History for June 2

History for June 2 - On-This-Day.com 

Marquis de Sade 1740 - French aristocrat, revolutionary and writer

• 1793 - Maximillian Robespierre initiated the "Reign of Terror". It was an effort to purge those suspected of treason against the French Republic.
• 1897 - Mark Twain, at age 61, was quoted by the New York Journal as saying "the report of my death was an exaggeration." He was responding to the rumors that he had died.
• 1953 - Elizabeth was crowned queen of England at Westminster Abbey.
• 1954 - U.S. Senator Joseph McCarthy charged that there were communists working in the CIA and atomic weapons plants.
• 1966 - Surveyor 1, the U.S. space probe, landed on the moon and started sending photographs back to Earth of the Moon's surface. It was the first soft landing on the Moon.
• 1979 - Pope John Paul II arrived in his native Poland on the first visit by a pope to a Communist country.
• 1999 - In South Africa, the African National Congress (ANC) won a major victory. ANC leader Thabo Mbeki was to succeed Nelson Mandela as the nation's president.