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...after World War II, when I came home, Krazy Kat became my hero.  I had never seen Krazy Kat up until then because neither one of the papers in the Twin cities published it, so I didn't know Krazy Kat.  But then it became my ambition to draw a strip that would have as much life and meaning and subtlety to it as Krazy Kat had.
Charles M Schulz, creator of Peanuts 

An immediate progenitor of the Beat Generation and its roots could be traced back to the glee of America, the honesty of America, its wild, self-believing individuality.
Jack Kerouac on Krazy Kat

'Tis not strange to see this land
lighted up bright on St John's night.
And the bonfires with their fiery tongues
looking skyward so far to capture a lucky star.
Showing just for a day, if only once a year, the
starry beautiful light of the Levante night.
Alberto Cortez

Highly recommended:
Folklore of World Holidays
by Margaret Read MacDonald

The Spiral Dance
By Starhawk
20th Anniversary Edition

Midsummer

The Rule of Four

Hypnerotomachia Poliphili

Leon Battista Alberti's Hypnerotomachia

Hoax

Secrets and Lies

To support this project
Search by keywords for books, music, computers, software, home and family products and much more.

What Would Jefferson Do?
By Thom Hartmann

When Corporations Rule the World

Outfoxed - Rupert Murdoch's War on Journalism

The Corporation
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

Women's Activism and Globalization

Buckland's Complete Book of Witchcraft

The Elements of Ritual

Stand and Deliver
Hip Hop activism

Salam Pax
The Baghdad Blogger

Imperial Crusades

Prehistory of Australia

 
A Calendar of Festivals

Peace Under Fire

Environmental Activism

Gaia's Garden

Permaculture

The Last Alchemist: Count Cagliostro

Celtic Gods Celtic Goddesses

The Book of Saints

The Da Vinci Code

Daily Everything

A Treasury of Irish Myth, Legend, and Folklore

Architects of Peace

Celtic Folklore Cooking

Activism and Social Change

Live with Passion!
Anthony Robbins


More books, calendars, T-shirts, mugs, music, posters, etc at  
Cafe Diem!

Celtic Daily Prayer

Social Anarchism or Lifestyle Anarchism
Murray Bookchin

Photo of the day

Mother Earth Spirituality

Wheel of the Year

Krazy Kat

Krazy Kat

Krazy & Ignatz 1925-1926

Krazy & Ignatz 1927-1928

Krazy & Ignatz 1929-1930

Krazy & Ignatz 1931-1932

Krazy Kat

World Refugee Day

On June 20, thanks to that magnificent organization, UNHCR, we salute the indomitable spirit and courage of the world's refugees, giving them the encouragement, support and respect they deserve.

Every refugee story is different, every loss is a personal one. But around the world different crises affect different groups. Some conflicts are almost resolved. Others are new, with fresh refugee problems. And still others are shadowy, long-running guerrilla wars whose victims are often the ordinary people the revolutionaries claim to represent.

Under international law, a refugee is a person who is outside his/her country of nationality or habitual residence; has a well-founded fear of persecution because of his/her race, religion, nationality, membership in a particular social group or political opinion; and is unable or unwilling to avail himself/herself of the protection of that country, or to return there, for fear of persecution. They are subgroup of the broader category of displaced persons. They are distinguished from economic migrants who have voluntarily left their country of origin for economic reasons, and from internally displaced persons who have not crossed an international border.

Those who seek refugee status are sometimes known as asylum seekers and the practice of accepting such refugees is that of offering political asylum. The most common asylum claims are based upon political and religious grounds.

Refugees often make some of the best immigrants to a nation because they are the people of strong character from the countries in which they were repressed, and the more resourceful ones who are able to flee and survive their escape. These qualities stand for so much more than how much money they have in their bank accounts.

