2017: London attack: Eight people are murdered and dozens of civilians are wounded by Islamist terrorists. Three of the attackers are shot dead by the police.
2013: At least 119 people are killed in a fire at a poultry farm in Jilin Province in northeastern China.
2012: A plane carrying 153 people on board crashes in a residential neighborhood in Lagos, Nigeria, killing everyone on board and 10 people on the ground.
1991: Mount Unzen erupts in Kyūshū, Japan, killing 43 people, all of them either researchers or journalists.
1989: The government of China sends troops to force protesters out of Tiananmen Square after seven weeks of occupation.
1984: Operation Blue Star, a military offensive, is launched by the Indian government at Harmandir Sahib, also known as the Golden Temple, the holiest shrine for Sikhs, in Amritsar. The operation continues until June 6, with casualties, most of them civilians, in excess of 5,000.
1982: The Israeli ambassador to the United Kingdom, Shlomo Argov, is shot on a London street; he survives but is left paralysed.
1979: A blowout at the Ixtoc I oil well in the southern Gulf of Mexico causes at least 3,000,000 barrels (480,000 m3) of oil to be spilled into the waters, the second-worst accidental oil spill ever recorded.
1973: A Soviet supersonic Tupolev Tu-144 crashes near Goussainville, France, killing 14, the first crash of a supersonic passenger aircraft.
1969: Melbourne-Evans collision: off the coast of South Vietnam, the Australian aircraft carrier HMAS Melbourne cuts the U.S. Navy destroyer USS Frank E. Evans in half.
1965: The launch of Gemini 4, the first multi-day space mission by a NASA crew. Ed White, a crew member, performs the first American spacewalk.
1963: The Buddhist crisis: Soldiers of the Army of the Republic of Vietnam attack protesting Buddhists in Huế, South Vietnam, with liquid chemicals from tear-gas grenades, causing 67 people to be hospitalised for blistering of the skin and respiratory ailments.
1962: At Paris Orly Airport, Air France Flight 007 overruns the runway and explodes when the crew attempts to abort takeoff, killing 130.
1941: World War II: The Wehrmacht razes the Greek village of Kandanos to the ground and murders 180 of its inhabitants.
1940: Franz Rademacher proposes plans to make Madagascar the "Jewish homeland", an idea that had first been considered by 19th century journalist Theodor Herzl.
1940: World War II: The Battle of Dunkirk ends with a German victory and with Allied forces in full retreat.
1889: The first long-distance electric power transmission line in the United States is completed, running 14 miles (23 km) between a generator at Willamette Falls and downtown Portland, Oregon.
1861: American Civil War: Battle of Philippi (also called the Philippi Races): Union forces rout Confederate troops in Barbour County, Virginia, now West Virginia.
1839: In Humen, China, Lin Tse-hsü destroys 1.2 million kg of opium confiscated from British merchants, providing Britain with a casus belli to open hostilities, resulting in the First Opium War.
1326: The Treaty of Novgorod delineates borders between Russia and Norway in Finnmark.
1140: The French scholar Peter Abelard is found guilty of heresy.
713: The Byzantine emperor Philippicus is blinded, deposed and sent into exile by conspirators of the Opsikion army in Thrace. He is succeeded by Anastasios II, who begins the reorganization of the Byzantine army.