June 14th is

International Bath Day *

National Bourbon Day

Strawberry Shortcake Day

World Blood Donor Day *

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MORE! Archimedes, Margaret Bourke-White and Burl Ives, click

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WORLD FESTIVALS AND NATIONAL HOLIDAYS

Falkland Islands – Liberation Day

India – Odisha: Pahili Raja
(agricultural festival/rainy season start)

Estonia – Day of Mourning *
Latvia – Victims of Communist Terror Day *
Lithuania – Day of Mourning and Hope *
(see 1941 entry below)

Malawi – Freedom Day

United States – Flag Day

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On This Day in HISTORY

1158 – The city of Munich is founded by Heinrich der Löwe (Henry the Lion) Duke of Saxony and Bavaria, on the banks of the river Isar, north of the Bavarian Alps

1216 – During the First Barons’ War, an English civil war between major landowners led by Robert Fitzwalter, and King John over his refusal to abide by the Magna Carta. The rebels invite Louis, son of King Philip II of France and grandson-in-law of English King Henry II, to invade England and overthrow John. After a triumphal entry into London, on June 14, the French forces capture Winchester, well on their way to capturing half of England before they are stopped

1276 – In exile in the southern Chinese city of Fuzhou, fleeing from advancing Mongol invaders, the remaining courtiers of the Song Dynasty crown 5-year-old Prince Zhao Shi as Emperor Duanzong, but the court is forced to flee repeatedly, and Duanzong will die from illness at age 8, after nearly drowning during one of their escapes

1285 – Prince Trần Quang Khải, warrior-poet, of the Vietnamese Trần Dynasty, leads forces which destroy most of the Kublai Khan’s invading Mongol naval fleet under Prince Toghan, in the Battle of Chuong Douong during the Mongols’ second attempted invasion of Vietnam

1287 – Kublai Khan defeats the forces of opposing Mongols, Nayan and other traditionalist Borjigin princes, in East Mongolia and Manchuria

1381 – Richard II of England, only 14 years old, meets leaders of War Tyler’s Peasants’ Revolt on Blackheath, a rallying place for the rebels. During the parley, a mob breaks into the Tower of London and ransacks the Jewel Room

1404 – Welsh rebel leader Owain Glyndŵr, having declared himself Prince of Wales, allies himself with the French against King Henry IV of England

1623 – The first breach-of-promise lawsuit: Reverend Greville Pooley of the Virginia Colony files against Cicely Phippen Bailey Jordan. Her first husband had died of malaria in 1620, and she re-married, to Samuel Jordan. When Jordan dies, she is pregnant with his child.  With women in short supply in the colony, Pooley only waits four days after Samuel’s death before he proposes to her. Cicely agrees, but on condition that the engagement be kept secret until after the baby is born.  Pooley however begins bragging that they are soon to be married, and an angry Cicely breaks off the engagement. Pooley eventually withdraws his suit

1642 – The first compulsory education law in America is passed by Massachusetts

1775 – The American Continental Congress establishes the Continental Army, which will become the United States Army

1777 – The Stars and Stripes is adopted by Congress as the Flag of the United States

1789 – HMS Bounty mutiny survivors including Captain William Bligh and 18 others reach Timor after a nearly 4,600 mile (7,400 km) journey in an open boat

HMS Bounty at Tahiti

1800 –The French Army of First Consul Napoleon Bonaparte defeats the Austrians at the Battle of Marengo in Northern Italy and re-conquers Italy, and Chicken Marengo is created in honor of the victory

1807 – Emperor Napoleon’s French Grande Armée defeats the Russian Army at the Battle of Friedland in Poland (modern Russian Kaliningrad Oblast) ending the War of the Fourth Coalition, an alliance of Prussia, Russia, Saxony, Sweden, and Great Britain against Napoleon

1811 – Harriet Beecher Stowe born, American author and abolitionist; Uncle Tom’s Cabin is a huge best-seller: 1.5 million copies are sold in its first year

1822 – Charles Babbage proposes a difference engine in a paper to the Royal Astronomical Society entitled “Note on the application of machinery to the computation of astronomical and mathematical tables”.

1830 – Thirty-four thousand French soldiers begin their invasion of Algiers, landing near Sidi Fredj, the start of the French colonization of Algeria

1834 – Isaac Fischer Jr. patents sandpaper

1839 – Henley Royal Regatta: the village of Henley-on-Thames, on the River Thames in Oxfordshire, stages its first regatta

Henley Royal Regatta Illuminations

1839 – Alice Fisher born in England, pioneer in American nursing, whose tenure as a superintendent at the Philadelphia General Hospital dramatically improved the standard of care; she also started the hospital’s nursing school

1846 – The Bear Flag Revolt is launched against Mexico by Anglo settlers in Sonoma, California who proclaim the California Republic

1872 – Trade unions are legalized in Canada

1855 – Robert Bunsen and his assistant, Peter Desaga, perfect the Bunsen burner

1900 – Years after Hawaii becomes a U.S. territory, Congress finally passes the Hawaiian Organic Act of 1900, which grants Hawaii a popularly elected government, but with a governor appointed by and serving “at the pleasure of” the U.S. President, confirmed by the Senate, because of racist fears of a “non-white” government

