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If you want people to think well of you, do not speak well of yourself.
Blaise Pascal, French mathematician, author and inventor, born June 19, 1623

Those who are accustomed to judge by feeling do not understand the process of reasoning, for they would understand at first sight and are not used to seeking for principles. And others, on the contrary, who are accustomed to reason from principles, do not at all understand matters of feeling, seeking principles and being unable to see at a glance.
Blaise Pascal

The heart has its reasons of which reason knows nothing.
Blaise Pascal

Man is but a reed, the weakest thing in nature; but he is a thinking reed.
Blaise Pascal

Quand il pleut a la Saint-Médard [June 8]
Il pleut quarante jours plus tard;
S'il pleut le jour de Saint Gervais et de Saint Protais ,
Il pleut quarante jours aprés.
French traditional weather proverb for the feast days of St Médard (June 8), and St Gervais and Protasius (June 19)

St Pratt's little summer.
English traditional weather proverb (St Prat = St Protasius) meaning fine weather that often occurs at beginning of an English autumn

Highly recommended:
Folklore of World Holidays
by Margaret Read MacDonald

Canyon Trilogy

In the Sky I am Walking

Native American Medicine

A Little Matter of Genocide

American Holocaust

The First Americans, Third Edition

Black Elk Speaks

Permaculture

A Piece of the Mountain
(Pascal biography)

Pensees

The Provincial Letters

Secrets and Lies

The Last Alchemist: Count Cagliostro

Celtic Gods Celtic Goddesses

Uluru

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What Would Jefferson Do?
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When Corporations Rule the World

Outfoxed - Rupert Murdoch's War on Journalism

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Highly recommended DVD

Shaking the Foundations: 200 Years of Investigative Journalism in America
By Bruce Shapiro

Shaking the Foundations: 200 Years of Investigative Journalism in America
By Bruce Shapiro

Crimes Against Nature : How George W Bush and His Corporate Pals Are Plundering the Country and Hijacking Our Democracy
By Robert F Kennedy, Jr

The Skeptic's Dictionary

Lies and the Lying Liars Who Tell Them

Louisa

Women's Activism and Globalization

8 Minutes in the Morning

The Satanic Verses

Midnight's Children/Satanic Verses

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Stand and Deliver
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Daily Everything

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Celtic Folklore Cooking

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Live with Passion!
Anthony Robbins


More books, calendars, T-shirts, mugs, music, posters, etc at  
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Social Anarchism or Lifestyle Anarchism
Murray Bookchin

Photo of the day

Mother Earth Spirituality

Wheel of the Year

Vendémiaire | Brumaire | Frimaire | Nivôse | Pluviôse | Ventôse | Germinal | Floréal | Prairial | Messidor | Thermidor | Fructidor | Sansculottides

First day of month of Messidor (Floral month), French Revolutionary Calendar

On October 24, 1793 the French National Convention adopted the French Republican Calendar (French Revolutionary Calendar) retrospectively as from September 22, 1792.

Napoleon Bonaparte abolished it and restored the Gregorian calendar on January 1, 1806 (the day after 10 nivôse an XIV), a little over twelve years after its introduction. However, it was used again during the brief Paris Commune in 1871 (year LXXIX).

It was designed by the politician and agronomist Charles Gilbert Romme, although it is usually attributed to Fabre d'Églantine, who invented the descriptive names of the months. Instead of most days having a saint as in the Catholic Church's calendar, each day has a plant, a tool or an animal associated with it. Some enthusiasts in France still use the calendar.

Each month lasted 30 days and was divided into three decades. Every day had the name of an agricultural plant, except the 5^th (Quintidi) and 10^th day (Decadi) of every decade, which had the name of a domestic animal (Quintidi) or an agricultural tool (Decadi).

Autumn
Vendémiaire (from Latin vindemia, 'vintage'), begins Sep 22, 23 or 24
Brumaire (from French brume, 'mist'), begins Oct 22, 23 or 24
Frimaire (From French frimas, 'frost'), begins Nov 21, 22 or 23

Winter
Nivôse (from Latin nivosus, 'snowy'), begins Dec 21, 22 or 23
Pluviôse (from Latin pluviosus, 'rainy'), begins Jan 20, 21 or 22
Ventôse (from Latin ventosus, 'windy'), begins Feb 19, 20 or 21

Spring
Germinal (from Latin germen, 'seed'), begins Mar 20 or 21
Floréal (from Latin flos, 'flower'), begins Apr 20 or 21
Prairial (from French prairie, 'meadow'), begins May 20 or 21

Summer
Messidor (from Latin messis, 'harvest'), begins Jun 19 or 20
Thermidor (from Greek thermos, 'hot'), begins Jul 19 or 20
Fructidor (from Latin fructus, 'fruits'), begins Aug 18 or 19

Sansculottides
The Sansculottides (also Epagomenes; French Sans-culottides, Sanculottides, jours complementaires, jours épagomènes) are the end of the calendar. They follow Fructidor and precede Vendémiaire of the next year, belonging to the summer quarter of the year.

