June 15 in History

Assyria was a major ancient Mesopotamian civilization that existed from the 21st to the 7th century BCE which conquered and administered most of West Asia from the Assyrian heartland in Upper Mesopotamia. Assyria is called the first true military superpower in human history, and pioneered major inventions and advances in the first libraries and large-scale preservation and accumulation of knowledge, as well as in statecraft, centralised government, bureaucracy, warfare, military organisation, propaganda, art, and architecture.

Louis II (825 – 12 August 875), sometimes called the Younger, was the king of Italy and emperor of the Carolingian Empire from 844, co-ruling with his father Lothair I until 855, after which he ruled alone. Louis's usual title was imperator augustus ("august emperor"), but he used imperator Romanorum ("emperor of the Romans") after his conquest of Bari in 871, which led to poor relations with the Eastern Roman Empire. He was called imperator Italiae ("emperor of Italy") in West Francia while the Byzantines called him Basileus Phrangias ("Emperor of Francia"). The chronicler Andreas of Bergamo, who is the main source for Louis's activities in southern Italy, notes that "after his death a great tribulation came to Italy."

The Battle of Soissons was fought on 15 June 923 between an alliance of Frankish insurgent nobles led by Robert I, elected king in an assembly the year prior, and an army composed of Lotharingians, Normans, and Carolingian forces under King Charles III's command. The battle took place at Soissons, near Aisne. Robert was killed, but his army won the war. Charles was imprisoned by Herbert II of Vermandois and held captive until his death in 929. Rudolph, Duke of Burgundy, Robert's son-in-law, succeeded him as ruler of West Francia. After Charlemagne's death, the Carolingian royal authority began to decline due to the constant invasions of the Vikings, civil wars and strife with vassals, mainly the Robertians. Since its beginning, the political situation of Charles's reign was fragile. Frankish nobility was unwilling to accept his authority. One of his few allies was Baldwin II of Flanders. Charles' attempts to restore Carolingian power over Lotharingia, the homeland of his ancestors and first wife Frederonne, led him to be chosen as King of Lotharingia in 911 and to a conflict of interest with the local nobility such as Gilbert of Lorraine. After 918 the aristocracy of West Francia began to show its disagreement with Charles' governance. The main reason was the increasing power of Hagano, a Lotharingian noble who was the king's favorite counselor. In 920 a group of Frankish nobles led by Robert, brother of the previous king Odo, abducted Charles. They tried to force him to dismiss Hagano, but Archbishop Herveus of Reims convinced the insurgents to free the king. The military uprising of the Frankish magnates broke out in 922. Charles had removed from his aunt Rothilde, daughter of Charles II the Bald, the benefit of the abbey of Chelles and transferred it to Hagano. This act directly affected the Robertians' interests, since Rothilde was the mother-in-law of Robert's son, Hugh the Great. In an assembly at Soissons on June 29, the rebellious nobles deposed Charles and elected Robert as their king. Archbishop Walter of Sens crowned him the next day in Reims.

The Battle of Fimreite (Norwegian: Slaget ved Fimreite) was a naval battle fought on June 15, 1184, between King Magnus Erlingsson and the Birkebeiner supported Sverre Sigurdsson. At this time in Norwegian history it was extremely common for there to be changes in leadership, and political coups were often conducted to establish a new ruler. This inevitably led to the naval battle between Sverre Sigurdsson and Magnus Erlingsson that resulted in Magnus being defeated and killed in the battle, and Sverre usurping the Norwegian throne. Similarly, this battle also had long-lasting effects on Norway as a whole. As stated previously, Norway was very volatile during this time, however, the result of this battle led to the installation of Sverre and a lasting effect on Norway's leadership. Sverre would go on to rule from 1184 to 1202, making him one of the longest standing sovereign kings in Norway's twelfth and thirteenth century. His leadership along with Norway's recent conversion to Christianity that spread the Administrative apparatus of the papacy would have long lasting effects on Norway's culture, economy, and society.

