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I shall earnestly and persistently continue to urge all women to the practical recognition of the old Revolutionary maxim, "resistance to tyranny is obedience to God".
Susan B Anthony, American feminist, in court, June 18, 1873

At about 3 o'clock in the morning, Alix started to have strong pains. At 4 o'clock I got up, went to my room and dressed. At exactly 6 o'clock in the morning a little daughter – Anastasia – was born. Everything went off splendidly, quite quickly and thank God without complications! Thanks to the fact that it all began and ended while everyone was still asleep, we both had a feeling of calm and solitude! After that I sat down to write telegrams to relatives and friends in various parts of the world. At 11 o'clock Yanyshev said prayers. At 3 o'clock there was a Te Deum at our church. Mama arrived from Gatchina. Went for a short walk. After tea, Mama left. Luckily Alix felt quite cheerful. The little one weighs 11½ pounds and measures 55 centimeters. Went to bed early.
Tsar Nicholas II's diary; Anastasia, Grand Duchess of Russia, born on June 18, 1901

Ingenuousness and utter simplicity were the most characteristic qualities of Anastasia Nicolaievna. As a small child she was very mischievous, spotting at once the comical traits in people's characters and afterwards imitating them very skilfully, so that it was irresistibly funny. But as she grew older, this rather irreverent habit became less common.
  I never noticed in her the smallest trace of mawkishness or dreamy melancholy, not even at the age when girls fall a prey to such tendencies. She was the imp of the whole house, and the glummest faces would always brighten in her presence, for it was impossible to resist her jokes and nonsense. She was very boisterous, and sometimes a good deal too temperamental. Every impulse, every new sensation was something she immediately had to indulge to the full; she was aflame with life and animation. Even at sixteen she still behaved like a headstrong young foal that has run away from its master.
Pierre Gilliard, Memoirs, on Anastasia, Grand Duchess of Russia, born on June 18, 1901

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Feast day of St Amand (Amandus), Bishop of Bordeaux

Feast day of St Elizabeth, of Sconauge, virgin and abbess

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Feast day of St Leontius

Feast day of  Ss Marcus (Mark) and Marcellianus, martyrs

Feast day of St Marina, of Bithynia, virgin
(Horned poppy, Chelidonium glaucum, is today's plant, dedicated to St Marina.)

Click for Eastern Orthodox liturgical days    Shop saints

Independence Day, Philippines

National Day, Seychelles

Autistic Pride Day, beginning in 2005

Father's Day, USA (2006)

On which day of the week were you born? Find out here

1757 Gervasio Antonio de Posadas (d. 1833), Argentine leader

1769 Viscount Castlereagh, British statesman

1812 Ivan Goncharov (d. 1891), Russian author of Oblomov

1854 EW Scripps (d. 1926), journalist, publisher

1868 Miklós Horthy (d. 1957), Hungarian admiral and Regent

1877 James Montgomery Flagg (d. 1960), illustrator who designed the Uncle Sam "I want you" recruiting poster in World War I

1901 Jeanette McDonald, American film actress and singer

1901 Grand Duchess Anastasia (d. 1918), of the Russian imperial family, daughter of Tsar Nicholas II

"If Anderson wasn't the missing Anastasia Romanov, then just who was she? As early as 1927, the doubters believed 'Anna Tchaikovski/Anna Anderson' was really a Polish housewife named Franzisca Schanzkowska [or Schanzkovsky] that had been reported missing in Berlin on the same day that Anderson was fished out of the canal. This theory had been forwarded by private detective Martin Knopf, and had some interesting points to it; according to medical records, Schanzkowska also had bone tuberculosis, a history of foot disorders, and had had a birthmark removed from her right shoulder ... all of which matched the physical evidence that had earlier been taken as proof by Zahle of Anderson being Anastasia."   Source

Anastasia and Anna Anderson    Was Anna Anderson the Grand Duchess?    Or a hoax?

1903 Jeanette MacDonald (d. 1965), American actress, singer

1903 Raymond Radiguet (d. 1923), French author

1904 Keye Luke (d. 1991), actor

1909 Willi Kramp (d. 1986), writer

1910 EG Marshall (d. 1998), American actor

1913 Sammy Cahn (d. 1993), American composer

1917 Richard Boone (d. 1981), American actor

1918 Jerome Karle, crystallographer, recipient of the Nobel Prize in chemistry 1985

1918 Franco Modigliani, economist, recipient of The Bank of Sweden Prize in Economic Sciences in Memory of Alfred Nobel 1985 (d. 2003)

1922 Henri Chopin, French poet and musician, key figure of the French avant-garde during the second half of the 20^th Century. Known primarily as a concrete and sound poet, he created a large body of pioneering recordings using early tape recorders, studio technologies and the sounds of the manipulated human voice. His emphasis on sound is a reminder that language stems as much from oral traditions as from classic literature, of the relationship of balance between order and chaos.

Some famous people who slept in the Book of Days and the Chelsea Hotel, NYC    More

1929 Jürgen Habermas (Jurgen Habermas), German philosopher and sociologist in the tradition of critical theory and American pragmatism, best known for his concept of the public sphere based in his theory and pragmatics of communicative action. Habermas is famous as a public intellectual as well as a scholar.

Online text by Jürgen Habermas, news, bibliography and biography    The Jürgen Habermas Web Resource

1937 Gail Godwin, author

1937 Vitali Zholobov, cosmonaut

1942 Thabo Mbeki, President of the Republic of South Africa

1942 Roger Ebert, film reviewer

1942 Sir Paul McCartney, singer, bassist, pianist, guitarist for The Beatles and Wings

Paul lookalike … sort of

Since the knighthood, no more smoking pot in the Palace toilets

1944 Rick Griffin (d. August, 1991), American underground comix artist, one of the leading designers of psychedelic posters in the 1960s. He was closely identified with The Grateful Dead, having designed some of their best-known posters and record jackets. Griffin is perhaps best remembered for his posters for Bill Graham's Fillmore and Chet Helm's Family Dog rock concerts. He was also known for his work within the surfing subculture, including his comic strip about a surfer named 'Murphy', who was popular worldwide in the '60s. Griffin was killed in motorcycle accident in 1991.

