- **1940** - King Leopold II of Belgium surrendered to a German attack during World War II, as defeated Allied armies evacuated from Dunkirk. By June 2, 224,585 British soldiers and 112,546 French and Belgian soldiers were rescued.
- **1981** - Cardinal Stefan Wyszyński, the head of the Roman Catholics in Poland and a critic of the communist authorities in Warsaw, died.
- **1991** - "Rebel" tanks entered the Ethiopian capital, Addis Ababa, at dawn.
- **1995** - An earthquake in Russia killed 1,989 people in the oil-producing town of Neftegorsk on Sakhalin Island, registering a magnitude of 7.5 on the Richter scale.
- **1997** - Russia and Ukraine signed agreements granting Moscow the right to station part of its former Soviet fleet in the Black Sea at Sevastopol in the Ukrainian Crimea for 20 years.
- **1998** - Pakistan officially became a nuclear power by conducting five nuclear tests.
- **1999** - Polish police removed hundreds of crosses from outside the Auschwitz complex, ending an 11-month protest organized by Roman Catholic extremists, which severely damaged relations with Jewish groups.
- **2002** - NATO and Russia launched a new security cooperation forum, with Moscow sitting as an equal alongside the nineteen NATO allies in the council.
- **2003** - Montreal Canadiens hockey player Patrick Roy announced his retirement after 18 years as one of the greatest goaltenders in NHL history.
- **2003** - The world's first cloned horse was born in Italy through natural birth.
- **2010** - Dozens were killed in a train accident in West Bengal.
