History of the Day for:
June 29
- 1534: Jacques Cartier discovered the Prince Edward Islands.
- 1613: The Globe Theater in London burned down during the first performance of Shakespeare's Henry VIII.
- 1767: Britain passed the Townshend Acts, levying duties on glass, lead, tea, paint and paper sent to America.
- 1776: Virginia adopted its constitution and named Patrick Henry governor.
- 1880: The Pacific island of Otaheite, now known as Tahiti, was formally annexed by France.
- 1891: The National Forest Service was organized.
- 1916: The first Boeing aircraft flew.
- 1919: Slim Pickens, actor ("Dr. Strangelove") was born in Kingsburg, Calif. (d: 1983).
- 1939: The first commercial airplane flight to Europe was completed by the "Dixie Clipper."
- 1943: Germany began to withdraw its U-boats from the North Atlantic in anticipation of the Allied invasion of Europe; U.S. forces landed at Nassau Bay, near Salamaua, New Guinea.
- 1949: South Africa began its apartheid policy of racial segregation.
- 1956: Congress approved the Federal Highway Act, authorizing construction of the Interstate Highway System.
- 1964: The Civil Rights Act was passed; the TV remote control was invented.
- 1966: In the Vietnam War, U.S. planes bombed Hanoi and Haiphong for the first time.
- 1967: Jayne Mansfield, actress ("Will Success Spoil Rock Hunter?") was killed in a car crash in Louisiana.
- 1972: The Supreme Court ruled that the death penalty was contrary to the constitution.
- 1977: The Supreme Court ruled that the death penalty for rapists of adults was unconstitutional.
- 1978: Actor Bob Crane ("Hogan's Heroes") was found murdered in a Scottsdale, Ariz., hotel.
- 1995: Space Shuttle program: STS-71 Mission (Atlantis docks with the Russian space station Mir for the first time.)
- 1995: The Sampoong Department Store collapses in the Seocho-gu district of Seoul, South Korea, killing 501 and injuring 937.
- 2002: Naval clashes between South Korea and North Korea lead to the death of six South Korean sailors and sinking of a North Korean vessel.
- 2006: Hamdan v. Rumsfeld: The U.S. Supreme Court rules that President George W. Bush's plan to try Guantanamo Bay detainees in military tribunals violates U.S. and international law.
- 2007: Two car bombs are found in the heart of London at Picadilly Circus.