John (Christmastide 1166/7 – 19 October 1216) was King of England from 1199 until his death in 1216. He lost the Duchy of Normandy and most of his other French lands to King Philip II of France, resulting in the collapse of the Angevin Empire and contributing to the subsequent growth in power of the French Capetian dynasty during the 13th century. The baronial revolt at the end of John's reign led to the sealing of Magna Carta, a document considered a foundational milestone in English and later British constitutional history. John was the youngest son of King Henry II of England and Duchess Eleanor of Aquitaine. He was nicknamed John Lackland (Norman: Jean sans Terre, lit. 'John without land') because, as a younger son, he was not expected to inherit significant lands. He became Henry's favourite child after Henry faced a failed revolt from John's older brothers, Henry the Young King, Richard, and Geoffrey. Henry II appointed John Lord of Ireland in 1177 and gave him lands in England and on the continent. During the reign of his brother Richard I, John unsuccessfully attempted a rebellion against Richard's administrators while the King was participating in the Third Crusade, but he was proclaimed king after Richard died in 1199. Philip II of France agreed to recognise John's possession of the continental Angevin lands at the peace treaty of Le Goulet in 1200. When war with France broke out again in 1202, John achieved early victories, but shortages of military resources and his treatment of Norman, Breton, and Anjou nobles resulted in the collapse of his empire in northern France in 1204. He spent much of the next decade attempting to regain these lands, raising huge revenues, reforming his armed forces and rebuilding continental alliances. His judicial reforms had a lasting effect on the English common law system, as well as providing an additional source of revenue. His dispute with Pope Innocent III over the election of Stephen Langton as Archbishop of Canterbury led Innocent to ban church services in England from 1208 until 1214 and excommunicate John from 1209 until 1213. John's attempt to defeat Philip in 1214 failed because of the French victory over John's allies at the Battle of Bouvines. When he returned to England, John faced a rebellion by many of his barons, who were unhappy with his fiscal policies and his treatment of powerful English nobles. John and the barons agreed to Magna Carta as a peace treaty in 1215. However, neither side complied with its conditions. Civil war erupted shortly afterwards, with the barons aided by Philip's son Louis, and soon descended into a stalemate. Amid the civil war, John died of dysentery in eastern England in late 1216; supporters of his son Henry III went on to achieve victory over Louis and the rebel barons the following year. Contemporary chroniclers were mostly critical of John's performance as king, and his reign has since been the subject of significant debate and periodic revision by historians from the 16th century onwards. Historian Jim Bradbury has summarised the current historical opinion of John's positive qualities, observing that John is today usually considered a "hard-working administrator, an able man, an able general". Nonetheless, modern historians agree that he also had many faults as king, including what historian Ralph Turner describes as "distasteful, even dangerous personality traits", such as pettiness, spitefulness, and cruelty. These negative qualities provided extensive material for fiction writers in the Victorian era, and John remains a recurring character within Western popular culture, primarily as a villain in Robin Hood folklore.

Frederick II (German: Friedrich II.; 25 April 1211 – 15 June 1246), known as Frederick the Quarrelsome (Friedrich der Streitbare), was Duke of Austria and Styria from 1230 until his death. He was the fifth and last Austrian duke from the House of Babenberg, since the former margraviate was elevated to a duchy by the 1156 Privilegium Minus. He was killed in the Battle of the Leitha River, leaving no male heirs.

The Byzantine Empire, also known as the Eastern Roman Empire, was the continuation of the Roman Empire centred on Constantinople during late antiquity and the Middle Ages. Having survived the fall of the Western Roman Empire in the 5th century AD, it endured until the fall of Constantinople to the Ottoman Empire in 1453. The term 'Byzantine Empire' was coined only after its demise; its citizens used the term 'Roman Empire' and called themselves 'Romans'.

