietnam.

Guatemalan Revolution: The Guatemalan Congress passed Decree 900, redistributing unused land greater than 224 acres (0.91 km2) in area to local peasants.

Second World War: RMS Lancastria was sunk by German aircraft near Saint-Nazaire, France, causing thousands of fatalities in Britain's worst maritime disaster.

Hundreds of Canadian soldiers rioted in Epsom, England, leading to the death of a British police officer.

In Detroit, autoworkers for car manufacturer Studebaker went on strike in the American auto industry's first major strike action.

Boxer Rebellion: Allied naval forces captured the Taku Forts from Qing China after a brief but bloody battle.

American Civil War: The Battle of Vienna, Virginia, took place, which involved one of the world's first military movements of troops by train.

French Revolutionary Wars: Off the coast of Brittany, a Royal Navy squadron commanded by William Cornwallis (pictured) fended off a numerically superior French Navy fleet.

American Revolutionary War: British forces took Bunker Hill outside of Boston, Massachusetts.

Mumtaz Mahal (pictured), wife of the Mughal emperor Shah Jahan, died in childbirth; Jahan spent the next seventeen years constructing her mausoleum, the Taj Mahal.

Explorer Francis Drake landed in a region of present-day California, naming it New Albion and claiming it for England.

Hungarian–Ottoman Wars: Wallachian forces led by Vlad Dracula attacked an Ottoman camp at night in an unsuccessful attempt to assassinate Sultan Mehmed II.

The kingdoms of Denmark, Sweden, and Norway formed the Kalmar Union, a personal union under Eric of Pomerania.

Pope Martin I (pictured) was arrested in the Lateran Palace, Rome, and taken to Constantinople.

Juneteenth National Independence Day is signed into law by President Joe Biden, to become the first federal holiday established since Martin Luther King Jr. Day in 1983.

A series of wildfires in central Portugal kill at least 64 people and injure 204 others.

Nine people are killed in a mass shooting at Emanuel African Methodist Episcopal Church in Charleston, South Carolina.

Following a televised low-speed highway chase, O. J. Simpson is arrested for the murders of his ex-wife, Nicole Brown Simpson, and her friend Ronald Goldman.

A "joint understanding" agreement on arms reduction is signed by U.S. president George Bush and Russian president Boris Yeltsin (this would be later codified in START II).

Apartheid: The South African Parliament repeals the Population Registration Act which required racial classification of all South Africans at birth.

Interflug Flight 102 crashes during a rejected takeoff from Berlin Schönefeld Airport, killing 21 people.