Following are some of the major events to have occurred on June 15:
1904 – The steamship General Slocum caught fire and sank in New York harbour. Around 1,000 people died, many of them women and children on a church outing.
1919 – The Englishmen John Alcock and Arthur Brown completed the first non-stop transatlantic flight.
1967 – More than 50,000 fans attended the first rock music festival, in Monterey, California.
1994 – Israel and the Vatican established full diplomatic ties, sealing a historic accord on mutual recognition and reconciliation after centuries of bitterness between Roman Catholics and Jews.
1996 – Ella Fitzgerald, “First Lady of Jazz”, died aged 79.
2001 – The Shanghai Five — China, Russia, Kazakhstan, Kyrgyzstan and Tajikistan — welcomed new member Uzbekistan and renamed themselves the Shanghai Cooperation Organisation (SCO), a regional organisation to combat Islamic militancy.
2001 – World’s first mass-produced hybrid minivan goes on sale.
2003 – Hume Cronyn, whose career on Broadway and in Hollywood spanned more than six decades, died. He was 91. He made his film debut in Alfred Hitchcock’s “Shadow of a Doubt” in 1943 and went on to appear in such films as “The Postman Always Rings Twice”, “12 Angry Men” and “Cocoon”.
2006 – Pop stars Cheryl Tweedy and Victoria Beckham watch their partners play for England at the World Cup in Germany.
2012 – Nik Wallenda becomes first person to successfully tightrope walk over Niagara Falls.
2013 – Bus bomb attack in Quetta, Pakistan.