The Sansculottides, named after the Sansculottes, amend the 360 days of the calendar so that the beginning of the next year is on the autumnal equinox. There were five Sansculottides in a common year and six in a leap year (from this derives the French name of the leap year année sextile). The Sansculottides start on September 17 or 18 and end on September 22 or 23.

Source: Wikipedia    Website converts Gregorian calendar to FRC (and has desktop program)

High resolution image of the calendar by Louis-Philibert Debucourt (951x1098, 486 KB)

Antique Decimal Watches    Criticisms and shortcomings of the FRC   Julian day calculator (pop-up)

The Book of Days index page shows the current day's date in the French Republican Calendar

Feast day of Minerva, Roman Empire
This day is sacred to Minerva, Goddess of Crafts and Trade Guilds in the Roman tradition.
Source: Earth, Moon and Sky

Saturday before Old Midsummer Day, Parishes of Congresbury and Puxton, England
(In Hone's time, 1826.) There were two large pieces of land, called East and West Dolemoors, divided into single acres, each one of which was marked by a design cut into the turf; for example, a cross, a dung-fork, duck's-nest, cattle and horses.

Feast day of Ss Gervasius (Gervase) and Protasius (Protase; Prat), martyrs

Quand il pleut a la Saint-Médard [June 8]
Il pleut quarante jours plus tard;
S'il pleut le jour de Saint Gervais et de Saint Protais ,
Il pleut quarante jours aprés.

Gervase and his beheaded twin brother Protase (sons of St Vitalis of Milan and St Valeria of Milan) were the first martyrs of Milan, beaten to death with a lead-tipped whip. They are represented in religious art with the whips and/or holding stones, or holding the palm of martyrs.

St Ambrose, guided by a vision in which the two martyrs appeared to him, unearthed their decapitated remains in 386, as we are told by St Paulinus of Nola in his Life of St Ambrose. At the time, little was known about them even by Ambrose.

Some deny their existence, and make them a Christianized version of the Dioscuri (Castor and Pollux) of the Romans.

Feast day of St Boniface, Archbishop of Magdeburg, Apostle of Russia and martyr

Feast day of St Bruno of Quefort

Feast day of St Die or Deodatus, Bishop of Nevers and Abbot of Jointures

Feast day of St Hildegrin

Feast day of St Humphrey Middlemore

Feast day of St Innocent

Feast day of St Jude Thaddeus (Jude Lebbeus; Jude; Thaddeus)
St Jude is a Christian saint and one of the twelve apostles of Jesus. He shares another feast day, October 28, with St Simon the Apostle. He is invoked in desperate situations because his New Testament letter stresses that the faithful should persevere in the environment of harsh, difficult circumstances, just as their forefathers had done before them. Therefore, he is the patron saint of desperate cases and lost causes.

More

Feast day of St Julia (Juliana) Falconieri, virgin
(La Julienne de Nuit, Hesperis tristis, is today's plant, dedicated to this saint.)

Feast day of St Odo of Cambrai

Feast day of St Romuald

Feast day of St Sebastian Newdigate

Feast day of St Thomas Woodhouse

Feast day of St Ursicinus

Feast day of St William Exmew

Feast day of St Zosimus

Click for Eastern Orthodox liturgical days    Shop saints

Election of the Morris Mayor, Abingdon, England
Abingdon, Berkshire, England: Election of the 'Morris Mayor'. Residents elect a morris dancer who is carried through town on a flower-trimmed rocking chair, preceded by an ox-head on a long pole, with stops at every tavern to refill the Mayor's chalice.

Juneteenth, unofficial holiday, USA

Juneteenth is an African-American celebration on June 19, the day in 1865 that news of the Emancipation Proclamation reached slaves in Galveston, Texas, two years after it was issued. Juneteenth is the oldest known celebration of the end of slavery in the United States.

