WHAT HAPPENED ON 26. JUNE
Want to find out what all happened on 26. June

Initial flight of the Focke-Wulf Fw 61, the first practical helicopter. (26. June 1936)

World War II: under the Molotov-Ribbentrop Pact, the Soviet Union presents an ultimatum to Romania requiring it to cede Bessarabia and the northern part of Bukovina. (26. June 1940)

World War II: Soviet planes bomb Kassa, Hungary (now Košice, Slovakia), giving Hungary the impetus to declare war the next day. (26. June 1941)

The first flight of the Grumman F6F Hellcat. (26. June 1942)

World War II: The Battle of Osuchy in Osuchy, Poland, ends with the defeat of the Polish resistance forces. (26. June 1944)

The United Nations Charter is signed in San Francisco. (26. June 1945)

The Western allies begin an airlift to Berlin after the Soviet Union blockades West Berlin. (26. June 1948)

William Shockley files the original patent for the grown junction transistor, the first bipolar junction transistor. (26. June 1948)

Shirley Jackson's short story The Lottery is published in The New Yorker magazine. (26. June 1948)

The Pan-Malayan Labour Party is founded in Malaya, as a union of statewise labour parties. (26. June 1952)

Lavrentiy Beria,head of MVD, is arrested by Nikita Khrushchev and other members of the Politburo. (26. June 1953)

The South African Congress Alliance adopts the Freedom Charter at the Congress of the People in Kliptown. (26. June 1955)

The Saint Lawrence Seaway opens, opening North America's Great Lakes to ocean-going ships. (26. June 1959)

The former British Protectorate of British Somaliland gains its independence as Somaliland. (26. June 1960)

Madagascar gains its independence from France. (26. June 1960)

U.S. President John F. Kennedy gave his "Ich bin ein Berliner" speech, underlining the support of the United States for democratic West Germany shortly after Soviet-supported East Germany erected the Berlin Wall. (26. June 1963)

At Plesetsk Cosmodrome 9 people are killed in an explosion of a Cosmos 3-M rocket. (26. June 1973)

The Universal Product Code is scanned for the first time to sell a package of Wrigley's chewing gum at the Marsh Supermarket in Troy, Ohio (26. June 1974)

Two FBI agents and a member of the American Indian Movement are killed in a shootout on the Pine Ridge Indian Reservation in South Dakota; Leonard Peltier is later convicted of the murders in a controversial trial. (26. June 1975)

The Yorkshire Ripper kills 16 year old shop assistant Jayne MacDonald in Leeds, changing public perception of the killer as she is the first victim who is not a prostitute. (26. June 1977)