1907 – Norway grants middle class women the right to vote in parliamentary elections

1913 – The Immigration Regulation Act is passed in South Africa, restricting immigration of Asians and free movement with the country; Mohandas Gandhi leads Indian residents in protesting and resisting

1877 – Jane Bathori born, French mezzo-soprano

1904 – Margaret Bourke-White born, American photographer and journalist, war correspondent, photographed the first cover for LIFE magazine

1909 – Burl Ives born, singer and actor

1919 – John Alcock and Arthur Whitten Brown depart from St. John’s, Newfoundland on the first nonstop transatlantic flight

1937 – Pennsylvania is the only U.S. state to make Flag Day an official state holiday

1937 – U.S. House of Representatives passes the Marijuana Tax Act, which is opposed by the American Medical Association (AMA) because the tax is imposed on physicians prescribing cannabis, retail pharmacists selling cannabis, and medical cannabis cultivation and manufacturing. The AMA proposes that cannabis be added to the Harrison Narcotics Tax Act of 1915 which regulates and taxes the production, importation, and distribution of opiates and coca products, but the bill is passed over the objections put forward by Dr. William Creighton Woodward, legislative counsel for the AMA. Dr. Woodward objects to the bill on the grounds that it was prepared in secret without giving proper time for the AMA prepare their opposition to the bill. He doubts their claims about marijuana addiction, violence, and overdosage, and asserts that because the word ‘Marijuana’ is largely unknown at the time, the medical profession didn’t realize they were losing cannabis. “Marijuana is not the correct term … Yet the burden of this bill is placed heavily on the doctors and pharmacists of this country.”

1938 – Author- Illustrator Dorothy Lathrop wins the first Caldecott Medal, for her illustrations for Animals of the Bible, A Picture Book, awarded by the children’s division of the American Library Association (ALA)

1940 – WWII German forces enter Paris unopposed as Allied forces retreat

1940 – Lithuania loses its independence, bowing to the Soviet Ultimatum that an unspecified number of Soviet soldiers will enter Lithuanian territory and form a pro-Soviet government (the “People’s Government”); in the Soviet–Lithuanian Mutual Assistance Treaty of October 1939, Lithuania agrees to let 20,000 Soviets troops be posted at several bases within Lithuania in exchange for a portion of the Vilnius Region

1940 – 728 Polish political prisoners from Tarnów become the first inmates of the Auschwitz concentration camp

1941 – A wave begins of Soviet mass deportations and murder of Estonians, Latvians and Lithuanians; in all, nearly 70,000 people are deported. Most of the men die in Siberian prison camps; women, children and elderly men are forcibly “resettled”

1949 – Albert II, a rhesus monkey, rides a V-2 rocket to an altitude of 83 miles (134 km), becoming the first monkey in space; he survived the flight, but died on impact when his parachute failed

1951 – UNIVAC I is dedicated by the U.S. Census Bureau

1954 – In 1951, the chaplain of the Illinois Society of the Sons of Liberty, Louis A. Bowman, begins a campaign to add “under God” to the U.S. Pledge of Allegiance. On Flag Day in 1954, President Dwight Eisenhower signs a bill into law which officially adds “under God” to the Pledge

1955 – Chile becomes a signatory to the Buenos Aires Convention, a copyright treaty providing mutual recognition of copyrights on works carrying a statement of the reservation of rights, commonly in English listed as “All rights reserved”

1959 – The Disneyland Monorail System, the first daily operating monorail system in the Western Hemisphere, opens to the public in Anaheim, California

1962 – The European Space Research Organization is established in Paris – renamed the European Space Agency

1966 – The Vatican announces the abolition of the Index Librorum Prohibitorum, its  index of prohibited books, originally instituted in 1500s

1967 – NASA’s Mariner 5 is launched towards Venus

1967 – The People’s Republic of China tests its first hydrogen bomb

1970 – The Grateful Dead release their Workingman’s Dead album

1972 – The Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) bans DDT in the U.S.; in 2002, DDT residue was still found in some foods grown in America

1982 – Falklands War: Argentine forces in Stanley, the Falkland capital, conditionally surrender to British forces

2000 – Near-Earth asteroid 2002 MN misses the Earth by 75,000 miles (121,000 km), about one-third of the distance between the Earth and the Moon.

2004 – World Blood Donor Day * is started by the World Health Organization (WHO) to encourage people to voluntarily give blood. The limited period that blood can be safely stored, and the number of people in need of transfusions means there is a constant demand for donors, especially people with rare blood types

2016 – International Bath Day * is launched to celebrate the legend of a major discovery in 260 BC, on what is now June 14, by Archimedes. While taking a bath, Archimedes realizes that an object’s volume could be accurately measured by being submerged in water. Unable to contain his excitement, Archimedes leaps out of the bathtub yelling “Eureka, Eureka!”

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