♉︎ ⍺

First observed by sky-watchers in China on this day in 1054 (such temporary spectres were called generically “guest stars” 客星) and visible, easily to amateur astronomers to this day as the stellar remnant known as the Crab Nebula Supernova (SN) 1054 is perhaps one of the best known examples, though it’s nature and origin were unknown until very recently. Anticipating the return of Halley’s Comet in 1758 (see also), Charles Messier confused the static plerion for the returning traveller and was motivated by his mistake to create a catalogue of the celestial sphere, with the Crab Nebula labeled as the first Messier object, M1.

dies caniculares

A calque, a near word-for-word translation of “the puppy days”—from today through mid-month in the northern hemisphere mark the beginning of the hottest, sultriest period in the summer and a time for extreme heat, drought, sudden thunderstorms as well as the maladies of lethargy, mad dogs and poor luck and is heralded by the annual reappearance of the brightest star in the night sky α Canis Majoris, called Sirius, “the Scorcher” in the Greek tradition and Sopdet in Egypt and venerated as the precursor to the flooding of the Nile. Lasting through mid-August, the waning of this oppressive, uncomfortable time of high summer is marked by the Feast of Roch, patron saint of dogs.

ꦉ

Co-founded by Stephen Hawking, Queen guitarist and astrophysicist Brian May and other former astronauts and technologists with the sanction of the United Nations, International Asteroid Day is an annual observance meant to promote awareness about the minor planets of the inner Solar System and the threats that these near-Earth objects can pose for cataclysm and ways to mitigate the vulnerability through close monitoring. 30 June was chosen as the date as it marks the anniversary of the 1908 Tunguska Event in the Eastern Siberia Taiga, an estimated twelve megaton explosion that flattened two thousand square kilometers of forest caused by the air burst of a meteoroid, devastating for local wildlife but spared greater catastrophe by dint of the region being sparsely populated by humans.

days of the international

Adopted and in use since February of 1918, the era of the Soviet calendar came to an end on this day in 1940 for the USSR, with 27 June again synchronised with its Gregorian counterpart, having dropped the first half of the above month from the Julian system to align with the Western year. After experiments with continuous production weeks—the three hundred sixty days with five national holidays maps to a grid quite well (see also), a six-day week with one day of rest and ultimately an alternating five-, six-day per week schedule, though this was erroneous interpreted by outside media as a perpetual calendar—like the French Revolutionary one—though there were concessions to the sabbath and retained the traditional monthsand Western style dates were almost always included parenthetically.

texas v johnson

The landmark decision announced on this day in 1989, a split US Supreme Court invalidated prohibitions against the desecration of the American flag, which at the time of issuance were on the books of forty eight of fifty state jurisdictions, ruling first that the category of protected speech as defined by the US constitution as amended extends to symbolic acts and that counter arguments against the plaintiff’s right of expression of a compelling interest to protect a venerated symbol and to prevent a “breach of peace” that allowing the above might incite failed to reach the threshold for its continued abridgment. The defendant, activist Gregory “Joey” Johnson, then an associate of the Revolutionary Communist Youth Brigade, had engaged in a political demonstration during the 1984 Republican National Convention, held in Dallas, which re-nominated the Reagan administration, culminating in dousing a flag in kerosene and burning it, chanting “America, the red, white and blue—we spit on you! You stand for plunder, you will go under!” The protest was peaceful but some spectators were profoundly offended by the act, prompting one onlooker to collect the ashes and inter them in their backyard. Johnson’s conviction was initial not upheld by the state judges under the same logic and appeals elevated the matter to the high court, represented by civil rights attorney William Kunstler. There have been numerous attempts by congress to subvert the ruling by introducing an amendment to the constitution excluding the national flag from first amendment protections, which have been generally introduced around the anniversary of this ruling and have all failed to pass the senate. On 20 June 2016 while protesting the RNC in Cleveland, Johnson was arrested after burning a US flag on unclear charges, with the state of Ohio paying him nearly a quarter of a million dollars in restitution three years later, admitting his arrest was unwarranted and a violation of his free speech

glastonbury fayre

The free four-day concert hosted in Pilton—the second Glastonbury festival, opened on this day in 1971 with the venue of a special Pyramid Stage, a one-tenth scale model of the one at Giza constructed of sheet metal and positioned over a water source discovered with dousing and was documented by filmmakers Nicolas Roeg and David Puttnam—released the following May. Performances included numbers by Melanie, David Bowie, Traffic, Fairport Convention, Tonto’s Expanding Head Band, Mighty Baby and Hawkwind.