The Tiepolo conspiracy or Tiepolo-Querini conspiracy was an attempt to overthrow the government of the Republic of Venice under Doge Pietro Gradenigo. Headed by the disaffected patricians Bajamonte Tiepolo, Marco Querini, and Badoero Badoer but backed by a sizeable number of other patricians, churchmen, and commoners, the conspiracy resulted in a coup attempt on 15 June 1310, in which three columns, each led by one of the chief conspirators, were meant to converge on the Piazza San Marco, seize the Doge's Palace, and overthrow the Venetian government. Warned of the plot at the last minute, the Doge mobilized his followers and loyalist forces. Coupled with the conspirators' poor coordination, the Doge's decisive counter-action led to the coup's failure. Querini, the main driving force of the conspiracy, was killed in the subsequent fighting along with one of his sons. Badoer was captured while trying to cross the Venetian Lagoon from Padua and executed for treason. Tiepolo was pushed back and barricaded in the Rialto. The Great Council let Tiepolo and his main supporters leave in exile. Various motives have been attributed to the conspiracy, from personal ambitions to a populist reaction to the increasingly exclusive, aristocratic nature of the Venetian state after the Serrata of the Great Council that excluded the lower classes from power. As the grandson and great-grandson of Doges and son of the commoners' candidate in the 1289 election against Pietro Gradenigo, Tiepolo was the heir to his family's perceived championship of the lower classes against Gradenigo, the candidate of the established families of the traditional aristocracy. In later times, Tiepolo was seen as a heroic champion of the people, but modern historians view the conspiracy as factional strife among the patrician elites, exaggerated by the recent and disastrous War of Ferrara and the resulting papal interdict over Venice. After the coup's suppression, a policy of public damnation of the participants followed. The houses of Tiepolo and Querini were torn down and replaced with monuments warning against treason. Ordinary citizens who helped in resisting the coup were prominently rewarded and celebrated in subsequent legend. The Council of Ten was established to monitor the conspiracy's exiles and any attempt to subvert the Venetian regime. Initially a temporary measure, the Council proved efficient, and was made permanent, becoming one of the most powerful institutions of the Venetian government.

The Battle of Rozgony or Battle of Rozhanovce was fought between King Charles Robert of Hungary and the family of Palatine Amade Aba on 15 June 1312, on the Rozgony (today Rozhanovce) field. Chronicon Pictum described it as the "most cruel battle since the Mongol invasion of Europe". Despite many casualties on the King's side, his decisive victory brought an end to the Aba family's rule over the eastern Kingdom of Hungary, weakened his major domestic opponent Máté Csák III, and ultimately secured power for Charles Robert of Hungary.

The Ottoman Empire, also known historically as Turkey or the Turkish Empire, was a state that spanned much of Southeastern Europe, West Asia, and North Africa from the 14th century to the early 20th century, centred in modern-day Turkey. It also controlled parts of southeastern Central Europe between the early 16th and early 18th centuries.

The Yongle Emperor of Ming China led five large-scale military expeditions into Mongolia between 1410 and 1424. His goal was to subjugate the Mongols, and he encouraged conflict between the Eastern Mongols and the Oirats (Western Mongols). In 1410, he defeated the Eastern Mongols in two battles and maintained good relations with them for the next decade. In 1414, during the second expedition, he successfully attacked the increasingly powerful Oirats. From 1422 to 1424, after a long hiatus, he launched annual campaigns into eastern Mongolia but was unable to engage the enemy in battle. On the return from his final campaign in 1424, the Yongle Emperor died. His successors subsequently renounced further expeditions into the steppe.

The Ottoman Interregnum, or Ottoman Civil War, was a civil war in the Ottoman realm between the sons of the Ottoman sultan Bayezid I following their father's defeat and capture by Timur in the Battle of Ankara on 28 July 1402. Although Timur confirmed Mehmed Çelebi as sultan, Mehmed's brothers refused to recognize his authority, each claiming the throne for himself, which resulted in civil war. The Interregnum would last a little under 11 years and culminate in the Battle of Çamurlu on 5 July 1413, when Mehmed Çelebi emerged as victor, crowned himself Sultan Mehmed I, and restored the empire.