Griffin site    More

Comix, comics and cartoons in the Book of Days

1952 Isabella Rossellini, actress

1952 Carol Kane, actress

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June

17 International Violin Day
17 World Juggling Day
17 Sweden-America Day
17 Sandcastle Day (Oregon, USA)
17 Oyster Festival (California)
17 Hollerin' Contest (North Carolina)
17 Pepperfest (Oklahoma)
18 Go Fishing Day
18 Splurge Day
19 Butterfly Day
19 Juneteenth
19 World Sauntering Day
20 Vanilla Milkshake Day
20 Ice Cream Soda Day
20 West Virginia Day
21 Summer Solstice
21 Cuckoo Warning Day
21 Peaches And Cream Day
22 Chocolate Eclair Day
23 Typewriter Day
24 Flying Saucer Day
24 Swim Day
24 Blueberry Festival ((New Jersey, USA)
24 Feast Of John The Baptist
25 Strawberry Parfait Day
25 Leon Day
26 Chocolate Pudding Day
26 Beauticians' Day
27 Sunglasses Day
28 Treaty Day
29 Remote Control Day
30 Sky Day
30 Meteorite Day

July

1 Canada Day
1 International Joke Day
2 I Forgot Day
2 Mullet Day
2 Violin Lovers Day

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1037 The death of Abu Ali al-Husain ibn Abdallah ibn Sina (known often by the corrupted Latin version of his name, Avicenna), the Persian philosopher, encyclopaedist and physician whose works The Book of Healing and The Canon of Medicine, also known as the Qanun, were highly influential in the Middle East and Europe in medieval times. He was born in 980.

More

1128 Mathilda, the daughter of King Henry I of England, married Geoffrey of Anjou, the head of England's Plantagenet family. The rulers of England descend from them through their son Henry II.

1155 Frederick I (Barbarossa) was crowned emperor of the Holy Roman Empire.

 

1178 About an hour after sunset, according to Gervase of Canterbury (c. 1141 - 1210), the famous medieval chronicler, a band of five eyewitnesses (Canterbury monks) watched as the upper horn of the bright, new crescent Moon "suddenly split in two. From the midpoint of this division a flaming torch sprang up, spewing out … fire, hot coals and sparks … The body of the moon, which was below writhed … throbbed like a wounded snake". The phenomenon recurred another dozen times or more, the witnesses reported.

A long-held belief has it that a meteor collision witnessed by these 12^th-Century Englishmen resulted in a violent explosion on the moon, so creating the moon's Giordano Bruno crater, named after the 16^th-Century astronomer burned at the stake for heresy in 1600. However, this notion doesn't hold up under scientific scrutiny, according to Paul Withers of the University of Arizona Lunar and Planetary Laboratory.

"I think they happened to be at the right place at the right time to look up in the sky and see a meteor that was directly in front of the moon, coming straight towards them," Withers said.

Read on

Gervase also recorded the transit of Mars across Jupiter on September 12, 1170

Listen to this story (requires RealPlayer)   More

 

1250 Death of Teresa of Portugal (b. 1181).

1264 The Parliament of Ireland met at Castledermot in County Kildare, the first definitively known meeting of this Irish legislature.

1287 As he arrived by sea in Italy, Mongol Empire diplomat, Rabban Bar Sauma, witnessed and recorded a great eruption of Mount Etna.

1291 Death of King Alfonso III of Aragon (b. 1265).

1429 The French, under the leadership of Joan of Arc, crushed the English under Sir John Fastolf at the Battle of Patay. It came to be recognized as the war's turning point.

Feast day of St Joan of Arc

1464 At the end of the three centuries of Europe's anti-Muslim pogroms known as The Crusades, Pope Pius II led a brief crusade into southern Italy against the Turks. However, he soon became ill and died, before the he could be reinforced by his allies.

1583 The first life insurance policy was issued, in London.

1621 New World: Less than a year after its founding, the Plymouth Bay Colony experienced its first duel, fought between two servants of a colonist named Stephen Hopkins. We have no record of the cause of the disagreement between Edward Leister and Edward Dotey, who faced each other with swords on the 'field of honour'. Neither duellist was killed, but they were punished by the colonial court. The sentence was appropriate: to be tied together head to foot for 24 hours.

1685 The Monmouth Rebellion: James Scott, 1st Duke of Monmouth, declared himself King of England at Taunton, Somerset.

1704 Death of Tom Brown (b. 1662), English satirist.

1730 Seven Cherokee representatives led by Chief or Head King Oconostota, Oukah-ulah, and Attakullaculla (Atta-culla-culla; Attakullakulla), arrived at the court of King George II of Great Britain at Windsor Castle in London, meeting the king on June 22.

The native Americans (three of whom are pictured above), were escorted to England by Sir Alexander Cuming, Baronet of Culter, and acknowledged the monarch as the sovereign of the Cherokee people. They also signed articles of friendship and commerce with representatives of the British Crown.

Attakullaculla was mistakenly called 'Little Carpenter' by the Europeans, but his name is more correctly interpreted as Leaningwood ("Ătă'-gûl`kălû', from ătă' wood,'gûl'kălû' a verb implying that something long is leaning without sufficient support, against some other object; hence 'Leaningwood'." – Mooney (Source)