Thursday, June 26, 1845

The U.S. Supreme Court ruled in Obergefell v. Hodges that the right of same-sex couples to marry is guaranteed by the Fourteenth Amendment.

The U.S. Supreme Court granted federal recognition to same-sex marriage when it overturned the Defense of Marriage Act.

A G20 summit, the largest and most expensive security operation in Canadian history, began in downtown Toronto.

The U.S. Supreme Court struck down sodomy laws in the country in the landmark decision Lawrence v. Texas.

J. K. Rowling's Harry Potter and the Philosopher's Stone, the first book in the Harry Potter fantasy novel series, was released.

A Douglas DC-4 Skymaster aircraft crashed after departing from Perth, becoming the worst peacetime aviation accident in Australia's history.

At a conference in San Francisco, delegates from 50 nations signed a charter establishing the United Nations.

World War I: The 26-day Battle of Belleau Wood near the Marne River in France ended with American forces finally clearing that forest of German troops.

Organized by Vladimir Lenin and Joseph Stalin, among others, Bolshevik revolutionaries robbed a bank stagecoach in Tiflis, present-day Georgia.

The 1906 French Grand Prix, the first Grand Prix motor racing competition, began near Le Mans.

Bangui, the capital and largest city of the present-day Central African Republic, was founded in French Congo.

French chemist Henri Moissan successfully isolated elemental fluorine (pictured in liquid state), for which he later won the Nobel Prize in Chemistry.