Today (June 27)
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June 27 .jpg) Arnold Bennett (1867–1931) was an English author who wrote 34 novels, 7 volumes of short stories and a daily journal of more than a million words. He also wrote or co-wrote 13 plays, wrote articles and stories for more than 100 newspapers and periodicals, worked in and briefly ran the UK's Ministry of Information in the First World War, and wrote for the cinema in the 1920s. He was the most financially successful British author of his day. Because his books appealed to a wide public rather than to literary cliques and élites, and for his adherence to realism, Virginia Woolf and other writers and supporters of the modernist school belittled him, and his fiction became neglected after his death. Studies of his writing since the 1970s have led to a re-evaluation of Bennett's work, and his finest novels, including Anna of the Five Towns (1902), The Old Wives' Tale (1908), Clayhanger (1910) and Riceyman Steps (1923), are now widely recognised as major works. (Full article...)
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 A. E. J. Collins
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Tomorrow (June 28)
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June 28 .jpg) Mandy Rice-Davies "Well he would, wouldn't he?" is an aphorism that is commonly used as a retort to a self-interested denial. It was said by the model Mandy Rice-Davies (pictured) while giving evidence at the 1963 trial of Stephen Ward, who had been accused of living off money paid to Rice-Davies and her friend Christine Keeler for sex: part of the larger Profumo affair. While being cross-examined Rice-Davies was told that Lord Astor, who owned the Cliveden estate on which Ward rented a cottage, had denied an affair with her; she replied: "Well he would, wouldn't he?" Political, communications and psychological experts have interpreted it as a phrase which indicates the speaker believes a person is making a self-interested, obvious or irrelevant denial. They have also stated it functions as a retort to mistruths made by public figures. Linguistically, it has been noted for its use of the modal verb would to create rhetorical effect. The phrase has been included in The Oxford Dictionary of Quotations since 1979. (Full article...)
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 Gavrilo Princip
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June 28  Anthony Davis The 2012 NBA draft was held on June 28, 2012, at Prudential Center in Newark, New Jersey, and broadcast in the United States on ESPN. The New Orleans Hornets won the National Basketball Association (NBA) draft lottery on May 30. For the first time in draft history, the first two players selected were from the same school: Anthony Davis (pictured) and Michael Kidd-Gilchrist were teammates at Kentucky. The 2012 draft also set a record of six players being selected from one school (Kentucky), and was the first draft in which the first three selections were all college freshmen from the same conference (the Southeastern Conference). Bernard James was the oldest player ever drafted, being 27 years old at the time of the draft. Four of the players selected never played in an NBA game. The 2012 draft class went on to have six players who participated in an All-Star Game, seven players who combined for ten championships, as well as having Anthony Davis and Damian Lillard both named to the NBA 75th Anniversary Team in 2021. (Full list...) | |||
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In two days (June 29)
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June 29  Researchers celebrating the naming of nihonium Nihonium is a synthetic chemical element with symbol Nh and atomic number 113. It is extremely radioactive; its most stable known isotope, nihonium-286, has a half-life of about 10 seconds. In the periodic table, nihonium is a transactinide element at the intersection of period 7 and group 13. Its creation was reported in 2003 by a Russian–American collaboration at the Joint Institute for Nuclear Research in Dubna, Russia, and in 2004 by a team of Japanese scientists at Riken in Wakō, Japan. The discoveries were confirmed by independent teams working in the United States, Germany, Sweden, and China. In 2015 the element was officially recognised by the IUPAC/IUPAP Joint Working Party; naming rights were assigned to Riken, as they were judged to have been first to confirm their discovery. The name, approved in the same year (announcement pictured), derives from a Japanese word for Japan, Nihon. Few details are known about nihonium, as it has only been formed in very small amounts that decay away within seconds. (Full article...)
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June 29: Feast of Saints Peter and Paul (Western Christianity)  Woldegk tornado
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In three days (June 30)
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June 30 OneShot is a puzzle-adventure game developed by indie studio Future Cat and published by Degica. Based on a free version released online on June 30, 2014, it was released for Windows on December 8, 2016. A console adaptation, OneShot: World Machine Edition, was released for Nintendo Switch, PlayStation 4, and Xbox One on September 22, 2022. OneShot's gameplay and plot break the fourth wall and involve metafictional elements. Many puzzles involve interacting with the computer's operating system outside of the game. Narratively, the player is separate from the protagonist, Niko. The latter arrives in a world without sunlight and aims to restore it by replacing its sun, a lightbulb, at the top of a tower. OneShot was developed in RPG Maker XP. The game received positive reviews from critics, who praised the story, art, and metafictional aspects of gameplay, including the relationship between the player and Niko. In 2017, the game was nominated for the PC Game of the Year category at the Golden Joystick Awards. (Full article...)
