Today is June 27 2014

National Indian Pudding Day: More

• Sunglasses Day: More
  
• Industrial Workers Of The World Day: More

• In 1898 - The first solo circumnavigation of the globe is completed by Joshua Slocum.
  From Wikipedia: 'Joshua Slocum (February 20, 1844 – on or shortly after November 14, 1909) was the first man to sail single-handedly around the world. He was a Nova Scotian born, naturalised American seaman and adventurer, and a noted writer. In 1900 he wrote a book about his journey Sailing Alone Around the World, which became an international best-seller. He disappeared in November 1909 while aboard his boat, the Spray.
  
  In Fairhaven, Massachusetts, he rebuilt the 36' 9? (11.2 m) gaff rigged sloop oyster boat named Spray.
  
  On April 24, 1895, he set sail from Boston, Massachusetts. In his famous book, Sailing Alone Around the World,[15] now considered a classic of travel literature, he described his departure in the following manner:
  
  "I had resolved on a voyage around the world, and as the wind on the morning of April 24, 1895 was fair, at noon I weighed anchor, set sail, and filled away from Boston, where the Spray had been moored snugly all winter. The twelve o'clock whistles were blowing just as the sloop shot ahead under full sail. A short board was made up the harbor on the port tack, then coming about she stood to seaward, with her boom well off to port, and swung past the ferries with lively heels. A photographer on the o pier of East Boston got a picture of her as she swept by, her flag at the peak throwing her folds clear. A thrilling pulse beat high in me. My step was light on deck in the crisp air. I felt there could be no turning back, and that I was engaging in an adventure the meaning of which I thoroughly understood."
  
  After an extended visit to his boyhood home at Brier Island and visiting old haunts on the coast of Nova Scotia, Slocum took his departure from North America at Sambro Island Lighthouse near Halifax, Nova Scotia on July 3, 1895.
  
  Slocum navigated without a chronometer, instead relying on the traditional method of dead reckoning for longitude, which required only a cheap tin clock for approximate time, and noon-sun sights for latitude. On one long passage in the Pacific, Slocum also famously shot a lunar distance observation, decades after these observations had ceased to be commonly employed, which allowed him to check his longitude independently. However, Slocum's primary method for finding longitude was still dead reckoning; he re corded only one lunar observation during the entire circumnavigation.
  
  Slocum normally sailed the Spray without touching the helm. Due to the length of the sail plan relative to the hull, and the long keel, the Spray was capable of self-steering (unlike faster modern craft), and he balanced it stably on any course relative to the wind by adjusting or reefing the sails and by lashing the helm fast. He sailed 2,000 miles (3,200 km) west across the Pacific without once touching the helm.[15]
  
  More than three years later, on June 27, 1898, he returned to Newport, Rhode Island, having circumnavigated the world, a distance of more than 46,000 miles (74,000 km). Slocum's return went almost unnoticed. The Spanish–American War, which had begun two months earlier, dominated the headlines. After the end of major hostilities, many American newspapers published articles describing Slocum's amazing adventure.
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• In 1942, FBI captures 8 Nazi saboteurs from a sub off NY's Long Island (Germany's Operation Pastorius).
  From Wikipedia: 'Operation Pastorius was a failed German intelligence plan for sabotage inside the United States during World War II. The operation was staged in June 1942 and was to be directed against strategic American economic targets. The operation was named by Admiral Wilhelm Canaris, chief of the German Abwehr, for Francis Daniel Pastorius, the leader of the first organized settlement of Germans in America.
  
  After the Japanese attack on Pearl Harbor on 7 December 1941, followed by Nazi Germany's declaration of war on the United States four days later (and the United States' declaration of war on Germany in response), Hitler authorized a mission to sabotage the American war effort as well as to make terrorist attacks on civilian targets to demoralize the American civilian population inside the United States. The mission was headed by Admiral Wilhelm Canaris, chief of the German Abwehr. Canaris recalled that during World War I, he organized the sabotage of French installations in Morocco, and entered the United States with other German agents to plant bombs in New York arms factories, including the destruction of munitions supplies at Black Tom Island, in 1916. He hoped that Operation Pastorius would have the same kind of success they had in 1916.
  
