June 1971

January – February – March – April – May – June – July – August – September – October – November – December

The following events occurred in June 1971.

June 1, 1971 (Tuesday)

• Vietnam War: Vietnam Veterans for a Just Peace, claiming to represent the majority of U.S. veterans who served in Southeast Asia, speak against war protests.
• The East Pakistan Razakar Ordinance (promulgated by General Tikka Khan) makes Razakars recognised members of the Pakistan Army.
• Died: Reinhold Niebuhr, 78, American theologian and political commentator

June 2, 1971 (Wednesday)

• In the football European Cup Final at Wembley, AFC Ajax of the Netherlands defeat Panathinaikos FC of Greece 2 - 0.
• Born: Rustam Sharipov, Ukrainian gymnast

June 3, 1971 (Thursday)

• In the second leg of the 1971 Inter-Cities Fairs Cup Final, held at Stadio Comunale, Turin, Leeds United A.F.C. draw 1-1 with Juventus F.C. to win the tie 3-3 on away goals.
• The comedy No Sex Please, We're British, opens at the Strand Theatre, beginning a 16-year run that makes it the eighth longest-running stage production in London's West End.
• Born: Luigi Di Biagio, Italian footballer, in Rome

June 4, 1971 (Friday)

• Kosmos 426 is launched by the Soviet Union as part of the Dnepropetrovsk Sputnik programme, for the purpose of studying charged particles and radiation in the Earth's magnetosphere. It operates for six months, but remains in orbit until 2002.
• Born: Joseph Kabila, President of the Democratic Republic of the Congo, in Rwanda; Carol Owens, New Zealand squash player, in Melbourne, Australia

June 5, 1971 (Saturday)

• Died: August Jack Khatsahlano, 93, chief of the Squamish people of southwestern British Columbia; André Trocmé, 70, French pacifist pastor and war hero

June 6, 1971 (Sunday)

• Soyuz program: Soyuz 11 (Vladislav Volkov, Georgi Dobrovolski, Viktor Patsayev) is launched.
• A midair collision between Hughes Airwest Flight 706 Douglas DC-9 jetliner and a U.S. Marine Corps McDonnell Douglas F-4 Phantom jet fighter near Duarte, California, claims 50 lives. All 44 passengers and five crew members aboard the DC-9, which impacted into a remote canyon of Mt. Bliss approximately three miles N of the city of Duartem are killed, along with one of the two crew members of the F-4B fighter, whose wreckage is found in another canyon approximately .75 miles SE of the DC-9's crash site. The second crew member survives.
• The Ed Sullivan Show ends its 23-year run on CBS television.
• John Lennon and Yoko Ono record tracks for the Some Time in New York City album. Other musicians participating in the session include Aynsley Dunbar, Howard Kaylan, Jim Pons, Don Preston, Ian Underwood, Mark Volman, Klaus Voormann and Frank Zappa.
• Died: Yitzhak Tabenkin, 83, Israeli politician and co-founder of the Kibbutz movement

June 7, 1971 (Monday)

• Ken Ballew raid: In Silver Spring, Maryland, the federal Alcohol Tobacco Firearms Division (ATFD) raids the home of Kenyon F. Ballew, resulting in a cause célèbre in the debates between advocates of gun control and advocates of gun owner rights on the U.S.A.
• Died: Camille Gutt, 86, Belgian economist and politician

June 8, 1971 (Tuesday)

• Died: Onni Hiltunen, 75, Finnish politician

June 9, 1971 (Wednesday)

• King Bhumibol Adulyadej of Thailand celebrates his Silver Jubilee.
• Abdul Zahir replaces Mohammad Nur Ahmad Etemadi as Prime Minister of Afghanistan.
• Opening of the helicopter museum of the German Army Aviation Corps, at Bückeburg.
• Died: Jim Kirby, 86, American inventor (Kirby vacuum cleaner)

June 10, 1971 (Thursday)

• The U.S. ends its trade embargo of China.
• Corpus Christi Massacre: A student rally on the streets of Mexico City is repressed by the authorities.
• Born: Kyle Sandilands, Australian TV and radio personality, in Brisbane
• Died: Michael Rennie, 61, English actor

June 11, 1971 (Friday)

• The 19-month occupation of Alcatraz by the group Indians of All Tribes (IAT) ends when a large force of government officers removed the remaining 15 people from the island.
• Died: Ambrose, 74, British bandleader and violinist; John W. Campbell, 61, American sci-fi writer and editor; Isabel Gonzalez, 89, Puerto Rican political activist

June 12, 1971 (Saturday)

• Died: Franklyn MacCormack, 65, American radio personality

June 13, 1971 (Sunday)

