June 19, 1917 – Britain’s King George V changes royal surname. The British royal family dispensed with the use of German titles and surnames, changing the surname of his own family, the decidedly Germanic Saxe-Coburg-Gotha, to Windsor. But doesn’t a rose by any other name still smell the same?
June 20, 1975 – On this day, Jaws, a film directed by Steven Spielberg that made countless viewers afraid to go into the water, opens in theaters. The story of a great white shark that terrorizes a New England resort town became an instant blockbuster and the highest-grossing film in movie history until it was bested by 1977’s Star Wars.
June 21, 1965 – The Byrds’ debut album, Mr. Tambourine Man, marked the beginning of the folk-rock revolution.
June 22, 1941 – Over 3 million German troops invade Russia in three parallel offensives, in what is the most powerful invasion force in history. Nineteen panzer divisions, 3,000 tanks, 2,500 aircraft, and 7,000 artillery pieces pour across a thousand-mile front as Hitler goes to war on a second front. Hitler had a pattern of making big mistakes.
June 23, 1902 – German automaker Daimler-Motoren-Gesellschaft (DMG) first registers “Mercedes” as a brand name; the name will gain full legal protection the next September. The name traces back to the daughter of an Austrian diplomat, Mercedes Jellinek.
June 24, 1966 – Senate passes landmark auto safety bill. The United States Senate votes 76-0 for the passage of what will become the National Traffic and Motor Vehicle Safety Act. Signed into law by President Lyndon B. Johnson the following September, the act created the nation’s first mandatory federal safety standards for motor vehicles.
June 25, 1956 – The last Packard — the classic American luxury car with the famously enigmatic slogan “Ask the Man Who Owns One” — rolls off the production line at Packard’s plant in Detroit, Michigan on this day. Three automobile stories in a row!
Abstracted from www.history.com/this-day-in-history.