The proclamation was read on the docks of Galveston by Union general Gordon Granger and news quickly spread throughout the state, sparking impromptu celebrations which were continued on the June 19th anniversary. These gatherings evolved into political rallies and later into formal celebrations planned far in advance by Juneteenth committees.

In early years these celebrations were commonly relegated by law to the outskirts of towns. However eventually many organizational committees purchased land inside towns for the express purpose of holding the celebration; one example was Emancipation Park in Austin.

Beginning in the 1960s celebrations of Juneteenth became less popular due to the desire for integration embodied by the civil rights movement. Interest returned in the following decades however, and in 1979 Juneteenth was made a Texas state holiday.

By the end of the twentieth century, Juneteenth celebrations had become popular outside of Texas, and are now held annually in many different locations across the United States and throughout the world.

Ralph Ellison's last, partially complete novel was titled Juneteenth.

Third Sunday in June, Fathers' Day in a number of countries

On the dating of items in the Almanac

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

1566 James I, (d. March 27, 1625; reigned July 24, 1567 - March 27, 1625), only son of Mary, Queen of Scots, and Lord Darnley, minor poet and first Stuart king of England (also known as King James VI of the Scots, and 'the wisest fool in Christendom'). He of the 'King James Bible'. (Click for an 83kb image of the Bible's wonderful frontispiece.)

He was formerly James VI of Scotland. It was openly joked of the new English monarch in London that Rex fuit Elizabeth: nunc est regina Jacobus (Elizabeth was King: now James is Queen), for James was possibly homosexual.

Historians have debated whether James was unwise in his choice of male partners, from page-boy-turned-Gentleman-of-the-Bedchamber Robert Carr (made Earl of Somerset) to royal-cupbearer-turned-Earl-of-Buckingham, George Villiers, whose relationship with the King was discussed at the Privy Council (James called Villiers his 'wife' and he Villiers's 'husband'.)

James established a residence at Royston a town he stayed in on his progress to London. It was the setting of the wedding of his daughter, Elizabeth Stuart (1596-1662) to Frederick V, Elector Palatine. This wedding was negotiated at Royston, and has been connected to the rise of Rosicrucianism.

"A curious circumstance, recalling one of the superstitions of the age, is related in connexion with Queen Mary's accouchement. The Countess of Athole, who was believed to possess magical gifts, lay in within the castle at the same time as the queen. One Andrew Lundie informed John Knox that, having occasion to be in Edinburgh on business at that time, he went, up to the castle to inquire for Lady Beres, the queen's wet-nurse, and found her labouring under a very awkward kind of illness, which she explained as Lady Athole's labour pains thrown upon her by enchantment. She said, 'she was never so troubled with no bairn that ever she bare' (Bannatyne's Memorials, 228)."
Robert Chambers, (Ed.), The Book of Days: A miscellany of popular antiquities in connection with the calendar, etc, W & R Chambers, London, 1881 (1879 Edition is online; See The English Year: A Personal Selection from Chambers' Book of Days)

"He also held the title of King of France as had all his predecessors in the English throne since October 21, 1422 although by his time the title didn't come with an active claim of this throne. His own successors would hold the title till the 1801 Act of Union. James succeeded Elizabeth I as the closest living relative of the unmarried childless English monarch, through his descent from one of Henry VIII's sisters. He is notable for having signed the Petition of Right (1628), dissolving the Parliament (1629), and appointing Archbishop Laud (1633)."  Source: Wikipedia

'Queen James'

James [some say] was a homosexual and made no secret about it, but condemned sodomy as an unforgivable sin. When he ascended the English throne in 1603 after the death of Queen Elizabeth I, it was openly joked of the new English monarch in London that Rex fuit Elizabeth: nunc est regina Jacobus ('Elizabeth was King: now James is Queen').

"Historians have debated whether James was unwise in his choice of male partner; from page-boy turned Gentleman of the Bedchamber Robert Carr (made Earl of Sommerset) to royal cupbearer turned Earl of Buckingham, George Villiers, whose relationship with the King was discussed at the Privy Council (James called Villiers his 'wife' and he Villiers' 'husband'.)"   Source

More

1623 Blaise Pascal (d. August 19, 1662), French mathematician, physicist, theologian, inventor of the first digital calculator (the 'Pascaline', pictured), barometer, hydraulic press, and the syringe. His principle of empiricism ("Experiments are the true teachers which one must follow in physics") pitted him against René Descartes, whose starting point was human reason. Pascal's idea of intuitionism (Pensées) influenced Rousseau, Edmund Husserl and French philosopher Henri Bergson.