Pope Leo X was head of the Catholic Church and leader of the Papal States from 9 March 1513 to his death in December 1521.

Mary, Queen of Scots (8 December 1542 – 8 February 1587), also known as Mary Stuart or Mary I of Scotland, was Queen of Scotland from 14 December 1542 until her forced abdication on 24 July 1567. The only surviving legitimate child of King James V of Scotland, Mary was six days old when her father died, and she inherited the throne. During her childhood, Scotland was governed by regents, first by the heir to the throne, James Hamilton, Earl of Arran, and then by her mother, Mary of Guise. In 1548, she was betrothed to Francis, the Dauphin of France, and was sent to be brought up in France, where she would be safe from invading English forces during the Rough Wooing. Mary married Francis in 1558, becoming queen consort of France from his accession in 1559 until his death in December 1560. Widowed, Mary returned to Scotland in August 1561. The tense religious and political climate following the Scottish Reformation that Mary encountered on her return to Scotland was further agitated by prominent Scots such as John Knox, who openly questioned whether her subjects had a duty to obey her. The early years of her personal rule were marked by pragmatism, tolerance, and moderation. She issued a proclamation accepting the religious settlement in Scotland as she had found it upon her return, retained advisers such as James Stewart, Earl of Moray (her illegitimate half-brother), and William Maitland of Lethington, and governed as the Catholic monarch of a Protestant kingdom. In 1565, Mary married her half-cousin Henry Stuart, Lord Darnley; they had a son, James. Their marriage soured after Darnley orchestrated the murder of Mary's Italian secretary and close friend David Rizzio. In February 1567, Darnley's residence was destroyed by an explosion, and he was found murdered in the nearby garden. James Hepburn, 4th Earl of Bothwell, was generally believed to have orchestrated Darnley's death, but he was acquitted of the charge in April 1567 and in the following month, he married Mary. Following an uprising against the couple, Mary was imprisoned in Lochleven Castle. In July 1567, she was forced to abdicate in favour of her one-year-old son James VI. After an unsuccessful attempt to regain the throne, she fled southward seeking the protection of her first cousin once removed, Elizabeth I of England. As a great-granddaughter of Henry VII of England, Mary had once claimed Elizabeth's throne as her own and was considered the legitimate sovereign of England by many English Catholics, including participants in a rebellion known as the Rising of the North. Perceiving Mary as a threat, Elizabeth had her confined in various castles and manor houses in the interior of England. After eighteen and a half years in captivity, Mary was found guilty of plotting to assassinate Elizabeth in 1586 and was beheaded the following year at Fotheringhay Castle. Mary's life and execution established her in popular culture as a romanticised historical figure.

