June 22nd is

Chocolate Éclair Day

Journey’s End Day *

Onion Rings Day

Worldwide VW Beetle Day *
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MORE! Wu Zeitan, Giuseppe Mazzini, and George V, click

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WORLD FESTIVALS AND NATIONAL HOLIDAYS

Islam – Lialat-Ur-Qadr (Night of Power), the night the Quran was send own from heaven to earth

Croatia – Fascist Resistance Day

El Salvador – Schoolteacher’s Day

United Kingdom – Newport, Isle of Wight:
Isle of Wight Festival

U.S. Virgin Islands – Organic Act Day
(celebrates 1936 V.I. Constitution)

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On This Day in HISTORY

662: Ruizong (personal name Li Dan) born, last Chinese emperor of the Tang Dynasty; he cedes the imperial throne to his mother Wu Zeitan in 690, who installs herself as empress regnant – the only woman in Chinese history ever to rule as empress regnant

1342 – Journey’s End Day * – by Shire Reckoning, Bilbo Baggins returns to his home at Bag End in J.R.R. Tolkein’s The Hobbit

Bag End by cmykyles

1377 – Richard II succeeds Edward III as King of England

1633 – The Holy Office in Rome forces Galileo Galilei to recant his view that the Sun, not the Earth, is the center of the Universe, after heated controversy

1675 – The Royal Observatory, Greenwich, is founded; British King Charles II and John Flamsteed lay the foundation stone

1772 – Somerset v Stewart UK court case finds slavery unsupported by English common law, encourages abolitionist movement

1805 – Giuseppe Mazzini born, Italian journalist, revolutionary and uncompromising republican, during Risorgimento (“Rising Again”), the struggle for Italian Unification

1813 – Laura Secord sets out to walk 20 miles to warn Canadian troops of an impending attack by the Americans during the War of 1812

1815 – Napoleon Bonaparte abdicates for the second and last time

1844 – Harriett Stone Lothrop born, used pseudonym Margaret Sidney, American author of the Five Little Peppers series

1869 – Caroline O’Day born, American politician, third woman and first female Democrat, elected to Congress from New York (1935-1943); co-sponsor of Wagner-O’Day Act, predecessor to the expanded Javits-Wagner-O’Day Act, requiring all federal agencies to purchase specified supplies and services from nonprofit agencies employing people with significant disabilities, such as blindness, since 2006 called AbilityOne

1870 – U.S Congress votes on formation of the Department of Justice; much of the department’s time in its early years is spent prosecuting Ku Klux Klan members

1871 – William McDougall born in England, American psychologist noted for his work in developing theories on instinct and on social psychology; opponent of behaviorism

1887 – Sir Julian Huxley born, British biologist, philosopher, and author; influential in development of embryology, systematics, and studies of behaviour and evolution; brother of Aldous Huxley

1898 – Erich Maria Remarque born in Germany, American author; All Quiet on the Western Front

1906 – Anne Morrow Lindbergh born, American author of fiction and non-fiction; Gift from the Sea; married to aviator Charles Lindbergh

1909 – Katherine Dunham born, American dancer, choreographer, author, educator and activist, called the “matriarch and queen mother of black dance”, directed the Katherine Dunham Dance Company for almost 30 years

1911 –Coronation of George V as King of the UK and British Dominions beyond the Seas

1921 – Barbara Vucanovich born, American politician, first woman to represent Nevada in U. S. House of Representatives (R-NV, 1983-1997), advocate for breast-cancer awareness

1921 – Gower Champion born, American choreographer, dancer and director

1921 – Joseph Papp born, American theatrical producer and director; founder of NY’s Public Theatre and Shakespeare in the Park

1933 – Dianne Feinstein, American politician, San Francisco Mayor (1978-1988); U. S. Senator (D-CA, 1992 to present); first and only woman to chair Senate Rules Committee (2007–2009) and the Select Committee on Intelligence (2009- 2015)

1934 — Worldwide VW Beetle Day *- A contract is signed for the development of the VW Beetle by Ferdinand Porsche

1936 – Kris Kristofferson born, American singer-songwriter

1939 – Ada E. Yonath born, Israeli scientist and crystallographer; pioneering work on structure of the ribosome was rewarded by a 2009 Nobel Prize for Chemistry in 2009 shared with Venkatraman Ramakrishnan and Thomas A. Steitz ; director of Center for Biomolecular Structure at the Weizmann Institute of Science

1940 – WWII: Eight days after Hitler’s forces overrun Paris, a French delegation at Compiègne signs an armistice treaty with the Nazis

1940 – U.S. Congress authorizes building 200 new ships, a 70% increase in the U.S. Navy fleet, at a cost of $4 billion

1941 – Germany invades the Soviet Union

1944 – President Franklin D. Roosevelt signs the GI Bill of Rights, authorizing a broad package of benefits for WWII veterans

1945 – The WWII Battle of Okinawa ends, after 83 days during which 110,000 Japanese and 12,520 Americans are killed

1953 – Cyndi Lauper born, American singer-songwriter and LGBTQ activist

1959 – Chuck Berry releases “Memphis”

1963 – Lesley Gore’s “It’s My Party” is #1 on the R&B chart

1968 – “Classical Gas” by Mason Williams is released

1970 – President Nixon sings the bill into law lowering the voting age to 18

1977 – Former Attorney General John N. Mitchell begins serving an 8-year sentence for his role in the Watergate cover-up

1981 – Mark David Chapman pleads guilty to killing former Beatle John Lennon

1987 – The International Labour Organisation (ILO), at its annual conference in Geneva, calls for international sanctions against South African minerals

1992 – R.A.V. v. City of St. Paul: U.S. Supreme Court unanimously rules that hate-crime laws that ban cross-burning and similar expressions of racial bias as hate ‘speech’ violate the First Amendment

1995 – Worldwide VW Beetle Day * is launched, commemorating the contract signed on this day in 1934 between the German Automobilistic Industry National Association and Dr. Ferdinand Porsche for a prototype “people’s car” to be submitted within 10 months of the contract signing, the genesis of the world’s best-selling car

2003 – Beyonce releases her Dangerously in Love album

2011 – President Barack Obama announces he will pull home 33,000 troops from Afghanistan by the following summer

2015 – South Carolina Governor Nikki Haley calls for removal of the Confederate flag from statehouse grounds after the hate-crime murders of nine black Charleston church members during a prayer meeting _______________________________________________________________