What happened on 4 June?

22 events from the Ever-When timeline, ranked by how much they mattered.

1. 1937 Picasso's Guernica Pablo Picasso's monumental anti-war painting commissioned for the 1937 Paris Exposition; defining work of 20th-century political art.
2. 1942 Battle of Midway US Navy sinks four Japanese aircraft carriers; decisive turning point in the Pacific War.
3. 1961 Berlin Crisis of 1961 Soviet ultimatum on Berlin; standoff of tanks at Checkpoint Charlie.
4. 1989 Polish elections of 1989 Semi-free elections; Solidarity wins overwhelmingly, ending communist monopoly.
5. 1916 Brusilov Offensive Last successful Russian offensive of WW1; cripples Austria-Hungary.
6. 1913 Emily Davison killed at the Epsom Derby Suffragette steps in front of the King's horse; mass funeral galvanises the movement.
7. 1940 'We shall fight on the beaches' On the day the last ships leave Dunkirk, Churchill tells the Commons the truth — 'wars are not won by evacuations' — and then delivers the defiance that reframes the disaster: figh
8. 1992 UN Framework Convention on Climate Change Foundational climate treaty opened for signature at Rio.
9. 1920 Treaty of Trianon Peace treaty with Hungary; cedes two-thirds of Hungarian territory.
10. 1989 Khamenei becomes Supreme Leader On Khomeini's death, Ali Khamenei is appointed Supreme Leader of Iran, consolidating the leadership of the Islamic Republic; he holds the post until his death in 2026.
11. 1666 Molière's Le Misanthrope Comedy of manners satirising hypocrisy in Parisian high society.
12. 2014 Fall of Mosul to ISIS Islamic State captures Iraq's second city; Iraqi army collapses; ISIS declares a caliphate weeks later.
13. 1946 Juan Perón comes to power Perón wins Argentina's presidency, founding the populist Peronist movement that has dominated its politics ever since.
14. 1859 Battle of Magenta The French army beats the Austrians west of Milan and enters the city in triumph four days later, Napoleon III and Victor Emmanuel riding side by side. Lombardy is freed at a strok
15. 1738 Born: George III Long-reigning king who lost the American colonies and suffered recurrent illness.
16. 1838 Great Western Railway Brunel engineers the line from London to Bristol on a broad gauge, with Box Tunnel and the Maidenhead bridge — 'God's Wonderful Railway'.
17. 1937 Renoir's La Grande Illusion Anti-war classic film about WW1 POWs.
18. 1615 Sengoku period ends Conventional end of Sengoku period.
19. 1961 Vienna summit Khrushchev browbeats the young John F. Kennedy over Berlin at their only meeting; Kennedy calls it 'the worst thing in my life'. The Wall goes up two months later.
20. 1944 Liberation of Rome Allied troops entered Rome on 4 June 1944 -- first Axis capital to fall.
21. 1946 First presidency of Juan Perón Perón and Evita's nine years in power: nationalisations, workers' rights and the descamisados, Evita's foundation and death, mounting repression and economic strain, ending in the
22. 1938 Freud flees to London After the Anschluss and the Gestapo's interrogation of his daughter Anna, the dying Freud is ransomed out of Vienna and settles in Hampstead; four of his sisters later die in the c