June 19th is

Garfield the Cat Day *

National Watch Day

National Martini Day

Sauntering Day *

World Sickle Cell Day *

International Day for the Elimination of Sexual Violence in Conflict *

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MORE! Blaise Pascal, Laura Hobson and Abe Fortas, click

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WORLD FESTIVALS AND NATIONAL HOLIDAYS

North Korea – Kim Jong-il’s Entry to the KWP
(Korean Worker’s Party – sole governing party)

Trinidad and Tobago – Labour Day

Uruguay – José Artigas Day & Día del Nunca Más
(“father of the nation”/Never More Day – against military dictatorship)

United States – Texas: Juneteenth
(1865 – news of abolition of slavery reaches slaves in Texas)

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On This Day in HISTORY

1269 – King Louis IX of France orders all Jews found in public without an identifying yellow badge to be fined ten livres of silver

1306 – The English Earl of Pembroke’s army attacks in the middle of the night, and defeats Robert the Bruce’s Scottish army at the Battle of Methven, west of Perth

Robert the Bruce

1464 – French King Louis XI restricts the postal service of the University of Paris, and takes charge of their post stations, intending to reserve the post system for the use of the State only, but private correspondence gradually begins to be carried, although it is opened and read to prevent the spread of unauthorized ideas

1586 – Ralph Lane, the first English colonists’ leader at Roanoke Island, N.C., decides after several set-backs, including a three-day hurricane, to load his men aboard ships in Sir Francis Drake’s fleet, which arrived at Roanoke earlier in June, returning to England

1588 – The Spanish Armada is damaged in a storm at Coruna

1623 – Blaise Pascal born, French mathematician, physicist and religious philosopher

1783 – Thomas Sully born, American portrait painter

The Coleman Sisters, 1844, by Thomas Sully

1816 – William Henry Webb born, American naval architect and shipbuilder

Clipper Challenger, designed by William Henry Webb

1833 – Mary Tenney Gray born, American suffragist, editorial writer, club-woman, and philanthropist; she was on the editorial staff of the New York Teacher, the Leavenworth Home Record (dedicated to the welfare and elevation of women), and the Kansas Farmer, and was a contributor or correspondent to leading magazines and newspapers in Kansas; in 1859, she lobbied for voting rights for women to be included in the state constitution at the Wyandotte Convention, but was unsuccessful; became a leader in women’s clubs formed for art, education, literary and philanthropic purposes, and was a co-founder and first president of the Social Science Club of Kansas and Western Missouri, which was a state-wide association of most of the local clubs in the area, the first of its kind in what was then the West, holding conventions where women could hear speakers and combine the efforts of their organizations; she read papers at the conventions, and at many other state gatherings, such as her paper, “Women and Kansas City’s Development.”  After her death, the Kansas Federation of Women’s Clubs dedicated a monument to her memory in Kansas City

1843 – Mary Sibbet Copley Thaw born, American philanthropist and charity worker who funded archaeology research, including supporting the work of women archaeologists like Alice Fletcher and Zelia Nuttall; founded the Thaw Fellowship at the Peabody Museum of Archaeology and Ethnology at Harvard

1854 – Eleanor Norcross born, American painter of portraits, still lifes and interiors who lived and worked in Paris for most of her adult life; she was an art collector  and systematic documenter whose collection was part of her bequest to found the Fitchburg Art Museum in Massachusetts

1856 – Elbert Hubbard born, American editor-publisher and author; founder of the Roycroft artisan community, influential in the American Arts and Crafts Movement

1856 – Elisabeth Marbury born, pioneering American theatrical and literary agent whose clients included Oscar Wilde, James M. Barrie, George Bernard Shaw, Edmond Rostand, dancers Vernon and Irene Castle, and children’s author Frances Hodgson Burnett (The Secret Garden)

1862 – U.S. Congress enacts legislation emancipating slaves in the territories and banning slavery there hereafter

1867 – The first running of the Belmont Stakes, at Jerome Park in the Bronx, at a mile and five furlongs, was won by a filly named Ruthless ridden by Gilbert Patrick, later inducted into the Racing Hall of Fame. He was still winning races at age 67, but died of pneumonia at age 70

1881 – Maginel Wright Enright born, American graphic artist, and children’s author and illustrator, who illustrated some of L. Frank Baum’s earliest books, well before his Oz series, which he often wrote under pen names, she also designed high-fashion shoes for Capezio, and covers for magazines like McClure’s and Ladies’ Home Journal

1883 – Gladys Mills Phipps born, American thoroughbred racehorse owner-breeder,  founder of the Phipps family horseracing dynasty, dubbed “First Lady of the Turf”

1885 – Adela Pankhurst born, British suffragette, daughter of Emmeline Pankhurst, head of the Women’s Social and Political Union (WSPU); after she moved to Australia in 1913, she broke with her mother’s policy of supporting the WWI British war effort, and made anti-war and anti-conscription speeches

1900 – Laura Hobson born, American novelist and short story writer; best known for her novel Gentleman’s Agreement 