The Jamestown settlement in the Colony of Virginia was the first permanent English settlement in the Americas. It was located, in what later became James City County, on the northeast bank of the James River, about 2.5 mi (4 km) southwest of present-day Williamsburg. It was established by the Virginia Company of London as "James Fort" on May 4, 1607 O.S. (May 14, 1607 N.S.). It followed earlier, failed English colonization attempts, including the 1585 Roanoke Colony. A river island was selected to evade Spanish naval patrols; however, it was infested with mosquitoes, lacked potable water, and was used by the Paspahegh people. Despite supply missions, only 60 of the original 214 settlers survived the 1609–1610 winter known as Starving Time. In 1612, West Indies tobacco was successfully cultivated, leading to an economic boom for the colony and England. Jamestown served as the colonial capital from 1616 until 1699. The year 1619 had three seminal events: the first legislative assembly in the New World, a labor strike, and the first recorded African slaves in Virginia colony. The Africans most likely worked in the tobacco fields, under a system of race-based indentured servitude. The modern conception of slavery in the British colonies was formalized in 1640, and fully entrenched in Virginia by 1660. In 1622, a native uprising decimated the surrounding settlements, but the capital was warned before a decisive attack could occur. In 1676, Jamestown was deliberately burned during Bacon's Rebellion, though it was rebuilt. In 1699, the colonial capital was moved to present-day Williamsburg, Virginia. In the 18th century, Jamestown ceased to exist as a settlement and remains as an archaeological site, Jamestown Rediscovery, which houses museums and historical sites, including the Jamestown Settlement and the American Revolution Museum in Yorktown. Jamestown is one of three locations composing the Historic Triangle of Colonial Virginia, along with Williamsburg and Yorktown. Historic Jamestowne is the archaeological site on Jamestown Island and is a cooperative effort by Jamestown National Historic Site and Preservation Virginia. Jamestown Settlement, a living history interpretive site, is operated by the Jamestown Yorktown Foundation, a state agency of the Commonwealth of Virginia.

New Hampshire is a state in the New England region of the Northeastern United States. It borders Massachusetts to the south, Vermont to the west, Maine and the Gulf of Maine to the east, and the Canadian province of Quebec to the north. Of the 50 U.S. states, New Hampshire is the seventh-smallest by land area and the tenth-least populous, with a population of 1,377,529 residents as of the 2020 census. Concord is the state capital and Manchester is the most populous city. New Hampshire's motto, "Live Free or Die", reflects its role in the American Revolutionary War; its nickname, "The Granite State", refers to its extensive granite formations and quarries. It is well known for holding the first primary in the U.S. presidential election cycle, and its resulting influence on American electoral politics.

The Auspicious Incident or Auspicious Event (Ottoman Turkish: وقعۀ خيريّه, romanized: Vak'a-i Hayriyye, lit. 'The Fortunate Event' in Constantinople; Vaka-i Şerriyye, lit. 'Event of Malignity' in the Balkans) was the forced disbandment of the centuries-old janissary corps by Ottoman Sultan Mahmud II on 15 June 1826. Most of the 135,000 janissaries revolted against Mahmud II, and after the rebellion was suppressed, many of them were executed (6,000 or more), exiled or imprisoned. The disbanded janissary corps was replaced with a more modern military force.

The 1834 looting of Safed Hebrew: ביזת צפת בשנת תקצ"ד (also known as the 1834 Safed pogrom) was a month-long attack on the Jewish community of Safed in the Sidon Eyalet of the Ottoman Empire during the Peasants' revolt in Palestine. It began on Sunday, June 15 (7 Sivan), the day after the Jewish holiday of Shavuot, and lasted for 33 days. It has been described as a spontaneous attack on a defenseless population during the armed uprising against the rule of Ibrahim Pasha of Egypt, the Ottoman governor. The event took place during a power vacuum while Ibrahim Pasha was fighting to quell the wider revolt in Jerusalem. Accounts of the month-long event tell of large-scale looting, as well as killing and raping of Jews and the destruction of homes and synagogues by Druze and Muslims. Many Torah scrolls were desecrated and many Jews were left severely wounded. The event has been described as a pogrom or "pogrom-like" by some authors. Hundreds fled the town, seeking refuge in the open countryside or neighbouring villages. Lebanese Druze troops quelled the rioting under the orders of Ibrahim Pasha following the intervention of foreign consuls. The instigators were arrested and later executed in Acre.

The Oregon Treaty between the United Kingdom and the United States was signed on June 15, 1846, in Washington, D.C. The treaty brought an end to the Oregon boundary dispute by settling competing American and British claims to the Oregon Country through partition. The area had been jointly occupied by both Britain and the U.S. since the Treaty of 1818.

