#TodayInHistory – June 2

June 2 – Some important events on this day.

455 👉🏼 King Gaiseric and the Vandals sack Rome – Rome looted for 14 days
1763 👉🏼 Pontiac’s Rebellion: At what is now Mackinaw City, Michigan, Chippewas capture Fort Michilimackinac by diverting the garrison’s attention with a game of lacrosse, then chasing a ball into the fort
1857 👉🏼 James Gibbs of Virginia, patents the chain-stitch single-thread sewing machine

1862 👉🏼 Robert E. Lee takes command of Confederate armies of North Virginia during the American Civil War.
He is largely regarded as the great military hero of the Confederate cause during the war.
He first came to prominence in the American-Mexican war (1846-48). In 1861, he refused an offer to command a US army, resigning days later and taking up a command of Virginian forces on the Confederate side. By 1862, he was Commander of the Army of North Virginia driving back Union forces after the Seven Days Battles and later winning the Second Battle of Bull Run and battles at Fredericksburg and Chancellorsville. Lee made a strategic error invading the North in 1863 and there were heavy Confederate losses at the Battle of Gettysburg. During the Siege of Petersburg, Lee was appointed general-in-chief of Confederate forces but diminished manpower and resources led to Confederate surrender in April 1865 at Appomattox in Virginia. After the war Lee supported the Plan of reconstruction and civil rights but not emancipation for blacks.

1896 👉🏼 Guglielmo Marconi applies to patent the radio, accepted one year and one month later, on 2 July 1897
1953 👉🏼 Coronation of Queen Elizabeth II in Westminster Abbey, London, England
1970 👉🏼 The 32-year-old race car driver Bruce McLaren dies in a crash while testing an experimental car of his own design at a track in Goodwood, England .
1989 👉🏼 10,000 Chinese soldiers are blocked by 100,000 citizens in Tiananmen Square, Beijing, protecting students demonstrating for democracy