Pascal was an infant prodigy. When he was just nine, he asked his father about geometry and was simply told it was "the study of shapes". Young Blaise, intrigued, by himself proceeded to discover by the age of 13 Euclid's first 32 theorems, in the correct order (calling straight lines 'bars' and circles 'rounds'). After that, Dad let him learn any way he liked.

On November 23, 1654, following an accident at the Neuilly bridge where the horses plunged over the parapet but the carriage miraculously survived, he experienced a "night of fire" that changed his life. He went to the Jansenist convent of Port-Royal, and from that time wrote only at the convent's request (often against the Jesuits, as in Les Provinciales, or The Provincial Letters, an eloquent defence of the Jansenist Antoine Arnaud) and never in his own name. He wore a girdle armed with iron spikes, which he was accustomed to drive in upon his fleshless ribs whenever he felt tired. In the same year, he was visited by a French nobleman seeking assistance with a difficult gambling problem. He corresponded with Pierre de Fermat on the subject, and of that collaboration was born the mathematical theory of probabilities.

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1764 José Gervasio Artigas (d. 1850), national hero of Uruguay

1792 Gustav Schwab (d. 1850), author

1834 Charles Haddon Spurgeon (Charles Spurgeon; CH Spurgeon; d. 1892), England's best-known and most-loved preacher (Baptist) for most of the second half of the 19^th century. He was converted to Christianity as a 15-year-old boy at Colchester on January 6, 1850. By the time of his death in 1892, he had published more than twenty-five hundred sermons and forty-nine volumes of commentaries, sayings, anecdotes, illustrations, and devotions.

Spurgeon.org

1838 Friedrich von Hessing (d. 1918), engineer

1856 Elbert Hubbard (d. May 7, 1915), American writer, publisher, artist, and philosopher. He was an influential exponent of the Arts and Crafts movement and is, perhaps, most famous for his essay 'A Message to Garcia', which sold more than 40 million copies.

Hubbard wrote of the Titanic disaster of 1912, singling out the story of the wife of Isidor Straus, who as a woman was supposed to be placed on a lifeboat in precedence to the men. She refused to board the boat: "Not I – I will not leave my husband. All these years we've traveled together, and shall we part now? No, our fate is one." Hubbard wrote, "One thing is sure, there are just two respectable ways to die. One is of old age, and the other is by accident. All disease is indecent. Suicide is atrocious. But to pass out as did Mr. and Mrs. Isador Straus is glorious. Few have such a privilege."

Hubbard and his wife, although there was no way of their knowing it then, were to have just such a privilege. Little more than three years after the sinking of the Titanic, the Hubbards boarded Lusitania in New York City on May 1, 1915. On May 7, 1915, while at sea, it was torpedoed and sunk by a German submarine. In a letter to Elbert Hubbard II dated March 12, 1916, Ernest C Cowper, a survivor of this event, wrote:

"I can not say specifically where your father and Mrs. Hubbard were when the torpedoes hit, but I can tell you just what happened after that. They emerged from their room, which was on the port side of the vessel, and came on to the boat-deck.

"Neither appeared perturbed in the least. Your father and Mrs. Hubbard linked arms – the fashion in which they always walked the deck – and stood apparently wondering what to do ...

"He simply turned with Mrs. Hubbard and entered a room on the top deck, the door of which was open, and closed it behind him.

"It was apparent that his idea was that they should die together, and not risk being parted on going into the water."

The American science fiction writer and founder of Scientology, L Ron Hubbard (1911 - '86), was a nephew of Elbert by the adoption of his father into the Hubbard family.

Works by Elbert Hubbard at Project Gutenberg

1865 Dame May Whitty (d. 1948) British theatrer and cinema actress

1871 Paul Valéry (d. 1945), French poet

1877 Charles Coburn, Hollywood actor; won Oscar for The More the Merrier

1882 Guenter von Kluge (d. 1944), German field marshal

1885 Adela Pankhurst (d. 1961), feminist and pacifist, Communist, then fervent anti-Communist, daughter of Britain's most prominent suffragist, Emmeline Pankhurst, with whom she became estranged, mainly because of Adela's political positions on many issues, which were further to the left than those of her mother. She was sister of Sylvia Pankhurst and Christabel Pankhurst, who, with mother Emmeline, edged Adela out of their movement.

