June is the sixth month of the year and consists of thirty days. The ancient Romans gave it 29 days until 46 BC, when Julius Caesar added the thirtieth for reasons known only to himself (Caesar's hobbies seem to be conquest of the known world, sleeping with some very rich North African teenager and calendar making.)
(Calendar insiders need to get out more often.)
The month is believed to derive its name from either the Roman goddess Juno, patron goddess of marriage, or the Latin word iuniores, (the young ones).
June marks the transition from spring to summer in the northern hemisphere, and from fall to winter in the southern hemisphere. (It is not a transitional month in other hemispheres.)
June has usually been the most popular month for weddings, but it's commonly overlooked that it's also one of the top twelve months for bathtub drownings and spontaneous combustion.
June is traditionally considered the poet's month because with the warming of the earth and the lengthening light of the fragrant evenings, thoughts inevitably turn to romance as hearts and passions swell. Also, June rhymes with a lot of words. For example: afternoon, aswoon, Autoimmune, baboon, balloon, bassoon, bestrewn, boon, buffoon, cartoon, cocoon, contrabassoon, croon, doubloon, dragoon, dune, entune, excommune, festoon, harpoon, hewn, honeymoon, immune, inopportune, impugn, jejune, lagoon, lampoon, loon, macaroon, maroon, monsoon, moon, noon, pantaloons, picayune, platoon, poltroon, pontoon, prune, raccoon, rune, saloon, soon, spittoon, spermatozoon, strewn, swoon, tune, tycoon, typhoon, untramaroon, and vinegarroon.
June 1, 1966 -
Dick Van Dyke tripped over the ottoman for the last time when CBS aired the last episode of The Dick Van Dyke Show, The Last Chapter on this date.
In the show, Rob writes his autobiography and shows it to everyone. At the end of the show Alan decides to buy the rights to the manuscript and turn it into a TV series with him as the star after he finishes the variety series - which is what Carl Reiner did when he starred in the first unaired pilot for this series.
June 1, 1968 -
The British television series The Prisoner, starring Patrick McGoohan, had its American premiere on CBS-TV, as a summer replacement for a Jackie Gleason series, on this date.
At the end of the run of Secret Agent, there was a party, and some members of Parliament attended. Someone said to McGoohan, "So, what does a secret agent do when he retires?" meaning McGoohan. McGoohan took it literally and asked the question to some Parliament members. "Oh, we take care of them. We give them a house, a car, some pocket money, and that way they don't defect." This inspired McGoohan to create the show.
June 1, 1968 -
The Simon & Garfunkel release Mrs. Robinson hit No. 1 on the Billboard #100 list on this date.
Paul Simon began writing this as Mrs. Roosevelt, and had just the line, Here's to you, Mrs. Roosevelt when he changed it to Mrs. Robinson for The Graduate. Simon did not originally write a full-length version of this song, only the verses that are heard in the movie. After the movie became a hit, he finished the lyrics and recorded the full version that is known today.
June 1, 1980 -
Cable News Network (CNN) made its debut as the first all-news station.
How sad, Darth Vader had to do voice over work to rebuild the death star
June 1, 1984 -
The third feature film of the Star Trek franchise, Star Trek III: The Search for Spock, starring the usually cast of characters on this date.
Production was endangered by the great fire at the Paramount studios in California. William Shatner helped fight the fire and rescue a crew member before firefighter reinforcements arrived. Shatner said that his motivation for doing so was purely to save a day on the shooting schedule, as he had a make a deadline to be available for shooting on a new season of T.J. Hooker.
The Word of the Day
Today in History:
June 1, 1494 -
The first written record of Scotch Whisky appeared in the Exchequer Rolls of Scotland on this date. (The Scots spell it whisky and the Irish spell it whiskey, with an extra 'e'. This difference in the spelling comes from the translations of the word from the Scottish and Irish Gaelic forms. Whiskey with the extra 'e' is also used when referring to American whiskies.)
It is generally agreed that Dalriadan Scots monks brought distillation with them when they came to Caledonia to convert the Picts to Christianity in the fourth and fifth centuries A.D. A Friar John Cor was the distiller of the first known batch.
June 1, 1571 -
The "Triple Tree" gallows was installed at Tyburn, England in time for the execution of John Storey, who was hanged, drawn, and quartered for committing treason.
June 1, 1660 -
After having received a last-minute reprieve seven months earlier, Mary Dyer was hanged for heresy after returning to Boston on this date.
Dyer was guilty of the heinous crime of being a member of the Quakers, a subversive religious sect which had been banned by the Puritan colony under "pain of death" for their religious views of warm breakfast foods.
June 1, 1813 -
The U.S. Navy gained its motto as the mortally wounded commander of the U.S. frigate Chesapeake, Captain James Lawrence was heard to say, "Don't give up the ship!", during a losing battle with a British frigate Shannon; his ship was captured by the British frigate.
James Lawrence died of his wounds on June 4th, while the Chesapeake was being taken to Halifax, Nova Scotia, by her captors. His body was later repatriated to New York for burial.
June 1, 1926 -
Fame will go by and, so long, I've had you, fame. If it goes by, I've always known it was fickle. So at least it's something I experience, but that's not where I live.
Gladys Baker gave birth to Norma Jeane Mortenson in Los Angeles on this date.
Unfortunately, things did not quite work out for little Norma Jean.
June 1, 1938 -
Superman made his first appearance in D.C. Comics' Action Comics Series issue #1. The comic book sold for 10 cents. Jerry Siegel created Superman in 1933 after he dreamed about the Biblical story of Moses, whose parents abandoned him as a baby in order to save his life. This became the plot of the first Superman story.
It has been estimated that there are only 50 to 100 original copies of Action Comics #1 still in existence, and a smaller number of such exceptional quality as to be at the very high end of collectibility. One copy was stolen from actor Nicolas Cage, an avid comic book collector, in 2000. In March 2011, it was found in a storage locker in the San Fernando Valley and was verified by ComicConnect.com to be exactly the same copy that they sold to him previously. Cage had previously received an insurance payment for the item.
June 1, 1954 -
In the Peanuts comic strip, Linus' security blanket made its debut, on this date.
June 1, 1967 -
It was 53 years ago today, The Beatles blew the collective world's mind away. Sgt Pepper's Lonely Hearts Club Band was released in the UK on this date
The album was quite complex to produced and took 129 days and about 700 hours to complete. The Beatles first album, Please Please Me, was recorded in less than 10 hours.
June 1, 1968 -
When one door of happiness closes, another opens; but often we look so long at the closed door that we do not see the one which has been opened for us.
Helen Keller - America's all-time favorite deaf and blind Socialist - died in Westport, Connecticut at the age of 87, on this date.
June 1, 1974 -
The procedure, the Heimlich maneuver (named after Dr. Henry Heimlich) was first mentioned in an article on this date in the journal, Emergency Medicine.
It's a maneuver that has largely replaced the old fashioned back-blows that people used to perform on choking victims.
It's Oscar the Grouch's birthday today.
Remember to leave something nice out in the trash today. (Please note: when Oscar first moved into his trash can he was orange. Then the gangrene set in.)
It's also my sister's birthday
Happy Birthday
Before you go - Huzzah! A new episode of Nebula 75 -
The balm this weary nation needs.
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