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Today (June 19)
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June 19 History is the systematic study of the past with its main focus on the human past. Historians analyse and interpret primary and secondary sources to construct narratives about what happened and explain why it happened. They engage in source criticism to assess the authenticity, content, and reliability of these sources. It is controversial whether the resulting historical narratives can be truly objective and whether history is a social science rather than a discipline of the humanities. Influential schools of thought include positivism, the Annales school, Marxism, and postmodernism. Some branches of history focus on specific time periods, such as ancient history, particular geographic regions, such as the history of Africa, or distinct themes, such as political, social, and economic history. History emerged as a field of inquiry in antiquity to replace myth-infused narratives, with influential early traditions originating in Greece, China, and later in the Islamic world. (Full article...)
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June 19: Juneteenth in the United States (1865)
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June 19
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Tomorrow (June 20)
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June 20 ![]() Paperback cover of Jaws Jaws is an American thriller film that was released on June 20, 1975, directed by Steven Spielberg, and based on Peter Benchley's 1974 novel Jaws (paperback cover shown; for the film poster, see today's Picture of the Day). It stars Roy Scheider as police chief Martin Brody, who, with the help of a marine biologist (Richard Dreyfuss) and a professional shark hunter (Robert Shaw), hunts a man-eating great white shark that has attacked beachgoers at his summer resort town. The film was distributed by Universal Pictures to more than 450 screens, a wide release for the time. It was extensively marketed and followed by three sequels. Regarded as a watershed in motion picture history, Jaws was the prototypical summer blockbuster and the highest-grossing film of all time until Star Wars two years later; both films were pivotal in establishing the modern Hollywood business model. Jaws was in 2001 selected by the Library of Congress for preservation in the National Film Registry. (Full article...)
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June 20: World Refugee Day; Eid al-Mubahalah (Shia Islam, 2025)
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June 20 ![]() Boris Johnson's 56th birthday party Events of the UK's Partygate scandal began on 23 March 2020, when, in an effort to limit deaths during the COVID-19 pandemic, Prime Minister Boris Johnson announced new rules prohibiting gatherings of people who were not in the same household. Despite these regulations, regular social gatherings continued to take place in Downing Street and Whitehall, including a surprise party for Johnson's 56th birthday on 19 June (pictured). News articles about these events began to appear in late 2021, with the majority of them published by the journalists Pippa Crerar and Paul Brand. Johnson denied any wrongdoing, and stated that the rules were followed at all times. In January 2022, a criminal investigation into the scandal was launched by the Metropolitan Police. As a result, 126 fixed penalty notices were issued, including one to Johnson for attending his surprise birthday party, making him the first serving prime minister to be found to have broken the law. Johnson subsequently resigned as prime minister on 7 July, and as a member of parliament the following year. (Full list...) | |||
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In two days (June 21)
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June 21 Johann Reinhold Forster (1729–1798) was a German pastor and naturalist. After studying theology at the University of Halle, Forster was hired in 1765 by Russia to inspect its colonies on the Volga; his report was critical and he left for England unpaid. Forster succeeded Joseph Priestley at Warrington Academy, and published a mineralogy textbook and translations of foreign works. After Joseph Banks withdrew from James Cook's second voyage, Forster became the naturalist on Cook's ship. On the journey, they made the first recorded crossing of the Antarctic Circle and observations and discoveries in New Zealand and Polynesia. Amid disputes with Cook over who should publish accounts of the journey, Forster published his scientific Observations Made During a Voyage Round the World. Having alienated many powerful men in England, Forster returned to Germany, becoming a professor at Halle; he died in 1798. He is commemorated in the names of species, including the genera Forstera and Forsterygion. (Full article...)
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June 21: Fête de la Musique; International Day of Yoga; National Indigenous Peoples Day in Canada; Xiazhi in China (2025)
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June 21 The featured picture for this day has not yet been chosen. In general, pictures of the day are scheduled in order of promotion to featured status. See Wikipedia:Picture of the day/Guidelines for full guidelines. |
In three days (June 22)
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June 22 Scott Carpenter (1925–2013) was one of the Mercury Seven astronauts selected for NASA's Project Mercury. In 1962, Carpenter flew the Mercury-Atlas 7 mission to become the second American to orbit Earth and the fourth to fly into space. His spacecraft, which he named Aurora 7, malfunctioned and landed 250 miles (400 km) from its intended splashdown point. In 1964, Carpenter took a leave of absence to join the U.S. Navy's SEALAB project. During aquanaut training, he suffered injuries that grounded him, making him unavailable for further spaceflights. In 1965, he spent 28 days on the ocean floor as part of SEALAB II. He returned to NASA as Executive Assistant to the Director of the Manned Spacecraft Center. He retired from NASA in 1967 and the Navy in 1969, with the rank of commander. Carpenter became a consultant on space flight and oceanography. He appeared in television commercials and wrote a pair of technothrillers and an autobiography. (Full article...)