Pankhurst moved to Melbourne, Australia in 1914 partly for reasons of her health, and joined the Victorian Socialist Party (VSP), editing its children's magazine. There she worked with Vida Goldstein and the Women's Political Association, campaigning on the 'No' side of the WWI military conscription controversy, particularly with the Women's Peace Army. By war's end she was living in Sydney. In 1917 Adela married the Irish seaman's unionist Tom Walsh of the Federated Seamen's Union of Australasia, a widower with three daughters; they had a further five children. In 1920 she and Walsh became founding members of the Communist Party of Australia, from which she was later expelled. Sometime between the wars, her politics shifted from left to right, and in 1941, she formed the Australia First Movement, a conservative, nationalist, quasi-fascist movement. She remained in Australia till the end of her life in 1961.

"In 1906 Adela gave up her job as an elementary school teacher in Manchester to become an organiser in Lancashire and Yorkshire. During the General Election of 1905 she repeatedly questioned Winston Churchill at large public meetings and was 'ejected night after night'. She served several short prison sentences for interrupting Liberal meetings and for participating in noisy demonstrations and deputations to the House of Commons. Adela's outspoken left-wing views were not shared by her mother and her sister, Christabel; for instance she had encouraged Yorkshire suffragettes to support striking textile workers in Hebden Bridge. In 1911 she lost her voice, caught pleurisy and was urged to give up public speaking. Her mother and Christabel saw this as an opportunity to end her career with the Women's Social and Political Union and offered to send her on a gardening course – Adela had expressed an interest in this, on the understanding she would give up her role as an organiser. The gardening did not go well and in 1912 Adela went to live in Australia where she remained for the rest of her life."   Source

"She also joined the Victorian Socialist Party. She married Tom Walsh, a fellow anti-conscriptionist, in 1917. After the war they moved to Sydney and had five children. They were foundation members of the Communist Party of Australia, but soon withdrew. Adela's evolving anti-communism became starkly apparent when, in 1928, she founded the Australian Women's Guild of Empire. Pankhurst used this conservative patriotic organisation as a platform to advocate the need for industrial cooperation, and she frequently spoke out against strikes. She ended her public life in 1943 with her husband's death."   Source

More    Pankhurst photos    A world chronology of women's suffrage

Early progressives in the Book of Days    Lawson & Co: associations with Henry and Louisa Lawson

1882 William F Halsey Jr (d. 1957), American admiral

1896 Wallis Simpson Warfield (d. April 24, 1986), Duchess of Windsor, the wife of Prince Edward, Duke of Windsor (Edward VIII of the United Kingdom, abdicated)

1897 Moe Howard (Moses Horwitz; d. May 4, 1975), one of the Three Stooges, brother of Stooges Shemp Howard and Curly Howard

"Moe Howard, the irascible one with the world-famous bangs, was born on June 19, 1897, in Bensonhurst, New York, a small Jewish community on the outskirts of Brooklyn. His real name was Moses Horwitz (only later did he adopt the name Harry), son of real estate entrepreneur Jennie Horwitz and clothing cutter Solomon Horwitz. Moe was the fourth eldest of the five Howard brothers, all but two, Jack and Irving, having entered show business.

"Throughout Moe's career, columnists the world over tried to find words to describe his unusual haircut; buster brown, spittoon, Sugar Bowl, Rose Bowl and Beatle were but a few. His hair color changed with the years from black in his youth to reddish-brown when he dyed it) to silver-white (its final natural color) during the seventies. He had a marvelous mop of hair until the day he died, but during grammar school days it was the bane of his existence. He was constantly taunted by his class mates over his head of shoulder-length curls – which his mother adored, having always wanted a girl …"  Source 

1902 Guy Lombardo (d. 1977), American bandleader

1905 Mildred Natwick (d. 1994), actress

1914 Alan Cranston (d. 2000), United States politician

1917 Joshua Nkomo, Zimbabwean nationalist leader, a Ndebele, and the leader and founder of the Zimbabwe African Peoples Union (ZAPU)

1924 Anneliese Rothenberger, soprano

1930 Gena Rowlands, actress

1932 Pier Angeli (d. 1972), actress

1933 Viktor Patsayev, cosmonaut

1945 Aung San Suu Kyi, politician and recipient of the Nobel Peace Prize (1991)

1947 (Ahmed) Salman Rushdie, Indian-born British novelist (The Satanic Verses; Midnight's Children)