Source    Another source (Wikipedia)    USA for UNHCR    UNHCR

Angelina Jolie, UNHCR Goodwill Ambassador

Protocol relating to the Status of Refugees at Law-Ref.org

Refugee numbers by country    Refugees by numbers: 2006 edition    Refugees Australia - National Directory

Forced Migration Review    Refugee Council of Australia

Forced Migration Online    Refugees: Australia's moral failure

Refugee Studies Centre, University of Oxford

PARDS (Political Asylum Research and Documentation Service)

asylumlaw.org    UNHCR Thesaurus    Mission and Justice

Tamil Refugees & Asylum Seekers

Convention and Protocol relating to the status of refugees (pdf format document)

Zalu Diena, ancient Latvia

In ancient Latvia, Zalu Diena ('day of grasses') was a festival held on June 20. The women and girls gathered grasses and flowers to weave into wreathes. Farmers cut birch boughs and put them in their barns; this prevented mice and other rodents from eating the harvest. John's Grass was given to the cows and sand was sifted onto their heads; this caused the cows to have sweet milk. Young girls gave crowns of flowers to their potential suitors; both children then wore their wreaths to bed and, if they dreamed of each other, they were a match.

Iron Skegge's Day

(Viking religion) The martyrdom of Iron Skegge (eve of the Summer Solstice), killed while defending the temples at Maeri. The Norwegian king, Olaf Tryggvason (Olav I of Norway; b. c. 963 - 969, d. September 9?, 1000), had him tortured. Rather than give up his paganism, Iron Skegge resisted.

Translation of King Edward II of England (Edward the Martyr)
This English king (b. c. 962) murdered on March 18, 979 after a reign of only a few years; his body was removed on this day in 982 from its original tomb at Wareham in Dorset, to Salisbury Cathedral. The Church of England for a long time kept this day in its calendar.

Festival in honour of Summanus, Roman Empire
In Roman mythology, Summanus was the god of nocturnal thunder, as opposed to Jupiter, the god of diurnal (daylight) thunder. There was a temple to him on the Circus Maximus.

"It is unclear whether or not he was an ancient deity or an aspect of Jupiter. His temple was struck by lightning in 197 BC, which was the occasion for irreligious jokes."
Source: School of the Seasons

 

Bawming the thorn, Appleton Thorn, near Warrington, Cheshire, UK

"'Bawming' means 'decorating', so the custom of bawming the thorn involves decorating a hawthorn tree with ribbons and garlands. It takes place at Appleton Thorn, near Warrington, Cheshire and is followed by sports and a celebration tea for the children. According to one old story, the hawthorn at Appleton is a descendant of the Holy Thorn at Glastonbury, which was itself said to have sprung from the staff of Joseph of Arimathea, the man who arranged for Jesus's burial after the Crucifixion."   Source

For more on Joseph of Arimathea, see January 24, March 17 and April 22 in the Book of Days

Celebrating Midsummer

Feast day of St Adalbert of Magdeburg

Feast day of St Alban

Feast day of St Anthony Turner

Feast day of St Bagne (Bain), Bishop of Terouanne, or St Omer

Feast day of St Balthasar de Torres

Feast day of St Benignus

Feast day of St Cyriacus

Feast day of St Fillan
The St Fillan whose feast is kept on June 20 had churches dedicated to his honor at Ballyheyland, County Laois, Ireland, at Loch Earn, Perthshire and at Houston, Renfrewshire, Scotland. Another St Fillan is commemorated on January 9.

Feast day of St Florentina
Sister of St Fulgentius of Écija, St Leander of Seville and St Isidore of Seville. Her name is written Florentia in the Roman martyrology.

Feast day of St Francis Pacheco

Feast day of St Goban (Gobain), priest and martyr

Feast day of St Govan
Sixth century hermit who lived on the face of a cliff at Saint Govan's Head, Dyfed, Wales. His stone hut survives today.

Feast day of St Helen

Feast day of St Idaberga, or Edburge, of Mercia, virgin

Feast day of St John Baptist Zola

Feast day of St John Fenwick

Feast day of St John Gavan

Feast day of St John Kinsaco

Feast day of St John of Pulsano

Feast day of St Margaret Ebner

Feast day of St Michael Tozo

Feast day of St Michelina of Pesaro

Feast day of St Novatus

Feast day of St Silverio (Silverius), pope and martyr
(Doubtful poppy, Papaver dubium, is today's plant, dedicated to this saint.)