The Pig War was a confrontation in 1859 between the United States and the United Kingdom over the British–U.S. border in the San Juan Islands, between Vancouver Island (present-day Canada) and the Washington Territory (present-day State of Washington). The Pig War, so called because it was triggered by the shooting of a pig, is also called the Pig Episode, the Pig and Potato War, the San Juan Boundary Dispute, and the Northwestern Boundary Dispute. Despite being referred to as a "war", there were no human casualties on either side, only a pig.

The American Civil War was a civil war in the United States between the Union and the Confederacy, which was formed in 1861 by states that had seceded from the Union to preserve slavery in the United States. The South saw slavery as threatened because of the election of Abraham Lincoln and the growing abolitionist movement in the North. The war ended with Union victory, the dissolution of the Confederacy and the abolition of slavery, freeing four million African Americans.

An 8.5 magnitude earthquake occurred at 19:32 (local time) on June 15, 1896, on the Sanriku coast in Honshu, Japan. It resulted in two tsunami waves which destroyed about 9,000 homes and caused at least 22,000 deaths. It was one of the most destructive seismic events in Japanese history. The waves reached a then-record height of 38.2 metres (125 ft); this would remain the highest on record until waves from the 2011 Tōhoku earthquake exceeded that height by more than 2 metres (6 ft 7 in). From the tsunami records the estimated tsunami's magnitude is (Mt = 8.2), much greater than expected for the seismic magnitude estimated from the observed seismic intensity (Ms=7.2). This earthquake is now regarded as being part of a distinct class of seismic events, the tsunami earthquake.

PS General Slocum was an American sidewheel passenger steamboat built in Brooklyn, New York, in 1891. During her service history, she was involved in a number of mishaps, including multiple groundings and collisions. On June 15, 1904, General Slocum caught fire and sank in the East River of New York City. At the time of the disaster, she was on a chartered run carrying members of St. Mark's Evangelical Lutheran Church (German Americans from Little Germany, Manhattan) to a church picnic. An estimated 1,021 out of the 1,342 people on board died. The General Slocum disaster was the worst maritime disaster of the 20th century until the sinking of the RMS Titanic surpassed it eight years later in 1912. It remains the worst maritime disaster in New York City history, and the second-worst on U.S. waterways, after the explosion and sinking of the steamboat Sultana, and until the September 11 attacks in 2001 was the deadliest manmade disaster of any sort in the New York area. The events surrounding the General Slocum fire have been explored in a number of books, plays, and movies.

Captain Sir John William Alcock (5 November 1892 – 19 December 1919) was a British Royal Navy and later Royal Air Force officer who, with navigator Lieutenant Arthur Whitten Brown, piloted the first non-stop transatlantic flight from St. John's, Newfoundland to Clifden, Ireland in June 1919. He died in a flying accident in France in December later that same year.

World War II, or the Second World War, was a global conflict between two coalitions: the Allies and the Axis powers. Nearly all of the world's countries participated, with many engaging in total war on an unprecedented scale. World War II was the deadliest conflict in history, causing the deaths of 60 to 75 million people, a majority of whom were civilians. Millions died as a result of massacres, starvation, disease, and genocides including the Holocaust. After the Allied victory, Germany, Austria, Japan, and Korea were occupied, and German and Japanese leaders were tried for war crimes.

The Battle of Saipan was an amphibious assault launched by the United States against the Empire of Japan during the Pacific campaign of World War II between 15 June and 9 July 1944. The initial invasion triggered the Battle of the Philippine Sea, which effectively destroyed Japanese carrier-based airpower, and the battle resulted in the American capture of the island. Its occupation put the major cities of the Japanese home islands within the range of B-29 bombers, making them vulnerable to strategic bombing by the United States Army Air Forces. It also precipitated the resignation of Hideki Tōjō, the prime minister of Japan. Saipan was the first objective in Operation Forager, the campaign to occupy the Mariana Islands that got underway at the same time the Allies were invading France in Operation Overlord. After a two-day naval bombardment, the U.S. 2nd Marine Division, 4th Marine Division, and the Army's 27th Infantry Division, commanded by Lieutenant General Holland Smith, landed on the island and defeated the 43rd Infantry Division of the Imperial Japanese Army, commanded by Lieutenant General Yoshitsugu Saitō. Organized resistance ended when at least 3,000 Japanese soldiers died in a mass gyokusai attack, and afterward about 1,000 civilians committed suicide. The capture of Saipan pierced the Japanese inner defense perimeter, and forced the Japanese government to inform its citizens for the first time that the war was not going well. The battle claimed more than 46,000 military casualties and at least 8,000 civilian deaths. The high percentage of casualties suffered during the battle influenced American planning for future assaults, including the projected invasion of Japan.

