June 24th is

Celebration of the Senses Day *

Pralines Day

International Fairy Day

Swim a Lap Day

Stonewall National Monument Day *

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MORE! Ambrose Bierce, Margaret Olley and Hopalong Cassidy, click

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WORLD FESTIVALS AND NATIONAL HOLIDAYS

Christianity – Feast of St. John the Baptist

Canada – Quebec: St. Jean Baptiste Day
(patron saint of the city)

Estonia – Midsummer/St. John’s Day

Latvia – Jani (St. John’s Day)

Lithuania – Day of Dew (St. John’s Day)

Peru – Farmer Day and Inti Raymi
(Incan Sun Festival)

Philippines – Araw ng Maynila
(Manila Day)

Venezuela – Carabobo Battle Day

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On This Day in HISTORY

1312 BC – Muršili II, King of the Hittite Empire, launches an attack on Hayasa-Azzi, a confederation of two kingdoms in the uplands near Mount Ararat

217 BC – Second Punic War: Four Roman legions under Gaius Flaminius Nepos are ambushed and defeated by Hannibal’s army at the Battle of Lake Trasimene

109 – Emperor Trajan inaugurates the Aqua Traiana, an aqueduct that channels water from Lake Bracciano, 25 miles (40 kilometres) north-west of Rome

637 – The Battle of Moira is fought between the High King of Ireland and the Kings of Ulster and Dál Riata, a contender for the largest battle in the history of Ireland

972 – The Battle of  Cedynia, the first documented victory of Polish forces

1128 – Forces led by Teresa of León, Countess of Portugal, and Fernando Pérez de Traba are defeated by Alfonso I, Teresa’s son, at the Battle of São Mamede

1314 – Robert the Bruce leads Scottish forces to victory over Edward II of England
at Bannockburn

1314 (? year uncertain) – Philippa of Hainault born in France, became Queen of England as the wife of Edward III; acted as regent in 1346 when her husband went to war in France. She is credited with persuading Edward to spare the Burghers of Calais when the besieged city was forced by starvation to surrender; Edward said he would spare the people if six of the city’s leaders would give themselves up to him, demanding they walk out wearing nooses around their necks, and carrying the keys to the city. Philippa asked Edward to be merciful, saying their deaths would be a bad omen for her unborn child, Thomas of Windsor (who only lived a year, in spite of Edward’s mercy)

1374 – One of the first major outbreaks of St. John’s Dance or St. Vitus’s Dance, a possible mass psychogenic illness, overtakes Aachen, Germany, causing hallucinations, jumping and twitching until people collapse from exhaustion

Victims of Saint Vitus Dance Go on Pilgrimage, by Pieter Bruegel the Elder

1509 – Henry VIII is crowned king of England

1519 – Théodore Bèza born, French Protestant theologian, author, translator and teacher, a disciple of John Calvin, influential figure in the Reformation

1532 – Robert Dudley, first Earl of Leicester born, English courtier, statesman, favorite of Queen Elizabeth I, financial backer of Francis Drake, patron of the arts, especially theatre

1604 – Samuel de Champlain reaches the mouth of the Saint John River

1717 – The Premier Grand Lodge, the first Masonic (Freemasons) Grand Lodge, is founded in London

1813 – Henry Ward Beecher born, American Congregational minister, abolitionist, author and social reformer, involved in a major scandal over alleged adulterous affairs

1831 – Rebecca Harding Davis born, American author and journalist; advocate for marginalized groups in society including blacks, Native Americans, women, immigrants and the working class; author of novella, Life in the Iron Mills

1842 – Ambrose Bierce born, American author, journalist and wit, served as a lieutenant in the Union Army during in the Civil War; The Devil’s Dictionary

1844 – Charles Goodyear is granted a U.S. patent for vulcanized rubber

1867 – Ruth Randall Edström born, American women’s rights and peace activist; she moved to Europe after marrying Sigfrid Edström, a Swedish engineer, and they lived in first in Switzerland, and then in Sweden.  She was one of the organizers of the third peace conference in The Hague, and participated in the International Women’s Congress of 1915

1880 – Agnes Nestor born, American labor leader, politician, suffragist and social reformer, known for her roles in the International Glove Workers Union and the Women’s Trade Union League

1883 – Victor Franz Hess born in Austria-Hungary, American physicist; 1936 Nobel Prize in Physics for his work on atmospheric radiation, “cosmic rays”

1901 – First exhibition by Pablo Picasso, aged 19, opens in Paris

Self-portrait, by Pablo Picasso

1912 –Mary Wesley born, English novelist and children’s author; her first adult novel, Jumping the Queue, was published when she was 71 years old, but it was followed by ten other novels in the next fourteen years, all of them bestsellers; her most successful book, The Camomile Lawn, was made into a popular television series in the UK

1914 – Pearl Witherington born, British secret agent, fought in occupied France as a Special Operations Executive member, leading a guerrilla band of French resistance fighters; recommended for the Military Cross, but denied it because she was a woman.

