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Almanac - Friday 6/15/18

"You say potato, I spell potatoe..." (see 1992 below)

Today is Friday, June 15, 2018, the 166th day of the year with 199 days remaining.

  • Sunrise: 5:47am  
  • Sunset: 8:34pm

...giving us 14 hours and 46 minutes of daylight.  1% of the now waxing moon will be visible, rising at 7:53am.
Tides at the Golden Gate

  • High: 12:35am/2:45pm
  • Low: 7:24am/7:19pm

Special international celebrations today…

  • Day of National Salvation - Azerbaijan
  • Valdemars Day / National Flag Day - Denmark
  • Eid-Al-Fitr - marking the end of Ramadan, the month of fasting, and the start of a three day celebration for Muslims
  • Global Wind Day
  • Magna Carta Day
  • World Elder Abuse Awareness Day
  • Worldwide Day of Giving

It’s also…

  • Native American Citizenship Day
  • Nature Photography Day
  • National Flip Flop Day
  • Prune Day
  • Work@Home Father's Day (Friday Before Father's Day)
  • National Lobster Day
  • Potatoe Day (see 1992 below)
  • Feast of Saint Germaine Cousin, patron of shepherdesses.

On this day in…

1215 - King John of England put his seal on the Magna Carta.

1381 - The English peasant revolt was crushed in London.

1389 - Ottoman Turks crushed Serbia in the Battle of Kosovo.

1607 - Colonists in North America completed James Fort in Jamestown, VA.

1667 - Jean-Baptiste Denys administered the first fully-documented human blood transfusion. He successfully transfused the blood of a sheep to a 15-year old boy.

1752 - Benjamin Franklin experimented by flying a kite during a thunderstorm. The result was a little spark that showed the relationship between lightning and electricity.

1775 -George Washington was appointed head of the Continental Army by the Second Continental Congress.

1836 - Arkansas became the 25th U.S. state.

1844 - Charles Goodyear was granted a patent for the process that strengthens rubber.

1846 - The United States and Britain settled a boundary dispute concerning the boundary between the U.S. and Canada, by signing a treaty.

1864 - An order to establish a military burial ground was signed by Secretary of War Edwin M. Stanton. The location later became known as Arlington National Cemetery.

1866 - Prussia attacked Austria.

1877 - Henry O. Flipper became the first African American to graduate from the U.S. Military Academy at West Point.

1898 - The U.S. House of representatives approved the annexation of Hawaii.

1909 - Benjamin Shibe patented the cork center baseball.

1911 - The Computing-Tabulating-Recording Co. was incorporated in the state of New York. The company was later renamed International Business Machines (IBM) Corp.

1916 -U.S. President Woodrow Wilson signed a bill incorporating the Boy Scouts of America.

1917 - Great Britain pledged the release of all the Irish captured during the Easter Rebellion of 1916.

1919 - Captain John Alcock and Lt. Arthur W. Brown won $50,000 for successfully completing the first, non-stop trans-Atlantic plane flight.

1938 - Johnny Vandemeer (Cincinnati Reds) pitched his second straight no-hitter.

1940 - The French fortress of Verdun was captured by Germans.

1944 - American forces began their successful invasion of Saipan during World War II.

1947 - The All-Indian Congress accepted a British plan for the partition of India.

1948 - Soviet authorities announced that the Autobahn would be closed indefinitely "for repairs."

1958 - Greece severed military ties to Turkey because of the Cypress issue.

1964 - The last French troops left Algeria.

1978 - King Hussein of Jordan married 26-year-old American Lisa Halaby, who became Queen Noor.

1981 - The U.S. agreed to provide Pakistan with $3 billion in military and economic aid from October 1982 to October 1987.

1982 - In the capital city of Stanley, the Falklands war ended as Argentine troops surrendered to the British.

1983 - The U.S. Supreme Court reinforced its position on abortion by striking down state and local restriction on abortions.

1986 - Pravda, the Communist Party newspaper, reported that the chief engineer of the Chernobyl nuclear plant was dismissed for mishandling the incident at the plant.

1992 - It was ruled by the U.S. Supreme Court that the government could kidnap criminal suspects from foreign countries for prosecution.

1992 - U.S. Vice President Dan Quayle instructed a student to spell "potato" with an "e" on the end during a spelling bee. He had relied on a faulty flash card that had been written by the student's teacher.

1994 - Israel and the Vatican established full diplomatic relations.

1999 - South Korean naval forces sank a North Korean torpedo boat during an exchange in the disputed Yellow Sea.

Today’s birthday celebrants include (or included)...

  • Edward the Black 1330 - Prince of Wales
  • Franz Danzi 1763 - Composer
  • Edvard Grieg 1864 - Composer
  • Robert Russell Bennett 1894 - Composer
  • Otto Luening 1900 - Composer
  • Erik H. Erickson 1902 - Psychologist and psychoanalyst
  • David Rose 1910
  • Erroll Garner 1921
  • Mario Cuomo 1932
  • Waylon Jennings 1937
  • Harry Nilsson 1941
  • Janet Lennon 1946 - Singer (The Lennon Sisters)
  • Jim Varney 1949
  • Simon Callow 1949
  • Russell Hitchcock 1949 - Musician (Air Supply)
  • Steve Walsh 1951 - Musician (Kansas)
  • Terri Gibbs 1954
  • Jim Belushi 1954
  • Julie Hagerty 1955
  • Brett Butler 1957 - Baseball player
  • Wade Boggs 1958
  • Helen Hunt 1963
  • Scott Rockenfield 1963 - Musician (Queensryche)
  • Courteney Cox 1964 - Actress ("Friends")
  • Michael Britt 1966 - Musician (Lonestar)
  • Jimmy McD 1968
  • Ice Cube 1969 - Rapper
  • Leah Remini 1970
  • T-Bone Willy 1972 - Musician (Save Farris)
  • Neil Patrick Harris 1973
  • Elizabeth Reasor 1975 - Actress ("The Family Stone", "Twilight")
  • Billy Martin 1981 - Musician (Good Charlotte)

 

David Latulippe is host of On the Arts, KALW's weekly radio magazine of the performing arts, as well as for Explorations in Music, and the Berkeley Symphony broadcasts. He has also hosted and produced the radio series From the Conservatory, Music from Mills, and Music at Menlo, and is principal guest host for Revolutions Per Minute.