Happy Bloomsday! James Joyce's (pictured) epic "Ulysses" - a day in the life of Dubliner Leopold Bloom - is set on this day: June 16, 1904. Traditionally, public readings of the entire novel are arranged today all over the world.
Today is Tuesday, June 16, 2020, the 176th day of the year, with 198 days remaining. 4 days till summer, and only 140 days until presidential elections (if civilization survives).
- Sunrise: 5:47am
- Sunset: 8:34pm ...giving us 14 hours and 46 minutes of daylight. 27% of the waning moon will be visible, rising at 3:05am.
Tides at the Golden Gate
- High: 9:48am/9:14pm
- Low: 3:29am/2:41pm
Special celebrations & commemorations today…
- Chhelum - Pakistan
- Youth Day - South Africa
- International Day of the African Child
- Blooms Day - Ireland
- Fudge Day
- Fresh Veggies Day
- Feast of St. Benno, patron of anglers, fishermen
On this day in…
0455 - Rome was sacked by the Vandal army.
1487 - The War of the Roses ended with the Battle of Stoke.
1567 - Mary, Queen of Scots, was imprisoned in Lochleven Castle in Scotland.
1815 - Napoleon defeated the Prussians at the Battle of Ligny, Netherlands.
1858 - In a speech in Springfield, IL, U.S. Senate candidate Abraham Lincoln said the slavery issue had to be resolved. He declared, "A house divided against itself cannot stand."
1884 - At Coney Island, in Brooklyn, NY, the first roller coaster in America opened.
1890 - The second Madison Square Garden opened.
1897 - The U.S. government signed a treaty of annexation with Hawaii.
1903 - Ford Motor Company was incorporated.
1904 - The novel "Ulysses" by James Joyce took place. The main character of the book was Leopold Bloom.
1907 - The Russian czar dissolved the Duma in St. Petersburg.
1922 - Henry Berliner accomplished the first helicopter flight at College Park, MD.
1941 - U.S. President Franklin D. Roosevelt ordered the closure of all German consulates in the United States. The deadline was set as July 10.
1952 - "Anne Frank: Diary of a Young Girl" was published in the United States.
1955 - The U.S. House of Representatives voted to extend Selective Service until 1959.
1955 - Pope Pius XII excommunicated Argentine President Juan Peron. The ban was lifted eight years later.
1955 - Argentine naval officers launched an attack on President Juan Peron's headquarters. The revolt was suppressed by the army.
1961 - Rudolf Nureyev defected from the Soviet Union while in Paris, traveling with the Leningrad Kirov Ballet.
1963 - 26-year-old Valentina Tereshkova went into orbit aboard the Vostok 6 spacecraft for three days. She was the first female space traveler.
1972 - Ulrike Meinhof was captured by West German police in Hanover. She was co-founder of the Baader-Meinhof terrorist group and the Red Army Faction (Rote Armee Fraktion).
1975 - The Simonstown agreement on naval cooperation between Britain and South Africa ended. The agreement was formally ended by mutual agreement after 169 years.
1976 - In Soweto, thousands of school children revolted against the South African government's plan to enforce Afrikaans as the language for instruction in black schools.
1977 - Leonid Brezhnev was named the first Soviet president of the USSR. He was the first person to hold the post of president and Communist Party General Secretary. He replaced Nikolai Podgorny.
1978 - U.S. President Carter and Panamanian leader Omar Torrijos ratified the Panama Canal treaties.
1981 - The "Chicago Tribune" purchased the Chicago Cubs baseball team from the P.K. Wrigley Chewing Gum Company for $20.5 million.
1983 - Yuri Andropov was elected chairman of the Presidium of the Supreme Soviet. The position was the equivalent of president.
1992 - U.S. President George H.W. Bush welcomed Russian President Boris Yeltsin to a meeting in Washington, DC. The two agreed in principle to reduce strategic weapon arsenals by about two-thirds by the year 2003.
1993 - The U.S. Postal Service released a set of seven stamps that featured Bill Haley, Buddy Holly, Clyde McPhatter, Otis Redding, Ritchie Valens, Dinah Washington and Elvis Presley.
1996 - Russian voters had their first independent presidential election. Boris Yeltsin was the winner after a run-off.
1999 - The U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals said that a 1992 federal music piracy law does not prohibit a palm-sized device that can download high-quality digital music files from the Internet and play them at home.
2000 - U.S. federal regulators approved the merger of Bell Atlantic and GTE Corp. The merger created the nation's largest local phone company.
2000 - U.S. Secretary of Energy Bill Richardson reported that an employee at the Los Alamos National Laboratory in New Mexico had discovered that two computer hard drives were missing.
2008 - California began issuing marriage licenses to same-sex couples.
2017 - Amazon announced plans to buy Whole Foods for $13.7 billion.
If today’s your birthday, you share it with…
- Stan Laurel 1890
- Jack Albertson 1910
- Katherine Graham 1917
- Erich Segal 1937
- Joyce Carol Oates 1938 - Author
- Laurie Metcalf 1955 - Actress
- Phil Mickelson 1970 - Golfer
- Tupac Shakur 1971 - Rapper