Click for Eastern Orthodox liturgical days    Shop saints

Yemaya (Yemaja; Yemanja; Yemayah), Yorùbá goddess, is commemorated

Day of Ix Chel, Mayan Goddess of the Stars and Childbirth
Source: The Phoenix and Arabeth 1992 Calendar

Jousting of the Saracens, Arezzo, Italy

Midsummer Festival, Seurasaari Island, Finland

Kupalo (Kupala), eve of Summer Solstice, held during Rusalka's Week – Kresen (June 19 - 24), Slavic Pagan

In Polish mythology, Kupala is the goddess of herbs, sorcery, sex, and midsummer. She is also the Water Mother, associated with trees, herbs, and flowers. Her celebration falls upon the Summer solstice. It was a sacred holy day honoring the two most important elements of Fire and Water. Kupalo is a male form of Kupala, and recognized in other Slavic regions. Kupalo is associated with John the Baptist, June 24 being his feast day.

Kupalo rituals    More    And more    Yet more

Flag Day, Argentina (1938)

Day of The Royal Victorian Order
The date of Queen Victoria's accession to the throne of the United Kingdom in 1837.

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

1561 Sigismund (d. 1632), king of Sweden and the Polish-Lithuanian Commonwealth

1634 Charles Emmanuel II of Savoy (d. 1675)

1756 Joseph Martin Kraus, composer

1763 Wolfe Tone, Irish patriot

1771 Thomas Douglas, 5^th Earl of Selkirk (d. 1820), philanthropist, entrepreneur

1797 Sophie (Frémiet) Rude (d. 1867), French artist

1819 Jacques Offenbach (d. 1880), German-born composer (Orpheus in the Underworld; Tales of Hoffman)

1887 Kurt Schwitters (d. 1948), painter (Dadaist), writer

1899 Jean Moulin, leader of the French Resistance in WW II

1905 Lillian Hellman (d. 1984), American playwright (The Children's Hour; The Little Foxes)

1909 Errol Flynn, Australian actor, journalist and author (d. October 14, 1959), born in Hobart, Tasmania; celebrated for his romantic swashbuckler roles in Hollywood films (Captain Blood; The Adventures of Robin Hood), and for his flamboyant and dissipated way of life.

Flynn's father was Theodore Thomson Flynn (1883 -1968), a biologist and professor at the University of Tasmania and Queen's University Belfast in Northern Ireland, who named one new species of tidepool fish that he discovered – Gibbonsia erroli – after his son.

Flynn went to Sydney, New South Wales, as a child, where he attended Sydney Church of England Grammar School (Shore School), an upper-class establishment where he was a peer of a future Australian Prime Minister, John Gorton (1911 - 2002). Young Errol was expelled for fighting and, allegedly, for having sex with a school laundress. He was also expelled from several other schools he attended.

At the age of 20, Errol Flynn moved to New Guinea, where he engaged in several unsuccessful businesses including a tobacco plantation and a copper mine. Then followed his illustrious Hollywood career – he became an overnight sensation with his first starring role in Captain Blood. Notorious for his drinking, adventuring, opium smuggling, gambling and street fighting, he died at the age of 50, ill and bloated from alcohol and drug abuse. His autobiography, My Wicked, Wicked Ways, was published just months after his death and contains humorous anecdotes about Hollywood. According to one literary critic, the book "remains one of the most compelling and appalling autobiographies written by a Hollywood star, or anyone else for that matter". Flynn wanted to call the book In Like Me, from the colloquialism, 'in like Flynn' (a reference to his hedonistic lifestyle), but the publisher refused.

Errol Flynn was the first foreign journalist to interview Cuba's Communist dictator, Fidel Castro, and believed him not to be a radical.

Australian Crawl's 1981 hit song, 'Errol'; from Misheard lyrics
Ohhhhh, werewolf, I would give anything, just to be like him!
Correct Lyrics:
Ohhhhh, Errol, I would give anything, just to be like him!