lift every voice and sing

On the anniversary of the 1862 prohibition of chattel slavery in the unincorporated territories of the United States—a compromise and even-split that in another form continues to this day—and more than two years after president Abraham Lincoln issued the Emancipation Proclamation on New Year’s Day 1863, freeing the enslaved individuals in all the secessionists states of the Confederacy, Union Major General Gordon Granger arrived on the island of Galveston on this day in 1865 to take command of two thousand federal troops deployed to enforce manumission and oversee reconstruction efforts, delivering General Order Three:

The people of Texas are informed that, in accordance with a proclamation from the Executive of the United States, all slaves are free. This involves an absolute equality of personal rights and rights of property between former masters and slaves, and the connection heretofore existing between them becomes that between employer and hired labour.

Though freedom did not come uniformly to the South and borderlands, along with the rest of the country, and there is much work to be done yet to achieve social justice and harmony, Juneteenth marks a pivotal moment in the history of the struggle for recognition and equality. Though officially commemorated in some jurisdictions, with the status of a state holiday, since 1980, it was not until 2021 it became a national wide observance as a second and consequential independence day.

8x8

crisis on terra prime: US president Biden invokes emergency powers to boost solar energy production

midsommar: ten ways to celebrate the June Solstice—via Strange Company  

madagascator projection: another look at mapping and bias—see previously  

unai no tomo: an early twentieth century catalogue of Japanese toys  

imago and eclosion: good pictures of a newly emerged swallowtail  

controlled burn: astronauts have lit thousands of little fires in microgravity to understand its strange behaviour  

you spin right round, baby, right round: the only way to play Weezer’s new singles is to become one’s own turn table—via Waxy  

perovskites: research into making cheap but brittle photovoltaic technology sturdier to rival modern solar cells

yes i said yes i will yes

On this annual commemoration and celebration of Irish author James Joyce by reliving the events that took place in the novel set in Dublin on this day in 1904 as related in his 1922 novel Ulysses, friend of the blog Nag on the Lake directs our attention to the fiftieth anniversary celebration of Bloomsday reenacted by local writers, academics and a dentist cousin of Joyce, whose pilgrimage stalls at Eccles Street—where Leopold Bloom resided after too much libation. Ulysses is a stream-of-consciousness accounting of the author’s alter-ego (the Odyssey writ-small) concluding (had the re-enactors got that far) with the first sex-positive romantic assignation from the title between the character and his wife to be, Molly Bloom (a.k.a, Nora Barnacle), whom never cared for this book.

myoclonic contraction

Whilst attempting to restrain a hog to weigh it before slaughter, one Charles Osbourne (*1894 - †1991) of Anthon, Iowa caught a case of the hiccups on this day in 1922 which lasted for sixty-eight years, forty a minute and eventually relenting to around twenty over the decades for an estimated four hundred and thirty million of them, theorised as a result of an aneurism caused by the exertion that damaged the part of the brain that normally inhibits the response. Adopting a breathing technique that made the constant ordeal more bearable and a manner of speaking that swallowed the hic sound, Osbourne became a minor celebrity, appearing on the Tonight Show with Johnny Carson and That’s Incredible and inscribed in the Guinness Book of World Records. This chronic, intractable attack ended abruptly a merciful eleven months prior to Osbourne’s death.

