Today is June 18 2014

National Cherry Tart Day: More

• International Picnic Day: More
  
• Splurge Day: More
• Go Fishing Day: More
• International Sushi Day: More

• In 1812, War of 1812: The U.S. Congress declares war on Great Britain, Canada, and Ireland.
  From Wikipedia: 'The War of 1812 was a military conflict that lasted from June 18, 1812, to February 18, 1815, fought between the United States of America and the United Kingdom, its North American colonies, and its North American Indian allies. Historians in the United States and Canada see it as a war in its own right, but Europeans often see it as a minor theatre of the Napoleonic Wars. By the war's end in early 1815 the key issues had been resolved and peace came with no boundary changes.
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• In 1815, At the Battle of Waterloo, Napoleon was defeated by an international army under the Duke of Wellington. Napoleon abdicated on June 22.
  From Wikipedia: 'The Battle of Waterloo was fought on Sunday, 18 June 1815, near Waterloo in present-day Belgium, then part of the United Kingdom of the Netherlands. A French army under the command of Napoleon Bonaparte was defeated by two of the armies of the Seventh Coalition: an Anglo-led Allied army under the command of the Duke of Wellington, and a Prussian army under the command of Gebhard Leberecht von Blücher, Prince of Wahlstatt. The battle resulted in the end of Bonaparte's reign and of the First French Empire, and set a chronological milestone between serial European wars and decades of relative peace.
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• In 1863 - J.J. Richardson received a patent for the ratchet wrench.
  From Wikipedia: 'Wrenches in the form of sockets—that is, a female driver to envelop the male head of a fastener—have existed for centuries. Early examples include the keys used to wind clocks since the Middle Ages. The heads and sockets were typically square; hex heads eventually became more common starting in the 20th century. The ratcheting socket wrench, with interchangeable (indexable) sockets, was invented by an American, J.J. Richardson, of Woodstock, Vermont, USA. The tool was patented (Pat. No. 38,914) through the Scientific American Patent Agency on June 16, 1863. The first illustration of the tool appears on pg. 248 of the April 16, 1864 issue of Scientific American. In current English usage, the term "socket wrench" connotes indexable sockets so strongly that most English speakers would resist calling a large non-indexable, non-racheting, socket-head wrench a "socket wrench."
  - At Wikipedia: More
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• In 1940, Winston Churchill gives his famous 'Finest Hour' speech.
  From Wikipedia: '... But if we fail, then the whole world, including the United States, including all that we have known and cared for, will sink into the abyss of a new dark age made more sinister, and perhaps more protracted, by the lights of perverted science. Let us therefore brace ourselves to our duties, and so bear ourselves, that if the British Empire and its Commonwealth last for a thousand years, men will still say, This was their finest hour'.
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• In 1948, Columbia announces first long-playing phonograph record, the 33 1/3.
  From Wikipedia: 'The LP (long playing), or 33 1/3 rpm microgroove vinyl record, is a format for phonograph (gramophone) records, an analog sound storage medium. Introduced by Columbia Records in 1948, it was soon adopted as a new standard by the entire record industry. Apart from relatively minor refinements and the important later addition of stereophonic sound capability, it has remained the standard format for vinyl albums.
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• In 1961, The radio version of 'Gunsmoke' was broadcast for the last time on CBS radio. The radio series ran from 1952-1961. The TV version ran from 1952-1975.
  From Wikipedia: 'Gunsmoke is an American radio and television Western drama series created by director Norman Macdonnell and writer John Meston. The stories take place in and around Dodge City, Kansas, during the settlement of the American West. The central character is lawman Marshal Matt Dillon, played by William Conrad on radio and James Arness on television. When aired in the UK, the television series was initially titled Gun Law, later reverting to Gunsmoke.
  
  The radio series ran from 1952 to 1961. John Dunning wrote that among radio drama enthusiasts, "Gunsmoke is routinely placed among the best shows of any kind and any time." The television series ran for 20 seasons from 1955 to 1975, and stands as the United States' longest-running prime time, live-action drama with 635 episodes. In 2010, Law and Order tied Gunsmoke for most seasons for a live action drama series when it finished its 20th and final season, but the show finished 179 episodes short of Gunsmoke's final total; in terms of prime-time scripted series with continuing characters, The Simpsons is the only program to exceed 20 seasons. At the end of its run in 1975, Los Angeles Times columnist Cecil Smith wrote: "Gunsmoke was the dramatization of the American epic legend of the west. Our own Iliad and Odyssey, created from standard elements of the dime novel and the pulp western as romanticized by Buntline, Harte, and Twain. It was ever the stuff of legend."
  