Errol's homepage    Errol Flynn talks Fidel Castro (YouTube)

Interview with Flynn documentary maker Simon Nasht (mp3)

1924 Chet Atkins, country guitar player

1924 Audie Murphy (d. May 28, 1971), American soldier (the most decorated US combat soldier of World War II), songwriter and actor

1928 Jean-Marie Le Pen, French far-right nationalist politician, founder and president of the Front National (National Front) party

1931 Olympia Dukakis, actress

1931 Martin Landau, American actor (Oscar nomination: Crimes and Misdemeanors)

1936 Danny Aiello, actor

1940 Eugen Drewermann, theologian

1940 John Mahoney, actor

1941 Ulf Merbold, physicist and astronaut

1941 Ilse Ritter, actress

1942 Brian Wilson, bass player, singer, composer for the Beach Boys.

Wilson's creativity reached its heights during the mid-1960s with songs like 'Good Vibrations', the Pet Sounds album (which, according to Paul McCartney, heavily inspired The Beatles' Sgt Pepper's Lonely Hearts Club Band) and the Smile project.

A new studio album, Getting In Over My Head, featuring collaborations with Elton John, Paul McCartney, Eric Clapton and his deceased brother Carl Wilson was released on June 22, 2004. Eric Clapton played on the track 'City Blues'. A studio re-recording of his Smile opus was released 2004.

Wilson's Almanac Book of Days hip list

1945 Anne Murray, Canadian singer

1949 Lionel Richie, American singer (Say You, Say Me; All Night Long)

1951 Tress MacNeille, voice actress (The Simpsons, Animaniacs, Rugrats)

1952 John Goodman, actor

1953 Cyndi Lauper, American singer

1967 Nicole Kidman, American-born Australian actress

"Elegant redhead Nicole Kidman, known as one of Hollywood's top Australian imports, was actually born in Honolulu, Hawaii to Anthony (a biochemist and clinical psychologist) and Janelle (a nursing instructor) Kidman. The family moved almost immediately to Washington, D.C., where Nicole's father pursued his research on breast cancer, then, three years later, made the pilgrimage to her parents' native Sydney. " Source

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

Send a free e-card greeting for today's celebrations to a loved one

Do you forget birthdays and anniversaries? Schedule your cards to be sent during the coming year.

Zodiac birthday Free astrology e-cards Dragon Boat Festival (China) [ Varies ] Birthdays Solstice Eve [ Jun 20 ] Summer Solstice [ Jun 21 ]

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

Visit the Blogmanac, where today's Almanac is 'live'
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Your family and friends will get a kick when they hear their own name being sung in 'Happy Birthday'!!
You can schedule your singing cards in advance, and even add your own face to funny animations. (Pay cards)

 

 

 

 

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2183 BCE The first Druid Summer Solstice festival was held at Stonehenge. Or, so it is said.  

451 The Battle of Chalons, Flavius Aetius' victory over Attila the Hun. Death of Theodorid, King of the Visigoths.

840 Death of Louis the Pious, King of the Franks, Emperor of the Holy Roman Empire (b. 778).

1214 University of Oxford received its charter.

1597 Willem Barentsz, navigator died in the Arctic.

1631 The sack of Baltimore: the Irish village of Baltimore was attacked by Algerian pirates.

1633 Galileo Galilei was forced by the Inquisition to "abjure, curse, and detest" his Copernican heliocentric views.

1676 Charlestown, Massachusetts: The governing council met to discuss how best to express thanks for the good fortune of their new community. By a unanimous vote they instructed the clerk, Edward Rawson, to proclaim June 29 as a day of thanksgiving.

Most people recognise the first Thanksgiving as having taken place in December 1621, when the Pilgrims held a three-day feast to celebrate the bountiful harvest they reaped following their first winter in North America. Another event claiming to be the first American Thanksgiving occurred on December 4, 1619 when 38 colonists from Berkeley Parish in England disembarked in Virginia and gave thanks to God.

Thanksgiving is a holiday celebrated in North America, generally observed as an expression of gratitude. The most common view of its origin is that it was to give thanks to God for the bounty of the autumn harvest. In the USA, the holiday is celebrated on the fourth Thursday in November. In Canada, where the harvest generally ends earlier in the year, the holiday is celebrated on the second Monday in October, which is observed as Columbus Day in the United States.

