June 15 in History

In June 1215, King John of England agreed to a charter of liberties at Runnymede, a meadow beside the Thames west of London. Known later as Magna Carta, or "Great Charter," the document was a peace settlement forced on the king by rebellious barons. It did not create democracy, and it was designed to protect the privileges of a narrow elite. Its lasting importance lies in the principle it expressed: that the king himself was subject to the law.

In June 1991, Mount Pinatubo on the Philippine island of Luzon erupted in one of the largest volcanic events of the twentieth century, second only to the 1912 eruption of Novarupta in Alaska by most measures. The eruption killed several hundred people, displaced hundreds of thousands, and injected so much material into the stratosphere that it measurably cooled the entire planet for about two years. It is also remembered as a major success in volcano forecasting, since early warnings saved many thousands of lives.