100% verified The same day, three eras.
22 June
Contemporary era
1941
Operation Barbarossa opens the Eastern Front
On 22 June 1941, Nazi Germany and its allies launched against the Soviet Union the largest invasion in history, along a front of nearly 2,900 kilometres.
Around 03:15, artillery and aircraft struck as more than three million Axis troops crossed the border. Meant to annihilate the USSR, the offensive stalled before Moscow in December and opened the deadliest war of the twentieth century.
Sources and verification (2)
- Encyclopaedia Operation Barbarossa (Encyclopaedia Britannica) Encyclopaedia Britannica. 5/5
- Academic Invasion of the Soviet Union, June 1941 (USHMM) United States Holocaust Memorial Museum. 5/5
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From the Middle Ages to the Enlightenment
1633
Galileo abjures before the Roman Inquisition
On 22 June 1633, at the convent of Santa Maria sopra Minerva in Rome, Galileo, judged vehemently suspect of heresy, was forced to abjure the idea that the Earth moves around the Sun.
Condemned for upholding Copernican heliocentrism, the scholar knelt and read a prepared recantation. His prison sentence was commuted the next day to house arrest, which he kept until his death at Arcetri.
Sources and verification (2)
- Primary source Documents in the Case of Galileo (1633) Sentence et abjuration, 22 juin 1633 (Ohio State University). 5/5
- Encyclopaedia Galileo affair (Wikipedia) Wikipedia. 4/5
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Antiquity
168 BC
The Battle of Pydna seals Macedonia's fate
On 22 June 168 BC, the legions of Lucius Aemilius Paullus crushed King Perseus's phalanx at Pydna; the victory ended the Third Macedonian War and the Antigonid dynasty.
Lured from his fortified position, Perseus gave battle on the plain, where the flexible Roman legions overcame the rigid phalanx. The king was captured and paraded in Rome, and Macedonia became a Roman province.
Sources and verification (2)
- Encyclopaedia Battle of Pydna (Encyclopaedia Britannica) Encyclopaedia Britannica. 5/5
- Secondary source Battle of Pydna (World History Encyclopedia) World History Encyclopedia. 4/5
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