  Their mission was to stage sabotage attacks on American economic targets: hydroelectric plants at Niagara Falls; the Aluminum Company of America's plants in Illinois, Tennessee, and New York; locks on the Ohio River near Louisville, Kentucky; the Horseshoe Curve, a crucial railroad pass near Altoona, Pennsylvania, as well as the Pennsylvania Railroad's repair shops at Altoona; a cryolite plant in Philadelphia; Hell Gate Bridge in New York; and Pennsylvania Station in Newark, New Jersey. The agents were also instructed to spread a wave of terror by planting explosives on bridges, railroad stations, water facilities, Jewish-owned businesses, and public places. They were given counterfeit birth certificates, Social Security Cards, draft deferment cards, nearly $175,000 in American money, and driver's licenses, and put aboard two U-boats to land on the east coast of the U.S.
  
  Before the mission began, it was in danger of being compromised, as George Dasch, head of the team, left sensitive documents behind on a train, and one of the agents when drunk announced to patrons at a bar in Paris that he was a secret agent.
  
  On the night of 12 June 1942, the first submarine to arrive in the U.S., U-202, landed at Amagansett, New York, which is about 115 miles east of New York City, on Long Island, at what today is Atlantic Avenue beach. It was carrying Dasch and three other saboteurs (Burger, Quirin, and Henck). The team came ashore wearing German Navy uniforms so that if they were captured, they would be classified as prisoners of war rather than spies. They also brought their explosives, primers and incendiaries, and buried them along with their uniforms, and put on civilian clothes to begin an expected two-year campaign in the sabotage of American defense-related production.
  
  When Dasch was discovered amidst the dunes by unarmed Coast Guardsman John C. Cullen, Dasch seized Cullen by the collar, threatened him, and stuffed $260 into Cullen's hand. Cullen reported the encounter to his superiors after returning to his station. By the time an armed Coast Guard patrol returned to the site, the Germans, weary from their trans-Atlantic trip, were gone and had taken the Long Island Rail Road train from the Amagansett station into Manhattan, New York City, where they checked in and stayed at a hotel. The Coast Guard then discovered German equipment buried in the beach and reported it to President Franklin D. Roosevelt and the FBI. A massive manhunt for the German agents was conducted; however, they did not know where exactly the Germans were going.
  
  The other four-member German team headed by Kerling landed without incident at Ponte Vedra Beach, Florida, south of Jacksonville on 16 June 1942. They came on U-584, another submarine. This group came ashore wearing bathing suits but wore German Navy hats. After landing ashore, they threw away their hats, put on civilian clothes, and started their mission by boarding trains to Chicago, Illinois and Cincinnati, Ohio.
  
  The two teams were to meet on 4 July in a hotel in Cincinnati to coordinate their sabotage operatio
  
  Realizing that the mission was going to be doomed after the encounter with the Coast Guard, Dasch decided he had a secret of his own. The day after the landing at Amagansett, he called Burger, the most guarded and disciplined member of the team, into the upper-story hotel room the two men shared. He walked over to the window and opened it wide. "You and I are going to have a talk," Dasch said, "And if we disagree, only one of us will walk out that door—the other will fly out this window." He then revealed the truth to Burger: he had no intention of going through with the mission. He hated the Nazis and wanted Burger on his side when he turned the entire plot over to the FBI. Burger smiled. Having spent seventeen months in a Nazi concentration camp, his own feelings for the party were less than warm. He too had been planning to betray the mission. They agreed to defect to the United States immediately.
  
  Shaken but not discouraged, Dasch ordered Burger to stay put and keep an eye on the other men. On 15 June, Dasch phoned the New York office of the FBI from a pay-telephone on Manhattan's Upper West Side explaining who he was and asked to convey the information to FBI Director J. Edgar Hoover. When the FBI agent was trying to figure out if he was talking to a crackpot, Dasch hung up. Four days later, he took a train to Washington, D.C. and checked in at the Mayflower Hotel. Dasch then walked into the FBI’s headquarters carrying a briefcase, asking to speak with Director Hoover. Dasch bounced from office to office until finally Assistant Director D.M. Ladd, the agent in charge of the manhunt, agreed to humor him with five minutes of his time. Dasch angrily repeated his story after he was dismissed as a crackpot by numerous agents. He finally convinced the FBI by dumping his mission's entire budget of $84,000 on the desk of Assistant Director D. M. Ladd. At this point, he was taken seriously and interrogated for hours. Besides Burger, none of the other German agents knew they were betrayed. Over the next two weeks, Burger and the other six were arrested.
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• In 1949, 'Captain Video and His Video Rangers' debut on DUMONT-TV.
  From Wikipedia: 'Captain Video and His Video Rangers is an American science fiction television series, which was aired on the DuMont Television Network, and was the first series of its kind on American television.
  
