June

June

June 2, 1742
The Virginia General Assembly creates Louisa County, named for Princess Louisa, daughter of King George II.

June 2, 1924 
U.S. Congress passes the Indian Citizenship Act (also called the Synder Act), conferring citizenship to all Indigenous Americans, including Virginia’s Indians. 

June 3, 1864
The bloodiest day of conflict during the Battle of Cold Harbor (May 31 – June 12) in Hanover County, Virginia, in which federal forces unsuccessfully tried to break through Confederate fortifications protecting the route to Richmond.  

June 6, 1944
Virginia soldiers are among the thousands of Allied troops who land on the Normandy coast of France during the D-Day invasion. The county of Bedford, Virginia, suffered some of the highest losses, proportionally, of any American community during the invasion.

June 10, 1610
Baron de la Warr, arrives in Jamestown to begin his term as Virginia Governor. He arrives with fresh supplies and settlers just in time to intercept the outgoing governor, Sir Thomas Gates, and the surviving colonists who planned to abandon Jamestown and return to England.

June 11, 1866 
Addie D. Waites Hunton, a Black educator, suffragist, and civil rights activist, is born in Norfolk. She volunteered for service in World War I, becoming one of only three Black women sent to France with the YMCA to work with segregated Black troops, and she founded the National Association of Colored Women. 

June 12, 1776
The Virginia Convention adopts a Declaration of Rights, written by George Mason, which includes such specific civil liberties as freedoms of the press and religion. The declaration became the model for the later Bill of Rights of the U.S. Constitution.

June 12, 1967
The U.S. Supreme Court, in Loving v. Virginia, unanimously declares unconstitutional Virginia's laws prohibiting interracial marriage. This decision nullifies similar laws in fifteen other states.

June 15, 1954
Virginia governor Bob McDonnell is born in Philadelphia, Pennslvania.

June 21, 1631
Captain John Smith dies at age 51. A well-known soldier and adventurer, he helped establish the first permanent English settlement at Jamestown in 1607.

June 23, 1929
Valerie June Carter was born in Maces Springs, Virginia. Her parents were Maybelle Carter and Ezra Carter. June married singer Johnny Cash in 1968. June died in Nashville in 2003, at the age of 73. 

June 24, 1775 
Revolutionaries raid the Governor’s Palace in Williamsburg and confiscate weapons and other property. Lord Dunmore, the royal governor, had fled Williamsburg earlier that month and was trying to command the colony from on board a British ship in Hampton Roads. 

June 25, 1862
Confederate and Union forces meet at Oak Grove, east of Richmond, in what would become the opening day of the Seven Days Battles during the Peninsula Campaign. Richmond International Airport now occupies the site of the 1862 battle.

 

June 27, 1986
Track and field athlete and Olympic Gold Medalist LaShawn Merritt is born in Portsmouth, Virginia.

June 29, 1776
Virginia declares itself an independent commonwealth and enacts a state constitution, the first colony to do so. The constitution was written primarily by George Mason. The first governor was Patrick Henry.

June 29, 1976
Elvis Presley makes his last visit to Richmond before his death. His concert occurred 20 years after his first performance in the city.

June 29, 2012
‘The Derecho’ hits southwest Virginia, damaging homes and uprooting trees. This dangerous band of storms tore through 10 states, causing roughly $3 billion in damage.

June 30, 1973
Richmond erects its first statue of a Black man, Bill “Bojangles” Robinson. Robinson, a talented actor and singer, was most famous for tap dancing in movies with Shirley Temple in the 1930s.