June 21st is

Atheist Solidarity Day

Daylight Appreciation Day *

Day of the Gong *

International Day of Yoga *

National Seashell Day

Peaches ‘N’ Cream Day

World Make Music Day *

_________________________________________

MORE! Daisy Turner, Jean-Paul Sartre and Shirin Ebadi, click

_________________________________________

WORLD FESTIVALS AND NATIONAL HOLIDAYS

SOLSTICE –
Summer Solstice in Northern Hemisphere
(Celtic: Alban Heruin –Pagan:Litha)
Winter Solstice in Southern Hemisphere
(Celtic: Alban Arthuan – Pagan: Yule)

Bolivia – Solsticio de Invierno/Año Nuevo Aymara
(Winter Solstice/Aymaran New Year )

Canada – Northwest and Yukon Territories:
National Aboriginal Day

France – Paris: Fête de la Musique
(Solstice music fest)

Greenland – Ullortuneq (National Day)

Isle of Wight – Newport:
Isle of Wight Festival

Togo – Martyrs’ Day

_________________________________________

On This Day in HISTORY

1732 – Johann Christoph Friedrich Bach born, ninth son of J.S. Bach; appointed harpsichordist at Bückeburg, and later Konzertmeister

1734 – Marie-Joseph Angélique, a slave in New France, is put to death, having been convicted of setting the fire that destroyed much of  Old Montreal. Scholars do not agree about her guilt or innocence, but her testimony gives insight into slavery in Canada then

1788 – New Hampshire becomes the ninth state to ratify the U.S. Constitution, and it officially goes into effect

1834 – Cyrus Hall McCormick receives a patent for his reaping machine

1846 – Marian Adams-Acton born, Scottish non-fiction writer (mostly about dogs and travel), playwright, and children’s author; often under pen name “Jeanie Hering”

1870 – Clara Immerwahr born, German chemist of Jewish descent; first woman to be awarded a doctorate in chemistry in Germany (magna cum laude); a women’s rights advocate who was frustrated with the limitations marriage to chemist Fritz Haber placed on her; unable to work outside the home, she contributed to her husband’s work without recognition, and translated some of his papers into English; during WWI, she disapproved of Haber’s work on chemical weapons, including the first mass use of poison gas, at the second Battle of Ypres in Belgium, speaking out against the research as a “perversion of the ideals of science.”  Shortly after he returned from Belgium, she committed suicide, using his military pistol to shoot herself in the chest, and died in her 13 year-old son Hermann’s arms. Haber left the next day to stage the first gas attack against the Russians on the Eastern Front

1883 – Daisy Turner born, American storyteller, noted for oral recording of her family history traced back to Africa and England

1905 –  Jean-Paul Sartre born, French existentialist philosopher, author-playwright

1906 – Grete Sultan born, German-American pianist; gave her last recital at Merkin Concert Hall in New York at the age of 90

1912 – Mary McCarthy, American author and liberal activist; her most successful novel, The Group, remains on the Best Seller List for 2 years

1918 – Josephine Webb born, pioneering American woman electrical engineer, holder of two patents for oil circuit breaker contact design, nicknamed “switchgear.” In 1942, she worked for Westinghouse as a Design Engineer on the electrical grids for the Coulee, Hoover and Boulder Dams. In 1946, while working as Director of Development for Alden Products, she designed an 18 inch, full newspaper size fax machine with superior resolution. Co-founded Webb Consulting Company with her husband Herbert, another electrical engineer, specializing in electrical-electronic measurement instrumentation, communications applications and photographic test devices

1919 – Paolo Soleri born in Italy, Italian-American architect; pioneer in “arcology” combining architecture and ecology; he developed his concepts at Cosanti, his gallery/studio, and trained architecture students; created Arcosanti, an experimental town in Arizona, designed to be self-sustaining with a bronze bell casting business, to show how urban conditions could be improved while minimizing destructive impact on the planet

Top: Cosanti and Soleri-designed bronze bells
Below: bronze bell and model of Arcosanti

1931 – Margaret Heckler born, American politician, member of the United States House of Representatives, Secretary of Health and Human Services, Ambassador to Ireland

1932 – Lalo Schifrin born, Argentine composer and conductor, noted for film and TV scores, including the theme for Mission: Impossible