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June 22: Anti-Fascist Struggle Day (Croatia); Windrush Day (United Kingdom)
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June 22 The featured picture for this day has not yet been chosen. In general, pictures of the day are scheduled in order of promotion to featured status. See Wikipedia:Picture of the day/Guidelines for full guidelines. |
In four days (June 23)
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June 23 The Battle of Groix was fought on 23 June 1795 off the Biscay coast of Brittany between elements of the British Channel Fleet, commanded by Admiral Lord Bridport, and the French Atlantic Fleet, under Vice-admiral Villaret de Joyeuse. The British fleet of 14 ships of the line was covering an invasion convoy when it encountered the 12 French ships of the line returning to base at Brest. Villaret ordered his force to take shelter in protected coastal waters, but several ships fell behind. After fierce fights, three French ships were captured; the remainder became scattered and were vulnerable, but Bridport, concerned by the rocky coastline, called off the action. Most historians have considered Bridport's retirement from the battle to be premature, and concluded that an opportunity to destroy the French fleet may have been squandered. The French were trapped in Lorient where food supplies ran out, crippling the fleet. Several French captains were court-martialled following the battle. (Full article...)
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June 23: Grand Duke's Official Birthday in Luxembourg
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June 23 ![]() Fatih Tutak, chef and owner of TURK Fatih Tutak As of the 2025 Michelin Guide, there are 14 restaurants in Turkey with a Michelin star rating. The Michelin Guides have been published by the French tire company Michelin since 1900. They were designed as a guide about eateries worth driving to. Some well known chefs in Turkey with Michelin stars include Fatih Tutak (pictured), who had previously been awarded a Michelin Plate in 2018, and Maksut Aşkar, whose restaurant, Neolokal, also won a Michelin green star. The Turkish guide originally launched in 2023, reviewing restaurants solely in the city of Istanbul. In 2024, it expanded to also review restaurants in the Turkish seaside regions of Bodrum and İzmir Province. TURK Fatih Tutak is the only restaurant in Turkey with more than one star. (Full list...)
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June 23
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In five days (June 24)
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June 24 A white dwarf is a stellar core remnant composed mostly of electron-degenerate matter, supported against its own gravity only by electron degeneracy pressure. A white dwarf is very dense: in an Earth sized volume, it contains a mass comparable to the Sun. What light it radiates is from its residual heat. White dwarfs are thought to be the final evolutionary state of stars whose mass is insufficient for them to become a neutron star or black hole. This includes over 97% of the stars in the Milky Way. After the hydrogen-fusing period of such a main-sequence star ends, it will expand to a red giant and shed its outer layers, leaving behind a core which is the white dwarf. This, very hot when it forms, cools as it radiates its energy until its material begins to crystallize into a cold black dwarf. The oldest known white dwarfs still radiate at temperatures of a few thousand kelvins, which establishes an observational limit on the maximum possible age of the universe. (Full article...)
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June 24 The featured picture for this day has not yet been chosen. In general, pictures of the day are scheduled in order of promotion to featured status. See Wikipedia:Picture of the day/Guidelines for full guidelines. |
In six days (June 25)
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June 25 ![]() School in Sketty, Swansea, photographed in 1854 The period between 1701 and 1870 saw an expansion in access to formal education in Wales, though schooling was not yet universal. Several philanthropic efforts were made to provide education to the poor during the 18th century. In the early to mid-19th century charitable schools were established to provide a basic education. Private schools aimed at the working classes also existed. State funding was introduced to schools from 1833. Some use of the Welsh language was made in 18th-century philanthropic education at a time when most Welsh peasants were solely Welsh-speaking. In the early 19th century Welsh public opinion was keen for children to learn English. Many schools tried to achieve this by excluding Welsh and punishing children for speaking it. Government investigations in the mid-19th century indicated that this approach was ineffective. The government did not prohibit the use of Welsh but it did little to promote bilingualism in schools during this period. Grammar schools experienced difficulties and by the end of the period secondary education was limited. Dissenter academies and later theological colleges offered higher education. (Full article...)
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June 25 The featured picture for this day has not yet been chosen. In general, pictures of the day are scheduled in order of promotion to featured status. See Wikipedia:Picture of the day/Guidelines for full guidelines. |
In seven days (June 26)
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June 26 Donkey Kong Land is a platform game developed by Rare and published by Nintendo for the Game Boy (pictured). Released on June 26, 1995, it condenses the side-scrolling gameplay of Donkey Kong Country with different level design and boss fights. The player controls Donkey Kong and Diddy Kong as they recover their stolen banana hoard from King K. Rool. Development began in 1994: Rare's Game Boy programmer, Paul Machacek, developed Land as an original game rather than a port of Country, believing it would be a better use of resources. Land features pre-rendered graphics converted to sprites through a compression technique. Rare retooled Country's gameplay to account for the lower quality display, and David Wise and Graeme Norgate converted the soundtrack to the Game Boy's sound chip. Critics praised it as successfully translating Country's gameplay, visuals, and music to the Game Boy. Land was rereleased for the Nintendo 3DS and the Nintendo Switch. (Full article...)
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June 26 The featured picture for this day has not yet been chosen. In general, pictures of the day are scheduled in order of promotion to featured status. See Wikipedia:Picture of the day/Guidelines for full guidelines. |