June 15th is

Lobster Day

Dump the Pump Day *

Global Wind Day *

Magna Carta Day *

Nature Photography Day *

Recess At Work Day *

World Elder Abuse Awareness Day *
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MORE! Edvard Grieg, Elena Nikolaidi and Saul Steinberg, click

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WORLD FESTIVALS AND NATIONAL HOLIDAYS

Christianity – Corpus Christi Day/The Feast of Corpus Christi; celebrates the body and blood of Jesus Christ in the Eucharist, the Blessed Sacrament of Holy Communion. At the Last Supper, Christ gives his disciples bread and wine which he says are his body and blood, and tells them to eat and drink them in remembrance of him 

Azerbaijan – Day of National Salvation
(1993 return of Heydar Aliyev as nation’s leader)

Denmark – Day of Valdemar and Reunion *
(see 1219 and 1920 entries below)

India – Odisha: Raja Sankranti
(Prithivi, earth goddess, celebration)

Venezuela – San Francisco de Yare: Los Diablos Danzantes
(dancing devils surrender at Corpus Christi festival)

United Kingdom – Bodelva Cornwall:
Eden Sessions Music Fest (opening day)
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On This Day in HISTORY

763 BC – Assyrians record a solar eclipse that is later used to fix the chronology of Mesopotamian history

844 – Louis II (Ludovico the Younger) is crowned King of Italy by Pope Sergius II

1215 – Magna Carta Day * – King John of England puts his royal seal on the Magna Carta; while mostly benefiting the barons who had been in rebellion against King John’s abuse of feudal law and custom, it is a milestone in the history of the Rule of Law because it places limits on the power of the monarchy. It leads to England’s Petition of Right (1628) and the Habeas Corpus Act (1679), insuring the right of trial by a jury of one’s peers, and requiring a person under arrest to be brought before a judge or court to either show lawful grounds for detaining them, or to release the detainee

1219 – Danish King Valdemar II is victorious over the Estonians in the Battle of Lyndanisse; legend says the Dannebrog (Denmark’s national flag) fell down from the sky after the battle was won, so the Day of Valdemar * is also Flag Day

Dannebrog falling from the sky by Christian August Lorentzen – 1809

1300 – In northern Spain, Bilbao is founded by Diego López V of Haro, Lord of Biscay

1520 – Pope Leo X threatens to excommunicate Martin Luther in Exsurge Domine, which censures forty-one of Luther’s propositions, and gives him 60 days to recant

1667 – Dr. Jean-Baptiste Denys administers the first documented blood transfusion. He transfuses about 12 ounces of sheep blood into a 15-year-old boy, who had been bled with leeches 20 times. The boy survives the transfusion, but later patients receiving multiple transfusions of animal blood do not

1752 (traditional date) – Benjamin Franklin proves that lightning is electricity using a 40-foot-tall iron rod in a lightning storm, and extracting electrical sparks from a cloud

1763 – Franz Danzi born, German composer of operas, lieder and symphonies

1775 – George Washington is appointed commander-in-chief of the American’s Continental Army

1815 – Hablot Knight Browne born, English illustrator who depicted many of Charles Dickens’ characters

1836 – Arkansas becomes the 25th U.S. state

1843 – Edvard Grieg born, Norwegian composer, founder of the Norwegian nationalist school of music

1864 – U.S. Secretary of War Edwin M. Stanton signs an order establishing a military burial ground, which becomes Arlington National Cemetery

1864 – Guy Ropartz born, French composer from Brittany, who used Celtic Breton themes in his music

1876 – Margaret Abbott born, American golfer and Olympic medalist, first American woman to win a gold medal in the Olympics

1887 – Malvina Hoffman born, American artist and author; her monumental bronze sculpture series, “The Races of Mankind,” is commissioned in 1930 by Chicago’s Field Museum of Natural History

1900 – Otto Luening born to German immigrant parents who were musicians, American composer and pioneer in electronic music