1935 – Françoise Sagan born, French novelist, playwright and screenwriter; Bonjour Tristesse (Hello Sadness), Un certain sourire (A Certain Smile), Château en Suède (Château in Sweden) and La Chamade; (That Mad Ache)

1942 – Marjorie Margolies born, American journalist, Democratic politician, academic, and women’s rights activist; U.S. Representative from Pennsylvania (1993-1995); Director/Deputy Chair of the U.S. delegation to the UN’s 4^th World Conference on Women (1995); Founder and Chair of Women’s Campaign International (WCI), which provides advocacy training for women throughout the world; adjunct professor at Fels Institute of Government at the University of Pennsylvania; The Girls in the Newsroom, and co-author of They Came to Stay

1943 – Diane Marleau born, Canadian Liberal politician, Member of the Canadian House of Commons for Sudbury (1988-2008); Minister for International Cooperation (1997-1999); Minister of Public Works (1996-1997); Minister of National Health and Welfare (1993-1996)

1946 – Kate Hoey born, British Labour politician; Member of Parliament for Vauxhall since 1989; Minister for Sport (1999-2001)

1947 –  Shirin Ebadi born, Iranian lawyer, judge, human and women’s rights activist, recipient of the 2003 Nobel Peace Prize

1950 – Anne Carson born, Canadian poet, essayist, translator and Classics professor; won the 1996 Lannan Literary Award, 1997 Pushcart Prize, and 2001 T.S. Eliot Prize for The Beauty of the Husband: A Fictional Essay in 29 Tangos

1951 – Lenore Manderson born, Australian medical anthropologist; early research in the field of Tropical Health led to her becoming a Fellow of the Australian Academy of Social Sciences; her later research concerns social history, public health and anthropology,  studying the effects of inequality, social exclusion and marginality on health and public health policy; professor at Monash University  since 2005

1953 – Benazir Bhutto born, Pakistani stateswoman and politician, Prime Minister of Pakistan in two non-consecutive terms

1957 – Ellen Fairclough is sworn in as Canada’s first woman Cabinet Minister, as Secretary of State; also a Member of Parliament (1950-1963)

1964 – Three civil rights workers disappear in Philadelphia, Mississippi. Their bodies are found buried in an earthen dam 6 weeks later. Eight Ku Klux Klan members go to prison on federal conspiracy charges; none serves more than six years (see 2005 entry)

1965 – Lana Wachowski born as Lawrence, with sibling Lily (also a trans woman, formerly Andrew), a writing and film directing team, creators of The Matrix films, Cloud Atlas and Jupiter Ascending  

1972 – The first Stonehenge Free Festival is held, culminating on the summer solstice

1973 – In Miller v. California, U.S. Supreme Court determines that states may ban materials found to be obscene – lacking “serious literary, artistic, political, or scientific value” – according to local “community standards” – the decision vacates the jury verdict, and the case remanded back to the California Superior Court

1978 – The musical Evita premieres in London

1985 – Scientists testing skeletal remains exhumed in Brazil announce they are the remains of Nazi war criminal Josef Mengele

1986 – Genesis album Invisible Touch is No.1  on the UK charts

1989 – The Supreme Court rules that burning the American flag as a form of political protest is protected by the First Amendment

1993 – English mathematician Andrew Wiles proves last theorem of Fermat

2001 – Mexican artist Frida Kahlo is the first Hispanic woman to be honored on a U.S. postage stamp

2003 – Harry Potter and the Order of the Phoenix, the fifth Harry Potter book by J. K. Rowling, is published worldwide in English

2004 – SpaceShipOne is the first privately funded spaceplane to achieve spaceflight

2005 – Edgar Ray Killen, an 80-year-old former Ku Klux Klansman, is found guilty of manslaughter in the deaths of three civil rights workers in Philadelphia, Mississippi, 41 years to the day earlier (see 1964 entry)

2006 – Pluto’s newly discovered moons are officially named Nix & Hydra

2007 – The first World Make Music Day * is inspired by the Fête de la Musique celebration in Paris; now celebrated by a growing number of events in over 750 cities in 120 countries

2009 –Day of the Gong * is launched by GongtoGo.org

2014 – The United Nations recognizes International Day of Yoga

2015 – Daylight Appreciation Day * highlights natural light’s importance to our well-being

2016 – National Seashell Day * – annually on the Summer Solstice – sponsored by The Beaches of Ft. Myers & Sanibel to celebrate these jewels of the beach season

_________________________________________