  In the late 1940s, CBS chairman William S. Paley, a fan of the Philip Marlowe radio serial, asked his programming chief, Hubell Robinson, to develop a hardboiled Western series, a show about a "Philip Marlowe of the Old West". Robinson instructed his West Coast CBS Vice President, Harry Ackerman, who had developed the Philip Marlowe series, to take on the task.
  
  Ackerman and his scriptwriters, Mort Fine and David Friedkin, created an audition script called "Mark Dillon Goes to Gouge Eye" based on one of their Michael Shayne radio scripts, "The Crooked Wheel". Two auditions were created in 1949. The first was very much like a hardboiled detective series and starred Michael Rye (credited as Rye Billsbury) as Dillon; the second starred Straight Arrow actor Howard Culver in a more Western, lighter version of the same script. CBS liked the Culver version better, and Ackerman was told to proceed.
  
  A complication arose, though; Culver's contract as the star of Straight Arrow would not allow him to do another Western series. The project was shelved for three years, when producer Norman Macdonnell and writer John Meston discovered it while creating an adult Western series of their own.
  
  Macdonnell and Meston wanted to create a radio Western for adults, in contrast to the prevailing juvenile fare such as The Lone Ranger and The Cisco Kid. Gunsmoke was set in Dodge City, Kansas, during the thriving cattle days of the 1870s. Dunning notes, "The show drew critical acclaim for unprecedented realism."
  
  The radio series first aired on CBS on April 26, 1952 with the episode "Billy the Kid", written by Walter Newman, and ended on June 18, 1961. The show stars William Conrad as Marshal Matt Dillon, Howard McNear as Doc Charles Adams, Georgia Ellis as Kitty Russell, and Parley Baer as Dillon's assistant, Chester Wesley Proudfoot.
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• In 1971, Southwest airlines launches in Texas, creating a new breed of airlines called low-fare carriers.
  From Wikipedia: 'Southwest Airlines Co. (NYSE: LUV ) is a major U.S. airline, the world's largest low-cost carrier, headquartered in Dallas, Texas. The airline was established in 1967 by Herb Kelleher and adopted its current name (Southwest Airlines) in 1971. The airline has nearly 46,000 employees as of December 2014 and operates more than 3,800 flights per day. As of 2014, it carried the most domestic passengers of any U.S. airline. As of June 2016, Southwest Airlines has scheduled services to 97 destinations in 40 states, Puerto Rico, and abroad.
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• In 1977, Fleetwood Mac's single 'Dreams' hits number one on the pop music charts.
  From Wikipedia: '"Dreams" is a song written by singer Stevie Nicks, for the group Fleetwood Mac's 1977 album, Rumours. It is the only U.S. No. 1 hit for the group where it sold over a million copies, and remains one of their best known songs.
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• In 1981, The Lockheed F-117 Nighthawk, the first operational aircraft initially designed around stealth technology, makes its first flight.
  From Wikipedia: 'The Lockheed F-117 Nighthawk is a single-seat, twin-engine stealth attack aircraft that was developed by Lockheed's secretive Skunk Works division and operated by the United States Air Force (USAF). The F-117 was based on the Have Blue technology demonstrator, and was the first operational aircraft to be designed around stealth technology. The maiden flight of the Nighthawk took place in 1981 and the aircraft achieved initial operating capability status in 1983. The Nighthawk was shrouded in secrecy until it was revealed in 1988.
  
