- 162nd Day of 2013 / 203 Remaining
- 10 Days Until The First Day of Summer
- Sunrise:5:47
- Sunset:8:32
- 14 Hours 45 Minutes of Daylight
- Moon Rise:8:33am
- Moon Set:10:41pm
- Moon’s Phase: 9 %
- The Next Full Moon
- June 23 @ 4:33am
- Full Strawberry Moon
- Full Rose Moon
The Strawberry Moon was universal to every Algonquin tribe. However, in Europe they called it the Rose Moon. Also because the relatively short season for harvesting strawberries comes each year during the month of June . . . so the full Moon that occurs during that month was christened for the strawberry!
- Tides
- High:12:17am/2:33pm
- Low:7:02am/7:27pm
- Rainfall (measured July 1 – June 30)
- Normal To Date:23.73
- This Year:16.36
- Last Year:15.77
- Annual Seasonal Average:23.80
- Holidays
- National German Chocolate Day
- Corn on the Cob Day
- King Kamehameha I Day-Hawaii
- National Day-Libya
- On This Day In …
- 1509 --- King Henry VIII of England marries Catherine of Aragon, the first of six wives he will have in his lifetime. When Catherine failed to produce a male heir, Henry divorced her against the will of the Roman Catholic Church, thus precipitating the Protestant Reformation in England. Henry went on to have five more wives; two of whom--Anne Boleyn and Catherine Howard--he executed for alleged adultery after he grew tired of them. His only surviving child by Catherine of Aragon, Mary, ascended to the throne upon the death of her half-brother, Edward VI, in 1553. In 1558, Mary was succeeded by her half-sister, Elizabeth, the only surviving child of Henry VIII by Anne Boleyn. She was crowned Queen Elizabeth I.
- 1742 --- Benjamin Franklin invented the Franklin Stove. He purposely did not patent it, so that others could freely copy the design.
- 1770 --- Captain James Cook discovered the Great Barrier Reef off of Australia when he ran aground.
- 1776 --- The Continental Congress selects Thomas Jefferson of Virginia, John Adams of Massachusetts, Benjamin Franklin of Pennsylvania, Roger Sherman of Connecticut and Robert R. Livingston of New York to draft a declaration of independence.
- 1919 --- Sir Barton won the Belmont Stakes in New York to become the first horse to capture the Triple Crown. It was on this day that the Belmont Stakes was first run as part of thoroughbred racing’s most prestigious trio of events. Sir Barton had already won the first two jewels of the Triple Crown -- the Kentucky Derby in Louisville, Kentucky and the Preakness Stakes in Baltimore, Maryland.
- 1925 --- Hank Williams took to the microphone for his Grand Ole Opry debut on June 11, 1949, electrifying a live audience at Ryman Auditorium that called Williams out for six encores and had to be implored not to call him out for more in order to allow the rest of the show to go on. It was the Opry's biggest competition, The Louisiana Hayride, that first exposed Williams to a wide radio audience, but when his 1949 record "Lovesick Blues" became a monumental popular hit, the powers that be in Nashville relented, and Williams made his Opry debut.
- 1939 --- The King George VI and Queen Elizabeth (Elizabeth Bowes-Lyon; later known as the Queen Mother) of Great Britain were in America to visit with President and Mrs. Franklin D. Roosevelt. As is befitting of such a grand event, the King and Queen were fed some of the gourmet foods of the United States. In fact, it was the first time that both the King and Queen had tasted hot dogs.
- 1942 --- The United States and the Soviet Union signed a lend lease agreement to aid the Soviet war effort in World War II.
