Today is Wednesday, June 15, the 166th day of 2011. There are 199 days left in the year.
1215 ― King John signs Magna Carta at Runnymede, England
1381 ― Wat Tyler, leader of English Peasants' Revolt, beheaded in London
1590 ― Pope Leo X threatens to ex-communicate Martin Luther
1785 ― Two French balloonists die in world's first fatal aviation accident
1851 ― Jacob Fussell, Baltimore dairyman, sets up first ice-cream factory
1869 ― Celluloid patented by John Wesley Hyatt, Albany, N.Y.
1878 ― First attempt at motion pictures (used 12 cameras, each taking one picture) done to see if all four of a horse's hooves leave the ground
1896 ― Tsunami strikes Shinto festival on beach at Sanriku, Japan; 27,000 are killed, 9,000 injured with 13,000 houses destroyed
1956 ― John Lennon (15) and Paul McCartney (13) meet for the first time as Lennon's rock group, The Quarrymen, perform at a church dinner
1986 ― Pravda announces high-level Chernobyl staff fired for stupidity