  The F-117 was widely publicized for its role in the Gulf War of 1991. Although it was commonly referred to as the "Stealth Fighter", it was a strictly ground-attack aircraft. F-117s took part in the conflict in Yugoslavia where one was shot down by a surface-to-air missile (SAM) on 27 March 1999; it was the only Nighthawk to be lost in combat. The U.S. Air Force retired the F-117 on 22 April 2008, primarily due to the fielding of the F-22 Raptor. Sixty-four F-117s were built, 59 of which were production versions with the other five being demonstrators/prototypes.
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• In 1983, Sally Ride becomes the first U.S. woman in space.
  From Wikipedia: 'Sally Kristen Ride (May 26, 1951 – July 23, 2012) was an American physicist and astronaut. Born in Los Angeles, she joined NASA in 1978 and became the first American woman in space in 1983. She remains the youngest American astronaut to have traveled to space, having done so at the age of 32. After flying twice on the Orbiter Challenger, she left NASA in 1987. She worked for two years at Stanford University's Center for International Security and Arms Control, then at the University of California, San Diego as a professor of physics, primarily researching nonlinear optics and Thomson scattering. She served on the committees that investigated the Challenger and Columbia space shuttle disasters, the only person to participate on both. Ride died of pancreatic cancer on July 23, 2012.
  
  Prior to her first space flight, she was subject to media attention due to her gender. During a press conference, she was asked questions like, "Will the flight affect your reproductive organs?" and "Do you weep when things go wrong on the job?" Despite this and the historical significance of the mission, Ride insisted that she saw herself in only one way—as an astronaut. On June 18, 1983, she became the first American woman in space as a crew member on space shuttle Challenger for STS-7. She was preceded by two Soviet women, Valentina Tereshkova in 1963 and Svetlana Savitskaya in 1982. The five-person crew of the STS-7 mission deployed two communications satellites and conducted pharmaceutical experiments. Ride was the first woman to use the robot arm in space and the first to use the arm to retrieve a satellite.
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Nothing. Looks like I was lazy on this day.

No. 1 song

• Chapel of Love - Dixie Cups: More
  'My Guy' has been displaced by 'Chapel of Love', which will hold the no. 1 spot until June 27, when 'A World Without Love', takes over.

Top movie

• Bedtime Story More
  Having displaced 'Hey There, It's Yogi Bear!', it will be there until the weekend box office of June 21 1964 when, 'The Unsinkable Molly Brown', takes over.

• FamousBirthdays.com: June 18 Birthdays More
• FamousDaily.com: June 18 History More
• History.com: Historical Events on 18th June More
• HistoryOrb.com: Famous Deaths on 18th June More
• On-This-day.com history 18th June More
• On-This-day.com music history 18th June More
• Wikipedia.com: History June 18 More

Candy Month Dairy Month Fresh Fruit and Vegetable Month Iced Tea Month Papaya Month Seafood Month Turkey Lover's Month

June is:

June origin (from Wikipedia): Perhaps to honor goddess Juno, or from the Latin word iuniores (younger ones).
"is the sixth month of the year in the Julian and Gregorian calendars and one of the four months with a length of 30 days. June is the month with the longest daylight hours of the year in the Northern Hemisphere and the shortest daylight hours of the year in the Southern Hemisphere. June in the Northern Hemisphere is the seasonal equivalent to December in the Southern Hemisphere and vice versa. In the Northern hemisphere, the beginning of the meteorological summer is 1 June. In the Southern hemisphere, the beginning of the meteorological winter is 1 June."

June at Wikipedia: More

If you couldn't afford 90 cents for a movie ticket, 50 years ago, or your 45 RPM record player was broke, you might watch one of these shows on TV.
From this Wikipedia article: More

Best selling books of 1964 More

• Astronomy Picture of the Day: More
• NOAA: - National Hurricane Center - Atlantic Graphical Tropical Weather Outlook: More
• Listen to Old Radio Shows: (streaming mp3 with schedule) More
• NASA TV: (video feed) More
  NASA TV schedule: More
• Public Domain eBook Links

  Sites for downloading or reading free Public Domain eBooks. Available in various formats. More

• Podcast: A Moment of Science. Approximately 1 minute general science facts.
  Home page: More
  RSS: More
• Podcast: The Naked Scientists. Current science, medicine, space and other science
  Home page: More
  RSS: More
• Podcast: Quirks & Quarks. Current science news.
  Home page: More
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• Articles and videos: Universe Today. Current space and astronomy news.
  Home page: More
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• Old Picture of the Day - "Each day we bring you one stunning little glimpse of history in the form of a historical photograph."
  Home page: More
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Below, are listed several holiday sites that I reference in addition to other holiday researches.

US Government Holidays

• 2014 Postal Holidays More
• 2014 Official Federal Holidays More

Holidays Worldwide

• List of holidays by country More
• Holidays and Observances around the World More