June 16 in Military History

Napoleon defeats the Prussians under Blücher in the last victory of his career, two days before his final defeat at Waterloo.

Wellington's Anglo-Allied army fights Marshal Ney to a standstill at the crossroads of Quatre Bras, preventing French forces from cutting off the Allied line of retreat.

Union forces under Ulysses S. Grant continue their siege of Vicksburg, tightening the trench lines and cutting off Confederate General Pemberton's garrison from supply and relief.

Marshal Philippe Pétain replaces Paul Reynaud as Premier of France and immediately seeks an armistice with Germany, effectively ending French resistance.

RAF Bomber Command dispatches a third massive thousand-plane raid against the Krupp armament works in Essen, part of Air Marshal Arthur Harris' campaign to prove area bombing could cripple German industry.

The second day of operations on Saipan sees U.S. Marines expanding their beachhead against fierce Japanese resistance in the Marianas.

In the closing weeks of the Pacific War, heavy cruiser USS Indianapolis prepares its high-speed run to Tinian carrying components of the Little Boy atomic weapon, a mission that ended in the worst single-ship naval disaster in U.S. Navy history.

Workers in East Berlin and across East Germany rise up against the communist government. Soviet tanks crush the rebellion, killing dozens and arresting thousands.

Soviet cosmonaut Valentina Tereshkova launches aboard Vostok 6, becoming the first woman in space, a Cold War propaganda triumph for the Soviet Union.

Grumman Aircraft Engineering delivers the first engineering mockup of the Lunar Excursion Module to NASA, a flying machine designed exclusively to land two astronauts on the Moon and return them to lunar orbit.