1948 Phylicia Rashad, American actress

1954 Kathleen Turner, American actress (Romancing the Stone; The Accidental Tourist; The War of the Roses)

1957 Anna Lindh (d. September 11, 2003), Swedish Social Democratic politician who served as Swedish Minister for Foreign Affairs from 1998 until her assassination in 2003

Phew!! Have a rest before the big This day in history section

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Zodiac birthday Free astrology e-cards Go Fishing Day [ Jun 18 ] Birthdays Summer Solstice [ Jun 21 ] Fathers' Day [ Varies ]

Varies Full Moon Day
Varies Friday the 13^th
Varies Hindu holidays
Varies Dragon Boat Festival (China)
Varies Shavuot
Varies Fathers' Day

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

  ... More Events

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1157 Bertrand de Blanchefort (Bertrand de Blanquefort), 6^th Master of the Templars, was captured by the Moslems at the Siege of Bayas.

1179 The Battle of Kalvskinnet outside Nidaros, Norway. Earl Erling Skakke was killed, and the battle changed the tide of the civil wars.

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

1306 Forces of the Earl of Pembroke defeated Bruce's Scottish rebels at the Battle of Methven.

1312 A favourite and alleged homosexual lover of King Edward II of England, Piers Gaveston, Earl of Cornwall, was executed at the instigation of his rivals, including Thomas, Earl of Lancaster, Guy de Beauchamp, at Kenilworth, Warwickshire. He would shortly be replaced in the king's affections by Hugh le Despenser.

1498 Nicolo Machiavelli (1469 - 1527) was appointed Secretary to the Signoria.

1692 Rebecca Nurse, accused American witch, was hanged.

1754 Benjamin Franklin introduced his Albany Plan of Union at the Albany Congress, based on the Native American Iroquois Confederacy laws. The plan was rejected, but some of its essential elements were adopted a quarter of a century later in the Articles of Confederation and the United States Constitution.

1790 The French Assembly abolished hereditary titles.

1816 Staying up all night to tell ghost stories with his wife, Mary Shelley, and Lord Byron, Percy Bysshe Shelley suddenly became hysterical and ran shrieking from the room.

'Time Long Past'

By Percy Bysshe Shelley

     Like the ghost of a dear friend dead
Is Time long past.
     A tone which is now forever fled,
     A hope which is now forever past,
     A love so sweet it could not last,
Was Time long past.
    
     There were sweet dreams in the night
Of Time long past:
     And, was it sadness or delight,
     Each day a shadow onward cast
     Which made us wish it yet might last--
That Time long past.
    
     There is regret, almost remorse,
For Time long past.
     'Tis like a child's belov'd corse
     A father watches, till at last
     Beauty is like remembrance, cast
From Time long past.

Early progressives in the Book of Days

 

1829 The Home Secretary of Britain, Sir Robert Peel, founded the Metropolitan Police.

1857 Rebel forces of the Indian Mutiny were defeated by the British at the battle of Gwalior. Ramchandra Pandurang went into hiding, conducting guerrilla warfare for two years before being captured.

1860 Louise of Orange-Nassau married King Charles XV of Sweden-Norway.

1865 More than two years after the Emancipation Proclamation, slaves in Galveston, Texas were finally informed of their freedom. June 19 is unofficially celebrated as Juneteenth in the United States.

1885 The Statue of Liberty arrived in New York Harbor.

1889 At about 4am, at the psychiatric centre at the Monastery Saint-Paul de Mausole in Saint Remy de Provence, France, Vincent van Gogh (allegedly) saw the night sky that he immortalized in the painting, Starry Night.   More

1893 In a celebrated American murder trial, Lizzie Borden was acquitted of killing her parents.

1910 USA: Fathers' Day was celebrated for first time, Spokane, Washington. In Australia it is commemorated on the first Sunday of September. In the USA, it is often spelt 'Father's Day'.

Does Fathers' Day need an apostrophe?

1912 The establishment of the alleged eight-hour work day in the United States.

1917 During WWI, King George V of the United Kingdom ordered members of British royal family to dispense with German titles and surnames (the Royal family's surname was Saxe-Coburg-Gotha), whereupon they took the name Windsor.