- 1963 --- President John F. Kennedy issues presidential proclamation 3542, forcing Alabama Governor George Wallace to comply with federal court orders allowing two African-American students to register for the summer session at the University of Alabama in Tuscaloosa. The proclamation ordered Wallace and all persons acting in concert with him to cease and desist from obstructing justice. The battle between Kennedy and Wallace brought to a head the long, post-Civil War struggle between the federal government and recalcitrant southern states over the enforcement of federal desegregation laws. Kennedy, a Catholic, considered racial segregation morally wrong. As of 1963, Alabama was the only state that had not integrated its education system. From the time of his gubernatorial campaign in 1962 until this day in 1963, Wallace had boldly proclaimed that he would personally stand in front of the door of any Alabama schoolhouse that was ordered by the federal courts to admit black students. In response to Wallace's rhetoric, Kennedy sent his brother, Attorney General Robert F. Kennedy, on April 25 to negotiate with Wallace; the talks failed. The Kennedy brothers, having decided that they were dealing with a raving maniac, looked for an indirect solution. JFK appealed to Alabama business leaders and influential politicians to talk sense into Wallace. On May 21 and again on June 5, the U.S. district court ordered Wallace to allow the students to register on June 11. Wallace dug in and refused, hoping to force JFK to call up the National Guard, an act Wallace was sure would infuriate staunch states' rights supporters and paint JFK as a tyrant. Robert Kennedy wanted his brother to go ahead and federalize the Alabama National Guard and arrest Wallace, but the president feared that such an action would play into Wallace's hands. So, the president waited for Wallace to make the first move. On the morning of June 11, the day the students were expected to register, Wallace stood in front of the University of Alabama campus auditorium flanked by Alabama state troopers while cameras flashed and recorders from the press corps whirred. Kennedy, at the White House, and Deputy Attorney General Nicholas Katzenbach, in Tuscaloosa, kept in touch by phone. When Wallace refused to let the students enter for registration, Katzenbach phoned Kennedy. Kennedy upped the pressure on Wallace, immediately issuing Presidential Proclamation 3542, which ordered the governor to comply, and authorizing the secretary of defense to call up the Alabama National Guard with Executive Order 11111. That afternoon, Katzenbach returned with the students and asked Wallace to step aside. Wallace, knowing he was beaten, relented, having saved face with his hard-line, anti-segregation constituency. Three days later, a third black student registered at the University of Alabama campus in Huntsville without interference.
- 1963 --- Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr. was arrested in Florida for trying to integrate restaurants.
- 1963 --- Buddhist monk Quang Duc publicly burns himself to death in a plea for President Ngo Dinh Diem to show "charity and compassion" to all religions. Diem, a Catholic who had been oppressing the Buddhist majority, remained stubborn despite continued Buddhist protests and repeated U.S. requests to liberalize his government's policies. More Buddhist monks immolated themselves during ensuing weeks. Madame Nhu, the president's sister-in-law, referred to the burnings as "barbecues" and offered to supply matches. In November 1963, South Vietnamese military officers assassinated Diem and his brother during a coup.
- 1966 --- Janis Joplin debuted on stage at the Avalon ballroom in San Francisco.
- 1967 --- The Six-Day War between Israel and its Arab neighbors ends with a United Nations-brokered cease-fire. The outnumbered Israel Defense Forces achieved a swift and decisive victory in the brief war, rolling over the Arab coalition that threatened the Jewish state and more than doubling the amount of territory under Israel's control. The greatest fruit of victory lay in seizing the Old City of Jerusalem from Jordan; thousands of Jews wept while bent in prayer at the Second Temple's Western Wall.
- 1972 --- Hank Aaron of the Atlanta Braves tied (with Gil Hodges of the Dodgers) the National League record for the most grand-slam home runs in a career, with 14.
- 1981 --- The first baseball player’s strike in major-league history began during mid-season after Seattle defeated Baltimore 8-2 at the Kingdome in Seattle. For two months, the nation’s favorite pastime was watching negotiations between the players’ union and team owners.
- 1993 --- The U.S. Supreme Court ruled that people who commit "hate crimes" could be sentenced to extra punishment. The court also ruled in favor of religious groups saying that they indeed had a constitutional right to sacrifice animals during worship services.
- 1998 --- Mitsubishi of America agreed to pay $34 million to end the largest sexual harassment case filed by the U.S. government. The federal lawsuit claimed that hundreds of women at a plant in Normal, IL, had endured groping and crude jokes from male workers.
- 2010 --- The FIFA World Cup opened in South Africa, the first time soccer's biggest tournament was held on that continent.
- Birthdays
- Joe Montana
- Bonnie Pointer
- Jacques Cousteau
- Diana Taurasi
- Richard Strauss
- Rep. Jeannette Rankin
- Vince Lombardi
- Gene Wilder
- Hugh Laurie
- Sen Charles Rangel
- Jackie Stewart
- Frank Beard
- Dame Millicent Fawcett
- Yasunari Kawabata
- Shelly Manne
- Adrienne Barbeau
- Henry Hill