draisine

Again begging the question why it took all of human history and endeavour up until this point to invent something so useful and practical and democratising as the bicycle—see previously—it was this fine day in 1817 that Karl von Drais took his Dandy Horse (Laufmaschine) out for a long and leisurely test-drive from his home in Mannheim to the Relaishaus (ironically a relief, relay station for coach-drivers to refresh their horses) in Schwetzingen, a half a day’s journey on foot reduced to one hour, speedily executed at the respectable pace of thirteen to fifteen km/h without exertion.

bergpark wilhelmshöhe

H and I had visited the sprawling landscaped park outside of Kassel some time ago but neglected to blog about it here, so we were happy to have the occasion to revisit and share impressions of the Baroque giardino all’italiana built for Landgraf Karl I von Hessen beginning in 1696 on the anniversary of the presentation of the water elements (Wasserspiele) by Giovanni Francisco Guerniero in 1714, switching on the cascades and waterfalls for the first time. The landgrave had met the architect in Rome whilst on a Grand Tour and engaged him to realise his grand plans for the largest garden on the continent, and though making a solid first impression which delighted his patron, Guerniero fled back to Italy once it became clear that planning errors and cost-overruns meant that the project could not be finished. Atop a pyramid, atop on octagon, is a copper statue of Hercules, surveying the watercourse. Successive occupants of the palace expanded and contributed to the character of the park over the years, adopting new styles and eventually veering away from the French formal style to more of an English garden and it was finally completed after a century and a half of construction. Open to the public, it was declared a UNESCO World Heritage Site in 2013.

hrh

On the occasion of the seventieth anniversary of her coronation ceremony in Westminster Abbey, aged twenty-six and already proclaimed as monarch upon the death of her father in February the year prior, and one of the first major televised events in history, we quite enjoyed reviewing these facts and figures about Elizabeth II. As a corollary, we also quite liked this photo album spanning her life from the BBC. Just a sampling of the trivia included (41) That in order to avoid a wardrobe mishap, the hem of the Queen’s skirts are weighted, followed on by (42) that at Balmoral atop a piano, there is a Big Mouth Billy Bass (a novelty animatronic singing fish that held a degree of popularity around the turn of the century), (57) her admirable drinking regimen and (69) how she takes her scones. More from the Guardian at the link above celebrating this jubilee.

the stresa convention

Hosted in the above Italian city on the shores of Lago di Maggiore on this day 1951, the International Treaty on the Use of Appellations of Origin and Denomination of Cheeses (see also) was adopted by the members of the European Community (EC) and went into force two years later—providing a framework for protection of goods manufactured and matured in regions by dent of local, loyal and uninterrupted traditions—plus relief from imitators. The first annex lists Gorgonzola, Parmigiana Romano, Pecorino and Roquefort. The second annex includes Asiago, Camembert, Cambozola, Danablu, Edam, Emmental, Esrom, Gouda, Gruyére and Samsöe.

aqua vitæ

The first known documented mention of a batch of Scotch Whisky occurred on this day in 1495 as a Latin ledger entry in the Exchequer Rolls of Scotland (Rotuli scaccarii regum scotorum, a collection of records from the twelfth to the eighteenth century of accounts, receipts and vouchers of the office of the comptroller) with Brother John Cor, a friar of the Court of James IV and likely apothecary, directed to make the libation from eight bolls of malt—about five hundred kilograms and enough to distill some four hundred bottles, a multitude of drams. The Latin for ‘water of life’ translates as uisage beatha in Scots Gaelic and over the centuries became the word whisky.

