On This Day (June 30)

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• 1864 – U.S. National Parks: U.S. President Abraham Lincoln granted Yosemite Valley and the Mariposa Grove of Giant Sequoias to California for "public use, resort, and recreation".
• 1894 – London's Tower Bridge, a combined bascule and suspension bridge, opened.
• 1905 – Albert Einstein (pictured) published the article "On the Electrodynamics of Moving Bodies" and introduced the theory of special relativity.
  
  
  Albert Einstein
  
  
• 1908 – The Tunguska impact event occurred in Siberia, felling an estimated 80 million trees.
• 1953 - The first Chevrolet Corvette rolls off the assembly line in Flint, Michigan.
• 1971 – The Soyuz 11 spacecraft depressurised during reentry, killing cosmonauts Vladislav Volkov, Georgiy Dobrovolskiy and Viktor Patsayev.
• 1987 - The Royal Canadian Mint introduces the $1 coin, known as the Loonie.
• 1993 - George "Spanky" McFarland, American actor died. (b. 1928) (McFarland was an American actor most famous for his appearances in the Our Gang series of short-subject comedies of the 1930s and 1940s. The Our Gang shorts were later popular after being syndicated to television as The Little Rascals.)
  
  
  McFarland (left) as "Spanky" in Our Gang Follies of 1938 with fellow Our Gang cast members Carl "Alfalfa" Switzer and Darla Hood (I always had a thing for Darla).

Picture of the Day



The "Double O Arch", a natural sandstone arch in Arches National Park in Utah, United States. This is one of over 2,000 natural arches found in the park and is so named because there are two arches that form circular holes: The easily visible large one, and the smaller hole underneath it.


On This Day (June 29)

• 1184 – Sverre was crowned King of Norway.
• 1613 – The original Globe Theatre in London burned to the ground after a cannon employed for special effects misfired during a performance of Henry VIII and ignited the theatre's roof.
• 1874 – Greek politician Charilaos Trikoupis published a manifesto in the Athens daily Kairoi entitled "Who's to blame?", laying out his complaints against King George.
• 1888 - First (known) recording of classical music made, Handel's Israel in Egypt on wax cylinder.
• 1922 – France granted 1 km² (100 hectares) at Vimy Ridge (pictured) to Canada in perpetuity in recognition of Canada's efforts during the Battle of Vimy Ridge in World War I.
  
  
  Vimy Ridge Memorial
  
  
• 1933 - Roscoe "Fatty" Arbuckle, American actor died. (b. 1887) (Arbuckle was an American silent film comedian, director, and screenwriter. Arbuckle is noted as one of the most popular actors of his era, but he is best remembered for a heavily publicized criminal prosecution that ended his career. Although he was acquitted by a jury with a written apology, the trial's scandal ruined the actor, who would not appear on screen again for another 10 years.)
• 1956 - The Federal-Aid Highway Act of 1956 is signed, officially creating the United States Interstate Highway System.
• 1995 – The Sampoong Department Store collapsed in the Seocho-gu district of Seoul, South Korea, killing 501 and injuring 937.
• 2006 – The U.S. Supreme Court delivered its decision in Hamdan v. Rumsfeld, ruling that military commissions set up by the Bush administration to try detainees at Guantanamo Bay violated both U.S. and international law.

Picture of the Day



A racist political campaign poster from the 1866 Pennsylvania gubernatorial election. The poster specifically characterizes Democratic candidate Hiester Clymer's white supremacist platform as "for the White Man," represented here by the idealized head of a young man. In contrast a stereotyped black head represents Clymer's opponent John W. Geary's platform, "for the Negro."

On This Day (June 28)

• 1577 - Peter Paul Rubens, Flemish painter born. (d. 1640)
  
  
  "Rubens and Isabella Brant in the Honeysuckle Bower", 1609-10.
  
  
• 1831 - Joseph Joachim, Austrian violinist born. (d. 1907) (Joachim was a Hungarian violinist, conductor, composer and teacher. He is regarded as one of the most influential violinists of all time.)
• 1841 – Giselle, a ballet by French composer Adolphe Adam, was first preformed at the Théâtre de l'Académie Royale de Musique in Paris.
• 1880 – Police captured Australian bank robber and bushranger Ned Kelly (pictured) after a gun battle in Glenrowan, Victoria.
  
  
  Ned Kelly, the day before he was executed
  
  
• 1914 – Yugoslav nationalist Gavrilo Princip assassinated Archduke Franz Ferdinand of Austria during a motorcade in Sarajevo, sparking the outbreak of World War I.
• 1919 - The Treaty of Versailles is signed in Paris, formally ending World War I between Britain, France, Italy, the United States and allies on the one side and Germany and Austria Hungary on the other side.
• 1956 – Workers demanding better conditions held massive protests in Poznań, Poland, but were violently repressed by the following day by 400 tanks and 10,000 soldiers of Ludowe Wojsko Polskie and Korpus Bezpieczeństwa Wewnętrznego.
• 1969 – In response to a police raid at the Stonewall Inn in New York City, groups of gay and transgender people began to riot against New York City Police officers, a watershed event for the worldwide gay rights movement.

Picture of the Day



Buffalo Soldiers of the United States Army's 25th Infantry, some wearing buffalo robes, Fort Keogh, Montana, 1890. Although the origin of the name is uncertain, the term "Buffalo Soldiers" became a generic term for all African American soldiers. It is now used for U.S. Army units that trace their direct lineage back to the 9th and 10th Cavalry.