Source: Wikipedia    USA Thanksgiving in the Book of Days

1756  Kolkata (Calcutta), India: The first of two days of the Black Hole of Calcutta – a 6-metre (approx. 20 feet) -square chamber in Fort William, Calcutta which held overnight 146 British subjects, imprisoned by Siraj-ud-Dowla, the Nawab of Bengal, June 20, 1756 out of which only 23 had supposedly survived. This story was recounted in 'Genuine Narrative of the Deplorable Deaths of the English Gentlemen and others who were suffocated in the Black Hole' in the Annual Register for 1758 by a survivor, the garrison commander, John Zephaniah Holwell. However, modern scholarship suggests that the story, which was used as colonial propaganda by the British, did not occur as Holwell said, or at least was embellished by him. The problem of whether 146 people could fit into a room of that size has been raised as a point of doubt. In 1915, scholar JH Little published an article, 'The Black Hole – The Question of Holwell's Veracity', in which he pointed out the flaws in Holwell's story.

The Black Hole is now used as a warehouse, and an obelisk about 16m high, was erected in memory of the victims.

The Straight Dope: Is the black hole of Calcutta a myth?    More

 

1783 US Congress, threatened by a mob of disgruntled soldiers, fled from Philadelphia and reconvened in Princeton, New Jersey.

1787 Death of Karl Friedrich Abel, German baroque composer.

1788 The US Constitution went into effect.

1789  In France, the Deputies of the Third Estate of the States General took the Tennis Court Oath, thus forming a National Assembly in opposition to the power of the aristocracy. The Tennis Court Oath is often considered the moment of the birth of the French Revolution.

1819  The Savannah became the first steamship to voyage across an ocean after having crossed the Atlantic from Georgia, USA, to Liverpool, England. Most of the journey was made under sail.

1837 Queen Victoria of the United Kingdom succeeded to the British throne, at 18 years of age, on the death of her uncle, King William IV.

1862 Barbu Catargiu, conservative Romanian journalist and politician, was assassinated.

1863 West Virginia was admitted as the 35^th US state.

1867 US president Andrew Jackson proclaimed a treaty for the purchase of Alaska from Russia, in deal negotiated by Secretary of State, William H Seward.

1874 Queensland, Australia: On the return trip from Java, The Great Blondin's ship, the RMS Flintshire, was wrecked off Townsville. Blondin spent a night of torrential rain in an open boat, which he shared with the French pianist Arabella Goddard, also in the middle of a world tour. On August 29 [qv], Blondin made several spectacular tightrope crossings of Middle Harbour, Sydney.

More

1877 Alexander Graham Bell installed world's first commercial telephone service, in Hamilton Ontario, Canada.

1887 Queen Victoria's Golden Jubilee was celebrated throughout the British Empire. In Sydney, Australia on June 3, the Mayor of Sydney, Australia, Alban Joseph Riley, held a public meeting to organize a feast for schoolchildren on the Jubilee. The crowd voted it down by a large majority (setting off a chain of events that led to the Republican Riot of June 10, 1887). Sydney's The Bulletin described the statue raised in memory of her Jubilee as nothing more than a "bilious effigy of tilted bronze". In 1897 the queen celebrated her Diamond Jubilee. So popular was she, she survived eight assassination attempts in her lifetime.

"Willy of Greece sat on my other side"

"On 20 June the day began quietly with breakfast under the trees at Frogmore, the resting place of her beloved late husband, Prince Albert. She then travelled by train from Windsor to Paddington and across the parks to Buckingham Palace for a royal banquet in the evening. Fifty foreign kings and princes, along with the governing heads of Britain's overseas colonies and dominions, attended the feast.

"She wrote in her diary of the event, 'Had a large family dinner. All the Royalties assembled in the Bow Room, and we dined in the Supper-room, which looked splendid with the buffet covered with the gold plate. The table was a large horseshoe one, with many lights on it. The King of Denmark took me in, and Willy of Greece sat on my other side. The Princes were all in uniform, and the Princesses were all beautifully dressed. Afterwards we went into the Ballroom, where my band played.'