let us discard all these things and unite as one people

Dedicated on this day (the then fixed date for the Memorial Day federal holiday, also known as Decoration Day) in 1922 at the western terminus of the National Mall in Washington, DC, the Beaux-Arts neoclassical temple by architect Henry Bacon and featuring colossal marble statue of the United States sixteenth president by Daniel Chester French and executed by the Piccirilli family, the Lincoln Memorial has always been a draw to visitors and since its early days throughout the past century has been a symbolic focus for race relations and social justice in America. Planning begun in 1910 to erect a suitable monument to the individual whose administration and sacrifice helped preserve the union and ended chattel slavery as a government sanctioned institution and many felt that the Doric temple was too ostentatious for an individual of humble character and championed a log cabin shrine though Paris’ proposal ultimately passed. Chief Justice William Howard Taft (who had been appointed president of the memorial’s planning commission during his term as president of the United States), president Warren G Harding and Robert Todd Lincoln, the statesman’s eldest son, officially opened the venue with a delegation of prominent Black politicians of the day, including Mississippi congressional representative Perry Howard, journalist and editor Emmett Jay Scott and real estate businessman Whitefield McKinlay, invited—only to discover that they were cordoned off in a segregated section guarded by a contingent of marines. Its reputation as a sacred and aspirational place has since been established, with one of the first instances being Eleanor Roosevelt offering the venue in 1939 to contralto Marian Anderson when the Daughters of the American Revolution refused her to perform to an integrated audience at Constitution Hall.

episode vi

Released in cinemas in the US on this day in 1983, the date coinciding with the 1977 premiere of the original Star Wars, the epic space opera, which was thought to be the conclusion of the franchise, the saga continues a year after the abduction of Han Solo at the conclusion of The Empire Strikes Back and the Rebel Alliance discover that the Emperor has ordered the construction of a new Death Star, intend on finally exterminating any nonaligned elements. Thirteen days before it was screened in theatres, the novelisation by James Kahn was published—I’m sure with a lot of spoilers. I remember not being very good about keeping the plot twists to myself at the time. Watching the reactions (see also) of first time viewers to revelations about the Skywalker family from the previous instalment is pretty delightful. “So what I told you was true—from a certain point of view.”

matthias the apostle

Formerly venerated on the sixth day before the Calends of March but with the calendar revisions of 1969, the commemoration of the Apostle Matthias, nominated by an assembly of disciples rather than chosen by Jesus himself to replace Judas Iscariot, was translated to this day as to take the celebration out of Lent and closer to the historical date (and as patron-protector against smallpox, coincides with the first inoculation administered by Edward Jenner in 1796 on eight-year-old James Phipps, the son of the family gardener). Though there are scant canonical details regarding his life, tradition places Matthias on the Caspian coast and evangelising to the people of the region that is modern day Georgia. Matthias’ patronage also includes tailors, carpenters, Billings Montana, Gary Indiana, Trier and alcoholics.

orbital resonance

Though the Octave of Easter refers to a specific eight-day celebration in connect to the Paschaltide, our

word week itself (via the German Woche) derives from the same root as octave and that one out-of-cycle unit of time—that is, seemingly the sequence repeated for countless generations not determined by the motion of the Heavens or our perception of them but nonetheless in most Western and Eastern traditions named for the astronomical objects visible to the unaided eye. The ordering does not accord with the classical model of the Cosmos—the “Chaldean order” that describes the apparent overtaking and retrograde motion relative to the Earth—nor hierarchy of the pantheon, however, but rather the seven strings of the Mesopotamian lyre with which the celestial spheres were thought to harmonise: (4) Sunday ☉, (1) Monday ☽, (5) Tuesday ♂ (Mardi in French), (2) Wednesday ☿ (Mercoledì), (6) Thursday ♃ (Donnerstag), (3) Friday ♀ (Venres) and (7) Saturday ♄. Vexed somewhat by the onerous and complicated Roman subdivision of the days and the planetary officer appointed to each hours, the order of the weekdays seemingly recapitulates musical theory and progression through the major scale. More at the links above and in this video adaptation below from Sara de Rose.

dmsmh

Celebrated as Dianetics Day in the Church of Scientology (previously), today marks the 1950 anniversary of the first sales of the foundational book by L Ron Hubbard subtitled The Modern Science of Mental Health. Colloquially and canonically referred to as “Book One,” it outlines the system developed by the author out of personal experience, his understanding of some tenants of Eastern philosophy and the psychoanalytic traditions of Sigmund Freud. Despite outright rejection by the community of medical and mental health professions and most critics who compared the repetitious and immature tautologies to the works of Wilhelm Reich, it was a best-seller and found an audience as well as an attendant religious movement, which number their years relative to its publication—this year being 72 AD—that is, after Dianetics.