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.jpg) Tower Bridge in 2009
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In four days (July 1)
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July 1 .svg) The Flag of Canada is a red flag with a white square in its centre, featuring a stylized 11-pointed red maple leaf. It has become the predominant and most recognizable national symbol of Canada. It was adopted in 1965 to replace the Union Flag for most official purposes, although the Canadian Red Ensign had also been unofficially used since the 1860s and approved by a 1945 Order in Council. In 1964, Prime Minister Lester B. Pearson appointed a committee to discuss these issues, sparking a serious debate about a flag change. Out of three choices, the maple leaf design by George Stanley, based on the flag of the Royal Military College of Canada, was chosen. It made its first appearance on February 15, 1965, a date now celebrated annually as National Flag of Canada Day. Other flags, usually containing the maple leaf motif in some fashion, have been created for use by Canadian officials, government bodies, and military forces. (Full article...)
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July 1: Eid al-Mubahalah (Shia Islam, 2024); Canada Day (1867); Republic Day in Ghana (1960); Independence Day in Rwanda (1962)  The first brown 10-centime stamp of Belgium
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July 1 .jpg) Robert Downey Jr. was the first lead actor in the Infinity Saga. The Marvel Cinematic Universe's "Infinity Saga" is part of a media franchise and shared fictional universe that is the setting of the first 23 superhero films produced by Marvel Studios, based on characters that appear in Marvel Comics publications. As the Saga is composed of films adapted from a variety of Marvel Comics properties, there are many actors, including Samuel L. Jackson who portrayed Nick Fury, as well as Robert Downey Jr. (pictured), Chris Evans, Chris Hemsworth, Mark Ruffalo, Jeremy Renner, and Scarlett Johansson, who played the original six members of the Avengers. Other actors who were leads in various films in the Saga include Chris Pratt, Paul Rudd, Evangeline Lilly, Benedict Cumberbatch, Tom Holland, Chadwick Boseman, and Brie Larson, while Josh Brolin played Thanos, who was the overarching villain of the Saga. (Full list...)
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In five days (July 2)
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July 2  Portrait of Thomas Cranmer in 1545 Thomas Cranmer (2 July 1489 – 21 March 1556) was a leader of the English Reformation and an Archbishop of Canterbury. He helped build the case for the annulment of Henry VIII's marriage to Catherine of Aragon, which contributed to the separation of the English Church from the Holy See. He established the first doctrinal and liturgical structures of the Church of England and published the Exhortation and Litany. When Edward VI was king, Cranmer published the Book of Common Prayer, changed doctrine or discipline in several areas, and promulgated the new doctrines through the Homilies. Upon the accession of Mary I, Cranmer was put on trial for treason and heresy. While imprisoned he made recantations and reconciled himself with the Catholic Church. Mary pushed for his execution, and he was burned at the stake after withdrawing his recantations. Cranmer's death was immortalised in Foxe's Book of Martyrs and his legacy continues through the Book of Common Prayer and the Thirty-Nine Articles. (Full article...)
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 James A. Garfield
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In six days (July 3)
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July 3  The Goldeneye estate, where the book was written On Her Majesty's Secret Service is the tenth novel and eleventh book in Ian Fleming's James Bond series. First published in 1963, the novel centres on Bond's search to find Ernst Stavro Blofeld after the events depicted in Thunderball (1961). Bond falls in love with Tracy di Vicenzo during the story. The pair marry, but hours afterwards, Blofeld and his partner, Irma Bunt, attack them, killing Tracy. Fleming developed Bond's character within the book, showing an emotional side that was not previously present. The novel is one of three Bond stories to deal with the disruption of markets and the economy, in this case Blofeld's planned disruption to the food supply by bioterrorism. The novel received broadly positive reviews. In 1969 it was adapted as the sixth film in the Eon Productions James Bond film series and was the only film to star George Lazenby as Bond. (This article is part of a featured topic: Ian Fleming's James Bond novels and short stories.)
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.jpg) Battle of Gettysburg
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In seven days (July 4)
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July 4  The Statue of Liberty (Liberty Enlightening the World) is a colossal neoclassical sculpture on Liberty Island in New York Harbor, within New York City. The copper statue, an 1886 gift to the U.S. from the people of France, was designed by French sculptor Frédéric Auguste Bartholdi, and its metal framework was built by Gustave Eiffel. It is a figure of Libertas, the Roman goddess of liberty, holding a torch and a tablet bearing the date of the U.S. Declaration of Independence. A broken chain and shackle lie at her feet as she walks forward, commemorating the national abolition of slavery following the American Civil War. After its dedication the statue became an icon of freedom and of the United States, and it was later seen as a symbol of welcome to immigrants arriving by sea. Its completion was marked by New York's first ticker-tape parade and a dedication ceremony presided over by President Grover Cleveland. (Full article...)
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July 4: Republic Day in the Philippines (1946); Independence Day in the United States (1776)  The Brazilian cruiser Bahia
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