"On the following day, Queen Victoria travelled in an open landau to Westminster Abbey, escorted by Indian cavalry. The procession through London, according to Mark Twain, 'stretched to the limit of sight in both directions'."   Source

From 'Australia to England'

By John Farrell

... Red sins were yours: the avid greed 
Of pirate fathers, smocked as Grace, 
Sent Judas missioners to read 
Christ's Word to many a feebler race – 
False priests of Truth who made their tryst 
At Mammon's shrine, and reft or slew – 
Some hands you taught to pray to Christ 
Have prayed His curse to rest on you! 

Your way has been to pluck the blade 
Too readily, and train the guns. 
We here, apart and unafraid 
Of envious foes, are but your sons: 
We stretched a heedless hand to smutch 
Our spotless flag with Murder's blight – 
For one less sacrilegious touch 
God's vengeance blasted Uzza white! 

You vaunted most of forts and fleets, 
And courage proved in battle-feasts, 
The courage of the beast that eats 
His torn and quivering fellow-beasts; 
Your pride of deadliest armament – 
What is it but the self-same dint 
Of joy with which the Caveman bent 
To shape a bloodier axe of flint? ...

First printed as 'Ave Imperatrix' in the Daily Telegraph, Sydney, June 22, 1897, during the week of Queen Victoria's Diamond Jubilee

 

Click to enlarge 1901 image of Victoria's family tree (c.1MB, new window)

Click to enlarge her jubilee portrait (93kb, new window)

The First Century: Republicanism In Australia 1788-1901    Jubilee half-corset

Lawson & Co: associations with Henry and Louisa Lawson    Big Victoria gallery

 

1893 Eugene V(ictor) Debs (1855 - 1926), prominent American socialist politician, presidential candidate and peace activist formed the American Railway Union (ARU).

Within a year, the ARU had 150,000 members, almost as large as Samuel Gompers's American Federation of Labor. This set the stage for Chicago's Pullman strike in 1894 – the first organized nationwide strike in US history.

Source: The Daily Bleed

 

 

The strip of the century

1910 Krazy Kat, by George Herriman (1880 - 1944), made his or her debut in comics. In a 1999 special issue, The Comics Journal named Krazy Kat as "the greatest comic strip of the 20^th Century", and many comic artists have acknowledged the influence Herriman had on their work.

Krazy Kat was a comic strip created by Herriman, appearing in both weekday and Sunday US newspapers published by William Randolph Hearst. It grew from an earlier comic strip of Herriman's, The Dingbat Family. Herriman would complete the cartoons about the Dingbats, and finding himself with time left over from his 8-hour day, filled the bottom of the strip with the slapstick antics of a cat and a mouse. This "basement strip" grew into something much larger than the original cartoon, and became a Sunday-only cartoon on April 23, 1916, and before long also a daily strip. Herriman continued to draw Krazy Kat until his death in 1944.

Krazy Kat focused on the relationship triangle of its title character, Krazy, a cat of indeterminate gender (but often referred to in the feminine), her antagonist and love interest Ignatz Mouse, and Krazy's protector, Offisa Pupp, who nursed an unrequited love for Krazy. Most of the strips followed the formula of Ignatz throwing a brick at Krazy Kat, which while endearing Krazy to Ignatz, would usually result with Offisa Pupp putting Ignatz behind bars. Krazy's dialogue was a highly stylized argot ("A fowl konspirissy – is it pussible?"), and the strip's descriptive passages mix whimsical language with a poetic sensibility. ("A pilgrim on the road to nowhere — pauses at the base of the Enchanted Mesa, and drops a fragment of philosophical fatuity.") In the 1940s, when the Sunday strip was printed in colour, Herriman experimented with bold colors and unconventional page layouts.

Set against a dreamlike portrayal of Herriman's native Coconino County, Arizona, Krazy Kat was strip unlike any seen in newspapers before or since. Public reaction at the time of its appearance was largely negative, due its iconoclastic refusal to conform to comic strip conventions and simple gags. But Hearst loved it, and it continued to appear in his papers throughout its run sometimes only by his direct order. It was also praised by intellectuals and critics, most notably Gilbert Seldes, who wrote a lengthy panegyric in The New Yorker calling the strip "the most satisfying work of art ... in America today." In the 1920s, a stage musical based on Krazy Kat was even produced.

