Playwright Arthur Miller defies the House Committee on Un-American Activities and refuses to name suspected communists.

Released on this day in 1965, the Byrds’ debut album, Mr. Tambourine Man, marked the beginning of the folk-rock revolution.

In Versailles, France, the deputies of the Third Estate, which represent commoners and the lower clergy, meet on the Jeu de Paume, an indoor tennis court, in defiance of King Louis XVI’s order to disperse.

The ominous tones of the now-famous “shark theme” (composed by John Williams and performed by tuba player Tommy Johnson) mark the arrival of Hollywood’s first major summer blockbuster on this day in 1975, when the director Steven Spielberg’s thriller Jaws debuts in U.S. theaters.

In response to foreign encroachment in China, Chinese nationalists launch the so-called Boxer Rebellion in Peking.

The Statue of Liberty, a gift of friendship from the people of France to the people of the United States, arrives in New York City’s harbor

On June 19, 1953, despite international pleas for clemency, U.S. civilians Julius and Ethel Rosenberg are executed in the electric chair in Ossining, New York.

Austrian Archduke Ferdinand Maximilian, installed as emperor of Mexico by French Emperor Napoleon III in 1864, is executed on the orders of Benito Juarez, the president of the Mexican Republic.

On this day in 1940, Benito Mussolini arrives in Munich with his foreign minister, Count Ciano, to discuss immediate plans with the Fuhrer, and doesn’t like what he hears.

On this day, Napoleon Bonaparte suffers defeat at the hands of the Duke of Wellington, bringing an end to the Napoleonic era of European history.