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Today is Monday, June 22, the 173rd day of 2026. There are 192 days left in the year.
On June 22, 1986, Argentine soccer great Diego Maradona scored the infamous “Hand of God” goal in the quarterfinals of the FIFA World Cup against England, giving Argentina a 1-0 lead before he scored again minutes later to seal a 2-1 victory. (Argentina would beat West Germany 3-2 for the World Cup trophy days later).
In 1815, Napoleon Bonaparte abdicated for a second time as Emperor of the French.
In 1938, in a rematch that bore the weight of both geopolitical symbolism and African American representation, American Joe Louis knocked out German Max Schmeling in just two minutes and four seconds to retain his heavyweight boxing title in front of 70,000 spectators at New York’s Yankee Stadium.
In 1941, Nazi Germany launched Operation Barbarossa, a massive and ultimately ill-fated invasion of the Soviet Union that would prove pivotal to the Allied victory over the Axis Powers.
In 1944, President Franklin D. Roosevelt signed the Servicemen’s Readjustment Act of 1944, more popularly known as the “GI Bill of Rights,” which provided tuition coverage, unemployment support and low-interest home and business loans to returning veterans.
In 1945, the World War II Battle of Okinawa ended with an Allied victory.
In 1970, President Richard Nixon signed an extension of the Voting Rights Act of 1965 that lowered the minimum voting age to 18.
In 1977, John N. Mitchell became the first former U.S. attorney general to go to prison as he began serving a sentence for his role in the Watergate cover-up.
In 1981, Mark David Chapman pleaded guilty to killing rock star and former Beatle John Lennon.
In 1992, the U.S. Supreme Court, in R.A.V. v. City of St. Paul, unanimously ruled that hate crime laws that banned cross burning and similar expressions of racial bias violated free-speech rights.
In 2009, a Metro commuter train slammed into the back of another train waiting to enter a station in Washington, D.C., killing nine people, including a train operator, and leaving dozens injured. It was the deadliest accident on the Metro train system since it opened in 1976.
In 2011, after evading arrest for 16 years, mob boss James “Whitey” Bulger was captured in Santa Monica, California.
In 2012, former Penn State assistant football coach Jerry Sandusky was convicted by a jury in Bellefonte, Pennsylvania, on 45 counts of sexually assaulting 10 boys over 15 years. (Sandusky would later be sentenced to 30 to 60 years in prison.)
In 2022, a powerful earthquake struck a mountainous region of eastern Afghanistan, killing at least 1,000 people and injuring at least 1,500 others.
In 2025, U.S. forces used bunker buster bombs and cruise missiles to attack two underground uranium enrichment plants in Iran, seeking to deliver a knockout blow to that country’s nuclear program.
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