1902 – Erik Erikson born, psychoanalyst who reshaped views of human development

1902 – The 20th Century Limited, an express passenger train between New York and Chicago, begins service

1909 – Elena Nikolaidi born, Greek-American mezzo-soprano and recording artist

1910 – David Rose born, American songwriter-composer; “The Stripper”, “Holiday for Strings” and TV series theme songs, including  Little House on the Prairie and Bonanza

1914 – Saul Steinberg born in Romania, America artist, illustrator and cartoonist, famed for decades of covers and drawings for The New Yorker

Untitled, by Saul Steinberg – 1974

1914 – Hilda Terry born, American cartoonist; comic strip Teena; first woman to join the National Cartoonists Society

Teena, 1945 cover

1920 – Denmark reunites with Southern Jutland; Denmark fought two wars with Germany, in 1848 and 1864, over the disputed territory; celebrated as Reunion Day *

1920 – Amy Clampitt born, American poet and author

1921 – Bessie Coleman receives her pilot’s license after graduating from  the Fédération Aéronautique Internationale. She is the first African American woman to earn a pilot’s license and the first American of any race or gender to earn an international license

1926 – Carol Fox born, American impresario of the Chicago Lyric Opera

1938 – Jeanette W. Hyde born, American diplomat; President Bill Clinton appointed her as U.S. Ambassador to Barbados/Dominica/St. Lucia (1994-1998) and as Ambassador to Antigua/Grenada/St. Vincent and St. Christopher-Nevis-Anguilla (1995-1998).  In 1996, the U.S. Coast Guard presented her with the highest civilian award for Public Service for treaty work in drug trafficking, and in 1997 the US Department of Defense, the FBI and the US Drug Enforcement Agency presented her with Civilian Service awards. She is a member of the Council of American Ambassadors

1945 – Miriam Defensor Santiago born, Filipino judge and politician; as a senator of the Philippines, in 1995 she authors a record number of bills and laws; in 2012, she becomes the first Filipina and first Asian from a developing country to be elected as adjudge of the International Criminal Court at the Hague, but is forced to resign when she is diagnosed with lung cancer; in 2016, joins the Advisory Council of the International Development Law Organization (IDLO), an intergovernmental body that promotes the rule of law

1953 – Ana Castillo born, Mexican-American author, poet, editor, playwright and scholar, recipient of an American Book Award and a Carl Sandburg Award, and the first Sor Juana Inés de la Cruz Endowed Chair at DePaul University

1989 – Nirvana releases their first album, Bleach

1999 – Nicholas Vitalich is arrested for assaulting his girlfriend with a large tuna, outside a San Diego supermarket, and charged with assault with a deadly weapon

2004 – Recess At Work Day * is started by Rich Digirolamo as a time to break routine, and engage in productive play, which builds morale, sparks creativity, increases alertness, and makes the workplace more fun for everybody

2005 – Dump the Pump Day * is inaugurated its sponsor, the American Public Transportation Association (APTA) to encourage the use of public transportation

2006 – In Georgia v. Randolph, the U.S. Supreme Court rules 5-3 that under specific circumstances, without a search warrant, police have no constitutional right to search a house if one resident consents to the search while another resident objects. The Court distinguished this case from the “co-occupant consent rule” established in United States v. Matlock, (1974), which allowed one resident to consent in absence of the co-occupant

2007 – Inaugural Wind Day, which becomes Global Wind Day * in 2009, is organized and sponsored by the European Wind Energy Association (EWEA) and the Global Wind Energy Council (GWEC); now spreading the word about renewable wind power in over 30 countries on 4 continents

2009 – Nature Photography Day * is launched by the North American Nature Photography Association (NANPA)

2013 – World Elder Abuse Awareness Day * is founded by Dr. Elizabeth Podnieks of the International Network for the Prevention of Elder Abuse (INPEA)

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