Cathay Pacific Flight 700Z was a flight from Singapore to Hong Kong operated by Cathay Pacific using a Convair CV-880 aircraft that crashed 30 miles (48 km) southeast of Pleiku, then in South Vietnam, on the afternoon of 15 June 1972, killing all 81 passengers and crew on board. It remains the deadliest aviation incident involving a Convair CV-880. An investigation was carried out by officials from Great Britain and Cathay Pacific, but efforts to retrieve wreckage and study the crash site were hampered by ongoing fighting in the region due to the Vietnam War. An inquiry later determined the crash to have been caused by an explosive device, likely located within the passenger cabin. A Thai national was arrested as a suspect in the bombing but later acquitted at trial. Journalist John McBeth, who had worked for the Bangkok Post, described said trial as "Thailand's version of the O.J. Simpson trial." It was the deadliest incident to occur on a Cathay Pacific aircraft, and at the time it occurred, it was the deadliest civilian aviation accident in South Vietnam.

Francisco Franco, the dictator of Spain, died on 20 November 1975 at the age of 82. His designated successor, Prince Juan Carlos de Borbón, was proclaimed King Juan Carlos I on 22 November. The following day, Franco was buried at the Valley of the Fallen. Juan Carlos later led the Spanish transition to democracy.

The Ariane 4 was a European expendable launch vehicle, developed by the Centre national d'études spatiales (CNES), the French space agency, for the European Space Agency (ESA). It was manufactured by ArianeGroup and marketed by Arianespace. Since its first flight on 15 June 1988 until the final flight on 15 February 2003, it attained 113 successful launches out of 116 total launches.

Mount Pinatubo is an active stratovolcano in the Zambales Mountains in Luzon in the Philippines. Located on the tripoint of Zambales, Tarlac and Pampanga provinces, most people were unaware of its eruptive history before the pre-eruption volcanic activity in early 1991. Dense forests, which supported a population of several thousand indigenous Aetas, heavily eroded and obscured Pinatubo.

The Supreme Court of the United States (SCOTUS) is the highest court in the federal judiciary of the United States. It has ultimate appellate jurisdiction over all U.S. federal court cases, and over state court cases that turn on questions of U.S. constitutional or federal law. It also has original jurisdiction over a narrow range of cases, specifically "all Cases affecting Ambassadors, other public Ministers and Consuls, and those in which a State shall be Party". In 1803, the court asserted the power of judicial review, the ability to invalidate a statute for violating a provision of the Constitution. It is also able to strike down presidential directives for violating either the Constitution or statutory law.

The Troubles were an ethno-nationalist conflict in Northern Ireland that lasted from the late 1960s to 1998. Also known internationally as the Northern Ireland conflict, it is usually deemed to have ended with the Good Friday Agreement of 1998. Although centred in Northern Ireland, violence at times spilled into the Republic of Ireland, England, and mainland Europe. The conflict arose from political and nationalistic disputes with a strong ethnic and sectarian dimension. Unionists and loyalists, mostly Ulster Protestants, wanted Northern Ireland to remain in the United Kingdom, while Irish nationalists and republicans, mostly Irish Catholics, wanted it to join a united Ireland. Despite the division between Protestants and Catholics, it was not a religious war.