Today In History in 1952 the first Miss Universe pageant is held with Armi Kuusela of Finland winning the title;  and in 1956 the Federal Aid Highway Act is signed by U.S. President Dwight Eisenhower, creating the United States Interstate Highway System. Our on this day in history archives contain over 200,000 events, birthdays and deaths from 6,000 years of history. Here is a roundup of a few of them:

June 29 is the 180th day of the year (181st in leap years) in the Gregorian calendar; 185 days remain until the end of the year.

Events

1534 – Jacques Cartier is the first European to reach Prince Edward Island.

1613 – The Globe Theatre in London, built by William Shakespeare's playing company, the Lord Chamberlain's Men, burns to the ground.

1620 – English crown bans tobacco growing in England, giving the Virginia Company a monopoly in exchange for tax of one shilling per pound.

1644 – Charles I of England defeats a Parliamentarian detachment at the Battle of Cropredy Bridge.

1764 – One of the strongest tornadoes in history strikes Woldegk, Germany, killing one person while leveling numerous mansions with winds estimated greater than 300 miles per hour (480 km/h).

1786 – Alexander Macdonell and over five hundred Roman Catholic highlanders leave Scotland to settle in Glengarry County, Ontario.

1864 – At least 99 people, mostly German and Polish immigrants, are killed in Canada's worst railway disaster after a train fails to stop for an open drawbridge and plunges into the Rivière Richelieu near St-Hilaire, Quebec.

1889 – Hyde Park and several other Illinois townships vote to be annexed by Chicago, forming the largest United States city in area and second largest in population at the time.

1922 – France grants "one square kilometer" at Vimy Ridge "freely, and for all time, to the Government of Canada, the free use of the land exempt from all taxes".

1927 – The Bird of Paradise, a U.S. Army Air Corps Fokker tri-motor, completes the first transpacific flight, from the mainland United States to Hawaii.

1950 – Korean War: U.S. President Harry S. Truman authorizes a sea blockade of Korea.

1952 – The first Miss Universe pageant is held. Armi Kuusela from Finland wins the title of Miss Universe 1952.

1956 – The Federal Aid Highway Act of 1956 is signed by U.S. President Dwight D. Eisenhower, officially creating the United States Interstate Highway System.

1971 – Prior to re-entry (following a record-setting stay aboard the Soviet Union’s Salyut 1 space station), the crew capsule of the Soyuz 11 spacecraft depressurizes, killing the three cosmonauts on board. Georgy Dobrovolsky, Vladislav Volkov and Viktor Patsayev are the first humans to die in space.

1972 – The United States Supreme Court rules in the case Furman v. Georgia that arbitrary and inconsistent imposition of the death penalty violates the Eighth and Fourteenth Amendments and constitutes cruel and unusual punishment.

1972 – A Convair CV-580 and De Havilland Canada DHC-6 Twin Otter collide above Lake Winnebago near Appleton, Wisconsin, killing 13.[14]

1974 – Vice President Isabel Perón assumes powers and duties as Acting President of Argentina, while her husband President Juan Perón is terminally ill.

1974 – Mikhail Baryshnikov defects from the Soviet Union to Canada while on tour with the Kirov Ballet.

1976 – The Seychelles become independent from the United Kingdom.

1976 – The Conference of Communist and Workers Parties of Europe convenes in East Berlin.

1987 – Vincent van Gogh's painting, the Le Pont de Trinquetaille, is bought for $20.4 million at an auction in London, England.

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 District of Seoul, South Korea, killing 502 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 – Apple Inc. releases its first mobile phone, the iPhone.

2012 – A derecho sweeps across the eastern United States, leaving at least 22 people dead and millions without power.

2014 – The Islamic State of Iraq and the Levant self-declares its caliphate in Syria and northern Iraq.