Source: Wikipedia

Comix, comics and cartoons in the Book of Days    Wilson's Almanac Comics Page

More on Herriman   And more at Toonopedia    Some more

Ignatz Mouse has a cool webpage too    Salute to Herriman

A Komix Kritique of 'Krazy Kat' – huge (686kb) image but well worth the wait (new window)

1913 "In the 'Great Blow' of 1913, over 250 sailors perished and many washed up on the shores of Lake Huron. One was identified as marine fisherman John Thompson by his father, mother and sisters. The dead man bore the tattooed initials 'JT' on the forearm, while scars on the nose and leg, deformed toes and dental peculiarities matched those of the fireman. One sister was convinced – she knew her brother's 'JT' tattoo was topped by an anchor, which was missing on the corpse – but the family overruled her. John Thompson in Toronto read of his own death and returned home to Hamilton."   Source

1919 About 150 people died in the Teatro Yaguez fire, Mayaguez, Puerto Rico

1920 Police shot 14 Wobblies (IWW; Industrial Workers of the World) during a labor clash in Butte, Montana.

1930 USA: Fats Waller and Louis Armstrong took New York by storm when their revue Hot Chocolates opens on Broadway.

1947 Death of Bugsy Siegel (Benjamin Siegel; b. 1906), American gangster.  Siegel was sitting inside the Beverly Hills mansion he shared with Hollywood star Virginia Hill, when multiple shots were fired from outside, five of them hitting Siegel.

1948 Columbia Records began the first mass production of the 33 1/3  RPM LP.

1949 Australian Communist Party chairman Lance Sharkey was convicted of breaking the Commonwealth Crimes Act by uttering seditious words ("if Soviet Forces in pursuit of aggressors entered Australia, Australian workers would welcome them").

1953 Baton Rouge, Louisiana, USA, bus boycott: "Free Ride System goes into effect. First mass meeting was held at Mt. Zion Baptist Church. Crosses were burned at the Mt. Zion Baptist Church and at Reverend Jemison's home."   Source

1960 Independence of Mali and Senegal.

1963 A 'hotline' was established between the Soviet Union and the United States of America.

1966 Canada sold 336 million bushels of wheat to Soviet Union.

1966 The Rolling Stones preparing for a tour in the US, sued 14 New York City hotels that wouldn't let them on the premises. The young Sir Michael Jagger and his fellow band members claimed the ban hurt the group's reputation.

1969 Jacques Chaban-Delmas became Prime Minister of France.

1969 Australia's Arbitration Court accepted the principle of equal pay for women.

1970 The Who guitarist Pete Townshend's badly timed use of British slang term, 'bomb' attracted police and FBI attention at Memphis Airport, USA. He was overheard saying "Tommy seems to be going down a bomb," meaning it was a hit, but officials heard the term 'bomb' and reacted.

Wilson's Almanac Book of Days hip list

1973 Juan Peron again became president of Argentina after a ten-year exile.

1977 Oil began to flow through the Trans-Alaska Pipeline System (TAPS).

1979 American TV reporter Bill Stewart was shot and killed while reporting in Nicaragua. He had been walking with a white flag and a press pass.

1983 LZW patent filed in USA.

1988 Australia's $2 coin went into circulation.

1988 Lieutenant General Henri Namphy seized power in a coup in Haiti.

1990 Asteroid Eureka was discovered.

1990 South African ANC leader Nelson Mandela received a ticker-tape welcome in New York.

1990 UK: Public transport authorities announced that London's famous red double-decker buses would be phased out of operation.

1990 Ion Iliescu was sworn in as president of Romania. The US boycotted the inauguration to protest Iliescu's role in the violent repression of political opposition.

1991 German parliament decided to move the capital from Bonn to Berlin.

2001 Pervez Musharraf became president of Pakistan.

2003 LZW patent expired in the USA.

2003 Formation of Wikimedia Foundation was announced.

2005 USA: Terri Schiavo's remains were buried in Clearwater, Florida.

 

Tomorrow: Summer Solstice folklore and customs

 

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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.

Read more about today at Wilson's Blogmanac