What happened on 15 June?

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

1. 1215 Magna Carta King John signs the charter limiting royal power; foundation for rule of law.
2. 1910 Scott's Terra Nova expedition Robert Falcon Scott reaches the South Pole a month after Amundsen, then perishes with his team on the return.
3. 1888 Reign of Kaiser Wilhelm II Dropped Bismarck, built a battle fleet, backed Austria in 1914 and abdicated into Dutch exile.
4. 1389 Battle of Kosovo Ottoman and Serbian armies destroy each other at Kosovo Polje; the battle becomes the central myth of Serbian nationhood.
5. 1953 Born: Xi Jinping Paramount leader of China since 2012; consolidates power beyond Deng-era norms.
6. 1381 Wat Tyler killed at Smithfield At the Smithfield parley the rebel captain — over-familiar with the king, demanding an England with no lordship but the king's — is cut down by the Lord Mayor. As thirty thousand b
7. 1826 Auspicious Incident Mahmud II violently abolishes the Janissary corps, clearing the way for the Tanzimat reforms and a Western-style Ottoman army.
8. 1917 United States Espionage Act 1917 Sweeping wartime law criminalising 'disloyal' speech.
9. 1964 Freedom Summer A thousand volunteers, many of them white northern students, pour into Mississippi to register Black voters in the most closed society in America. Three of them — Chaney, Goodman a
10. 1843 Born: Edvard Grieg Norwegian Romantic composer and pianist; central figure in Scandinavian musical nationalism; best known for Peer Gynt and the Piano Concerto in A minor.
11. 1752 Franklin's kite experiment Franklin demonstrates that lightning is electricity by drawing charge from a thunderstorm through a kite.