1902 – Guy Lombardo born in Canada, American dance-band leader

1903 – Mary Callery born, American artist known for her Modern and Abstract Expressionist sculpture; part of the New York art movement from the 1940s through the 1960s; also a collector in 1930s Paris of work by Picasso, Duchamps, Alexander Calder,  Matisse and other leading artists; commissioned in the 1960s to create a sculpture for the top of the proscenium arch at the Met (Metropolitan Opera House) in Manhattan

Mary Callery sculpture for the Metropolitan Opera House

1910 – Paul Flory born, American chemist, 1974 Nobel Prize in Chemistry

1910 – Father’s Day is celebrated for the first time in Spokane WA

1910 – Abe Fortas born, American lawyer; Supreme Court justice (1965-1969)

1912 – The Federal Public Works Act of 1912 is passed, making the 8-hour work day standard on federal government projects

1917 – During WWI, King George V changes the British royal family’s German surname, Saxe-Coburg-Gotha, to Windsor

1922 – Marilyn P. Johnson born, U.S. diplomat; after serving in the U.S. Navy during WWII, she taught English as a foreign language in schools in Cameroon and Mali; joined the U.S. Foreign Service in 1964, and worked in Bamako, Mali, Tunis, Tunisia and Niger in cultural affairs and public affairs; Deputy Assistant Director of the Information Centers Program (1971-1974);  after two years learning Russian, she was assigned as the cultural affairs officer in Moscow (1976-1978); U.S. Ambassador to the Republic of Togo (1978-1981)

1934 – The Federal Communications Commission is created

1940 – Shirley Muldowney born, American race car driver; first woman licensed by the National Hot Rod Association (NHRA) to drive a Top Fuel Dragster; first 3-time winner of Top Fuel titles (1977, 1980 and 1982)

1942 – Merata Mita born, New Zealand filmmaker and key figure in the growth of the Māori film industry; first Māori woman to solely write and direct a dramatic feature film, Mauri, in 1988, after making the landmark documentary films Bastion Point: Day 507 in 1980, and Patu! in 1983

1945 – Aung San Sun Kyi born, Burmese politician and activist, Chair of the National League for Democracy, recipient of the Sakharov Prize for Freedom of Thought, and the Nobel Peace Prize

1952 – The game show I’ve Got A Secret debuts on CBS-TV

1955 – Mary Schapiro born, first woman permanent appointment as Chair of the Securities and Exchange Commission (SEC, 2009-2012); Chair and CEO of the Financial Industry Regulatory Authority (FINRA, 2006-2009); National Association of Securities Dealers (NASD, 1996-2005); Chair of Commodity Futures Trading Commission (1994-1996)

1957 – Anna Lindh born, Swedish Social Democratic politician, Minister of Foreign Affairs (1998-2003); Chair of the Council of the European Union (2001); Minister for the Environment (1994-1996); Member of the Riksdag (Parliament, 1982-1985 and 1998-2003); she was assassinated in September 2003, stabbed to death by a man born in Sweden to Serbian parents, who was found to be mentally ill

 1957 – Jean Rabe born, American author of scifi and fantasy tie-in books and stories for game and movies, such as Dragonlance, and Star Wars; editor of numerous anthologies

1961 – U.S. Supreme Court strikes down a provision in Maryland’s constitution requiring state officeholders to profess a belief in God

1962 – Nat “King” Cole records “Ramblin’ Rose

1964 – The Civil Rights Act of 1964 is approved after surviving an 83-day filibuster in the U.S. Senate

1978 – The first appearance of Garfield the Cat * – in the comic strip by Jim Davis

1979 – Sauntering Day * is created by W.T. Rabe in response to the jogging craze; a reminder to slow down – as Henry David Thoreau said, “It is a great art to saunter”

1987 – U.S. Supreme Court declares unconstitutional a Louisiana law requiring any public school teaching the theory of evolution to teach creation science as well

1993 – Rod Stewart’s “Have I Told You Lately” is #1 on the charts

2000 – U.S Supreme Court, in a 6-3 ruling, bars officials from letting students lead stadium crowds in prayer before football games

2008 – Democrat Barack Obama announces he will bypass public financing for the presidential election, even though Republican John McCain was accepting it

2008 – The first World Sickle Cell Day * is established by the UN General Assembly to raise awareness of the disease and its cure

2012 – Julian Assange of Wikileaks is granted asylum at the Ecuadorian embassy in London after he is wanted for questioning in Sweden for four alleged sexual offenses, including rape; Swedish prosecutors dropped their investigation in May 2017, but Assange is still at the Ecuadorian embassy

2015 – International Day for the Elimination of Sexual Violence in Conflict * is proclaimed by the UN General Assembly, commemorating the adoption in 2008 of Resolution 1820, “to eliminate all forms of violence against women and girls, including by ending impunity and by ensuring the protection of civilians, in particular women and girls, during and after armed conflicts, in accordance with the obligations States have undertaken under international humanitarian law and international human rights law”

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