• Vietnam War: The New York Times begins to publish the Pentagon Papers. [1].
• Gijs van Lennep wins the 24 hours of Le Mans together with Helmut Marko.
• Died: Sathyaneshan Nadar, 58, Malayali film actor

June 14, 1971 (Monday)

• Norway begins oil production in the North Sea.
• The first Hard Rock Cafe opens in London, England

June 15, 1971 (Tuesday)

• US Senator Mike Gravel (D-Alaska) receives a copy of the Pentagon Papers from Ben Bagdikian, an editor at The Washington Post.
• Born: Bif Naked, Canadian singer, poet and actress, as Beth Torbert in New Delhi, India
• Died: Wendell Meredith Stanley, 66, American biochemist and Nobel laureate

June 16, 1971 (Wednesday)

• Australia's Experimental Military Unit is withdrawn from Vietnam.
• Born: Tupac Shakur (d. 1996), American rapper, poet, and actor, in East Harlem, New York City

June 17, 1971 (Thursday)

• Representatives of Japan and the United States sign the Okinawa Reversion Agreement, whereby the U.S. will return control of Okinawa.
• A drunken Jim Morrison makes a recording in a Paris studio with two equally inebriated American street musicians he had befriended shortly before.
• Born: Paulina Rubio, Mexican singer and actress, in Mexico City

June 18, 1971 (Friday)

• Southwest Airlines, a low cost carrier, begins its first flights between Dallas, Texas, Houston, and San Antonio, Texas.
• Carole King gives her first performance in front of an audience. A recording of the concert is released as an album in 1996.
• Died: Libby Holman, 67, American singer and actress; Paul Karrer, 82, Swiss chemist and Nobel Prize laureate

June 19, 1971 (Saturday)

• 78 Records opens in Perth, Australia.
• Died: Garfield Wood, 90, American inventor

June 20, 1971 (Sunday)

• Britain announces that Soviet space scientist Anatoli Fedoseyev has been granted political asylum.
• Jacky Ickx wins the 1971 Dutch Grand Prix motor race at Zandvoort.

June 21, 1971 (Monday)

• Britain begins new negotiations for EEC membership in Luxembourg.

June 22, 1971 (Tuesday)

• Born: Laila Rouass, British actress, in London; Kambri Crews, American writer; Kurt Warner, American football quarterback, in Burlington, Iowa

June 23, 1971 (Wednesday)

• Merrill Lynch becomes the second Wall Street firm to go public.
• The action film Le Mans, starring Steve McQueen, is released.
• A paper in Nature by John Vane and Priscilla Piper puts forward evidence that aspirin and similar drugs work by inhibiting the release of prostaglandin.
• Died: Princess Maria Anna of Braganza, 71

June 24, 1971 (Thursday)

• The Kosmos 428 military reconnaissance satellite is launched by the Soviet Union.
• Born: Ursula Meier, French-Swiss film director, in Besançon

June 25, 1971 (Friday)

• Madagascar accuses the U.S. of being connected to the plot to oust the current government; the U.S. recalls its ambassador.
• Died: John Boyd Orr, 90, Scottish physician and biologist, recipient of the Nobel Peace Prize

June 26, 1971 (Saturday)

• Died: Johannes Frießner, 79, German World War II general

June 27, 1971 (Sunday)

• Concert promoter Bill Graham closes the legendary Fillmore East, which first opened on 2nd Avenue (between 5th and 6th Streets) in New York City on March 8, 1968.
• Born: King Dipendra of Nepal (died 2001), in Kathmandu. Dipendra, as Crown Prince, murdered most of his family in June 2001, leaving himself in a coma to reign as king for three days until his own death.

June 28, 1971 (Monday)

• Assassin Jerome A. Johnson shoots Joe Colombo in the head in a middle of an Italian-American rally, putting him in a coma.
• Died: Camille Clifford, 85, Belgian actress and model

June 29, 1971 (Tuesday)

• Senator Mike Gravel attempts to read the Pentagon Papers into the Congressional Record. A lack of a quorum prevents the Senate from convening. As chair of the Senate Subcommittee on Public Buildings and Grounds, Gravel convenes a meeting of the subcommittee and spends an hour reading part of the Pentagon Papers into the record.

June 30, 1971 (Wednesday)

• After a successful mission aboard Salyut 1, the world's first manned space station, the crew of the Soyuz 11 spacecraft are killed when their air supply leaks out through a faulty valve. (See June 6.)
• New York Times Co. v. United States: The U.S. Supreme Court rules that the Pentagon Papers may be published, rejecting government injunctions as unconstitutional prior restraint.
• Died: Nikola Kotkov, 32, Bulgarian footballer, in a car accident