1915 – Norman Cousins born, American essayist; editor of The Saturday Review

1916 – John Ciardi born, American poet, etymologist and translator, notably for Dante’s Divine Comedy; columnist and editor at The Saturday Review

1916 – Mary Pickford becomes the first female film star to sign a million dollar contract

1917 – Lucy Jarvis born, American television producer. She was a food editor at McCall’s magazine who left to raise her two children; then as a volunteer for the Organization for Rehabilitation through Training (ORT), she produced the documentary, Passport to Freedom, and began working for radio and television organizations, including Pathé News. Worked on a public affairs radio program with Martha Rountree in 1957. In 1959, became associate producer on NBC’s The Nation’s Future, and its producer in 1961. Jarvis produced documentaries, including The Kremlin (1963 – in Moscow during the Cuban Missile Crisis), The Louvre: A Golden Prison (1964) which won a Peabody Award, and six Emmys, and What Price Health (1973), which won a Hillman Prize. She left NBC in 1976 to produce several Barbara Walters specials for ABC, then launched her own production company, and produced shows on Broadway, including Sophisticated Ladies (1988)

1918 – Mildred Ladner Thompson, American journalist, one of the first women reporters at The Wall Street Journal

1923 – Margaret Olley born, Australian painter, known for still-life paintings, recipient of the Mosman Art Prize

1929 – Carolyn Shoemaker born, American astronomer; she was a 51-year-old “empty-nester” when she started her career, as a field assistant to her husband Gene; she discovered 32 comets, over 800 asteroids, and was co-discoverer of the Comet Shoemaker-Levy 9

1937 – Anita Desai born in the Garhwal Kingdom, Indian novelist and Emerita Professor of Humanities at MIT; won the 1978 Sahitya Akademi Award and the Holtby Memorial Prize for Fire on the Mountain, and the 1983 Guardian Children’s Fiction Prize for Village by the Sea. Clear Light of Day, In Custody and Feasting, Fasting were shortlisted for the Booker Prize

1938 – Lawrence Block born, American crime fiction writer; named a Grand Master by the Mystery Writers of American in 1994

1940 – The WWII Vichy French government signs an armistice with Italy

1941 – Julia Kristeva born in Bulgaria, French psychoanalyst, sociologist, philosopher, author, feminist and human rights activist; noted for development of the concept of abjection, process of separating one’s self from another, such as a child developing a separate identify from a parent, or an abused woman separating her sense of self from her abuser; founder of the Simone de Beauvoir Prize 

1943 – Birgit Grodal born, Danish economist and academic, who worked on micro-economic theory, mathematical economics and general equilibrium theory; elected as president of the European Economic Association, but died before she took office; author noted for A Second Remark on the Core of an Atomless Economy (1972), and Existence of Approximate Cores with Incomplete Preferences (1976)

1944 – Kathryn Lasky born, American author of children’s fiction, including historical novels in the Dear America series; also writes adult fiction, sometimes under the pen name E.L. Swann

1947 – Mick Fleetwood born, British rock musician, drummer and co-founder with John McVie of Fleetwood Mac

1949 – Hopalong Cassidy debuts as network TV’s first western series on NBC

1950 – Mercedes Lackey born, American fantasy novelist; many of her books are set on the world of Velgarth, with interlinked stories

1952 – Dianna Melrose born in Zimbabwe, British diplomat; British High Commissioner to Tanzania (2013-2016); British Ambassador to Cuba (2008-2012); Department for International Development (2002-2006) Foreign and Commonwealth Office (2000-2002 and 2006-2008)

1957 – In Roth v United States, and its companion case, Miller v. California, U.S. Supreme Court in a 6-3 ruling, redefines the Constitutional test for determining what constitutes obscene material not protected by the First Amendment;  Material whose “dominant theme taken as a whole appeals to the prurient interest” to the “average person, applying contemporary community standards.” Only material meeting this test could be banned as “obscene.” The convictions for publishing and sending obscene material through the mail in both companion cases are upheld

1960 –Dame Elish Angiolini born, Scottish lawyer; Lord Advocate of Scotland (2006-2011); Solicitor General (2001-2006); was the first woman, first Procurator Fiscal (public prosecutor) and first solicitor to hold either post. Currently Principal of St Hugh’s College, Oxford, and Chancellor of University of the West of Scotland

1964 – The Federal Trade Commission rules that health warnings must appear on all cigarette packages

1964 – Kate Parminter born, Baroness Parminter of Godalming; British Liberal Democrat Life Peer in the House of Lords since 2010; Deputy Leader of the Liberal Democrats in the House of Lords since 2015; Liberal Democrats Environment, Food and Rural Affairs Spokesperson (2015-2017); Chief Executive of the Campaign to Project Rural England (1998-2004)

1974 – The Beach Boys release their greatest hits album Endless Summer

1997 – The U.S. Air Force releases a report on the so-called “Roswell Incident,” suggesting alien bodies witnesses saw in 1947 were actually life-sized dummies

1998 – AT&T strikes a $31.7 billion deal to buy cable TV giant Tele-Communications

2004 – Federal investigators question President George W. Bush for over hour about the news leak of a CIA operative’s name

2009 – South Carolina Governor Mark Sanford, missing for seven days, admits that he had secretly flown to Argentina to visit his mistress

2010 – Julia Gillard becomes Australia’s first female Prime Minister; the first woman to become Deputy Prime Minister, Prime Minister and leader of a major party in Australia

2011 – Celebration of the Senses Day * is launched

2011 – New York State legalizes same-sex marriage

2013 – Former Italian Prime Minister Silvio Berlusconi is sentenced to seven years in prison for abusing his power and having sex with an underage prostitute

2016 – Stonewall National Monument Day * celebrates the designation of the Stonewall Inn and Christopher Park in Greenwich Village as the Stonewall National Monument, commemorating the LGBT Uprising which began June 28, 1969, the catalyst for the modern LGBTQ civil rights movement

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