“This Week” looks back at the key events from this week in history.
June 27
1957: Hurricane Audrey slammed into coastal Louisiana and Texas as a Category 4 storm; the initial official death toll from the storm was placed at 390, although a variety of state, federal and local sources have estimated the number of fatalities at between 400 and 600.
1880: Author-lecturer Helen Keller, who lived most of her life without sight or hearing, was born in Tuscumbia, Alabama.
June 28
1838: Britain’s Queen Victoria was crowned in Westminster Abbey.
1914: Archduke Franz Ferdinand of Austria and his wife, Sophie, were shot to death in Sarajevo by Serb nationalist Gavrilo Princip, an act that sparked World War I.
1919: The Treaty of Versailles was signed in France, ending the First World War.
1939: Pan American Airways began regular trans-Atlantic air service with a flight that departed New York for Marseilles, France.
June 29
1613: London’s original Globe Theatre, where many of Shakespeare’s plays were performed, was destroyed by a fire sparked by a cannon shot during a performance of “Henry VIII.”
1776: The Virginia state constitution was adopted, and Patrick Henry was made governor.
2007: The first version of the iPhone went on sale to the public; more than 2.3 billion iPhones have been sold to date.
2009: Disgraced financier Bernard Madoff received a 150-year sentence for his multibillion-dollar fraud. (Madoff died in prison in April 2021.)
June 30
1934: Adolf Hitler launched his “blood purge” of political and military rivals in Germany in what came to be known as the “Night of the Long Knives.”
1936: Margaret Mitchell’s novel “Gone With the Wind” was released.
1958: The U.S. Senate passed the Alaska statehood bill by a vote of 64-20.
July 1
1867: The British North America Act made Canada a self-governing dominion of Great Britain. Until 1982, the national holiday was called Dominion Day, but it is now known as Canada Day.
1903: The first Tour de France began. (It ended on July 19; the winner was Maurice Garin.)
1997: Hong Kong reverted to Chinese rule after 156 years as a British colony.
2004: Actor Marlon Brando died in Los Angeles at age 80.
July 2
1964: President Lyndon B. Johnson signed into law a sweeping civil rights bill passed by Congress prohibiting discrimination and segregation based on race, color, sex, religion or national origin.
1881: President James A. Garfield was shot by Charles J. Guiteau at the Washington railroad station; Garfield died the following September.
1937: Aviator Amelia Earhart and navigator Fred Noonan disappeared over the Pacific Ocean while attempting to make the first ’round-the-world flight along the equator.
1962: The first Walmart store opened in Rogers, Arkansas.
July 3
1863: The pivotal three-day Civil War Battle of Gettysburg in Pennsylvania ended in a significant victory for the North as Confederate troops failed to breach Union positions during an assault known as Pickett’s Charge.
1775: George Washington took command of the Continental Army at Cambridge, Massachusetts.
1971: Singer Jim Morrison of The Doors died in Paris at age 27.