1920 Australia: Franklyn Barrett's film, The Breaking of the Drought, opened in Melbourne.

1926 The Peacemakers Pilgrimage ended in Hyde Park, London.

1931 Depression riots occurred in Sydney between police and anti-evictionists.

1937 Death of Sir JM Barrie, author of Peter Pan.

http://www.pixyland.org/peterpan/

1934 The establishment of the Federal Communications Commission (FCC) in the United States. The FCC regulated radio and television broadcasts.

1935 Britain ignored the Treaty of Versailles of 1919 by agreeing to allow Germany to massively increase its naval force.

1953 Ethel and Julius Rosenberg, who passed atom bomb secrets to the Soviet Union, went to the electric chair at Sing Sing Prison.

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1954 The last regular-service streetcar operated by Twin City Rapid Transit ran in Minneapolis, USA.

1963 Under the National Health Service, the contraceptive pill was made available for free to British women.

1964 The USA Senate passed the Civil Rights Bill.

1967 Monterey, California, USA: The Monterey International Pop Festival continued into its last day. In three days, 50,000 fans witnessed the first major appearances of Jimi Hendrix ( who was booked on the insistence of board member Paul McCartney), The Who and Janis Joplin. Also appearing were The Grateful Dead, Jefferson Airplane, Buffalo Springfield, Otis Redding, The Animals, Mamas and Papas, Brian Jones of the Rolling Stones, Country Joe and the Fish, Canned Heat, Steve Miller Band, Simon and Garfunkel, The Byrds, The Butterfield Blues Band, Al Kooper, Scott McKenzie and Ravi Shankar.

Wilson's Almanac Book of Days hip list

1967 Paul McCartney admitted on TV that he had taken LSD.

1969 Australia's Commonwealth Arbitration Commission granted equal pay to women for equal work.

Australian labour law

1970 Signature of the Patent Cooperation Treaty (PCT).

1976 King Carl XVI Gustaf of Sweden married Silvia Sommerlath.

1977 For the second time in two days a member of the Sex Pistols was set upon by people bearing blades; this time drummer Paul Cook was attacked by men with knives.

1978 The first appearance of the comic strip Garfield.

1982 Approximately one thousand landowners occupied key islands in protest against French nuclear tests, Kwajalein Atoll, South Pacific.

1987 The USA Supreme Court struck down the 1981 Louisiana law that required schools to teach the Christian creationist theory of human origin.

1991 "Joe Petrowski was at home in St Laurent, Manitoba, with his one-year-old German shepherd dog, Vegas. He had a .22 rifle clamped on a vice, aimed at a target 36 meters away. As he walked across the yard to check the target, Vegas went for her ball, which was on the bench by the vice, and her coat got caught in the trigger. A bullet went to the right of Petrowski's spine, slicing through his stomach and liver. When he passed out, Vegas ran to his aid and dragged him towards the house, where he came to and rang for help. He had almost recovered six weeks later."   Source

1992 Curtis Sliwa, American founder of the Guardian Angels youth anti-crime patrols and right-wing talkshow host, was shot five times as he hailed a taxi near his Manhattan home.

Sliwa underwent surgery for internal injuries and leg wounds. John A 'Junior' Gotti, son of the late crime boss John Gotti and two members of the Gambino crime family were charged with conspiring to murder Sliwa.

Prosecutors allege that the hit was arranged in retaliation for comments about the elder Gotti that Sliwa made during his radio program.

1999 Stephen King was hit in a car accident on Route 5 in North Lovell, Maine by Bryan Smith.

1999 "On 19 June 1999 Mr L. Storey from London, England attended a Transmission Meditation workshop led by Benjamin Crème in London. The following day he discovered a stone with Arabic writing on it, on a pile of clothes in his bedroom. It took him a while find someone to read it for him, when he did he was amazed to hear it read: 'I bear witness there is only one God, and I bear witness Mohammed was his Prophet.'

"(Benjamin Crème's master confirms that the stone was placed on the clothes by the Master Jesus.)

"(Courtesy of Share International Magazine)"   Source

2000 Datapoint, the company that commissioned the Intel 8008 microprocessor, sold its European operations and changed its name to Dynacore.

 

Tomorrow: The bonfires of San Juan

 

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Wikipedia and David Brown's prodigious Daily Bleed are both excellent resources that aid my research.
I frequently make use of their generously liberal 'fair use', 'copyleft' and 'anti-copyright' policies, with much gratitude.
© My own copyright policy is also liberal, but as this is my livelihood, conditions apply.

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