  The series aired between June 27, 1949 and April 1, 1955, originally Monday through Saturday at 7 p.m. ET, and then Monday through Friday at 7 p.m. ET. A separate 30-minute spinoff series, The Secret Files of Captain Video, aired Saturday mornings, alternating with Tom Corbett, Space Cadet, from September 5, 1953 to May 29, 1954 for a total of 20 episodes.
  
  Set in the distant future, the series followed the adventures of a group of fighters for truth and justice, the Video Rangers, led by Captain Video. The Rangers operated from a secret base on a mountain top. Their uniforms resembled United States Army surplus with lightning bolts sewn on.
  
  The Captain had a teen-age companion who was known only as the Video Ranger. Captain Video received his orders from the Commissioner of Public Safety, whose responsibilities took in the entire solar system as well as human colonies on planets around other stars. Captain Video was the first adventure hero explicitly designed (by DuMont's idea-man Larry Menkin) for early live television. "I TOBOR" the robot was an important, semi-regular character on the program, and represents the first appearance of a robot in live televised science fiction; the character's name was actually supposed to be "ROBOT I", but the stencil with its name was applied to its costume backwards.
  
  The show was broadcast live five to six days a week and was popular with both children and adults. Because of the large adult audience, the usual network broadcast time of the daily series was 7 to 7:30 p.m. EST, leading off the "prime evening" time-block. For the last two seasons the show still aired at 7 p.m. ET, but was 15 minutes long. The production was hampered by a very low budget, and the Captain did not originally have a space ship of his own.
  
  Until 1953, Captain Video's live adventures occupied 20 minutes of each day's 30-minute program time. About 10 minutes into each episode, a Video Ranger communications officer showed about 7 minutes of old cowboy movies. These were described by the communications officer, Ranger Rogers, as the adventures of Captain Video's "undercover agents" on Earth.
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• In 1954, The world's first nuclear power station opens in Obninsk, near Moscow.
  From Wikipedia: 'Obninsk Nuclear Power Plant, was built in the "Science City" of Obninsk, Kaluga Oblast, about 110 km southwest of Moscow. It was the first grid-connected nuclear power plant in the world, i.e. the first nuclear reactor that produced commercial electricity, albeit at small scale. It was located at the Institute of Physics and Power Engineering. The plant is also known as APS-1 Obninsk (Atomic Power Station 1 Obninsk). It remained in operation between 1954 and 2002, although its production of electricity for the grid ceased in 1959; thereafter it functioned as a research and isotope production plant only.
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• In 1955, The first 'Wide Wide World' 90-minute documentary series() was broadcast on NBC-TV.
  From Wikipedia: 'Wide Wide World was a 90-minute documentary series telecast live on NBC on Sunday afternoons at 4pm Eastern. Conceived by network head Pat Weaver and hosted by Dave Garroway, Wide Wide World was introduced on the Producers' Showcase series on June 27, 1955. The premiere episode, featuring entertainment from the US, Canada and Mexico, was the first international North American telecast in the history of the medium.
  
  It returned in the fall as a regular Sunday series, telecast from October 16, 1955 to June 8, 1958. The program was sponsored by General Motors and Barry Wood was the executive producer. Nelson Case was the announcer. In March 1956, Time magazine reported that it was the highest-rated daytime show on television.
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• In 1958, NBC's 'Matinee Theatre' was seen for the final time.
  From Wikipedia: 'Matinee Theater is an American anthology series that aired on NBC during the Golden Age of Television, from 1955 to 1958. The series, which ran daily in the afternoon, was usually broadcast live and most of the time in color. It was produced by Albert McCleery, Darrell Ross, George Cahan and Frank Price with executive producer George Lowther. McCleery had previously produced the live series Cameo Theatre which introduced to television the concept of theater-in-the-round, TV plays staged with minimal sets.
  
  The series ended in 1958 due to its high budget; much higher than any other daytime program in television. A few of the later episodes were preserved on color film for later rerun syndication under different titles.
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• In 1964, Jan and Dean release 'Little Old Lady From Pasadena'.
  From Wikipedia: '"The Little Old Lady from Pasadena" is a song written by Don Altfeld, Jan Berry and Roger Christian, and recorded by 1960s American pop singers, Jan and Dean. The song reached number three on the Billboard Hot 100 chart in 1964 and number one on Canada's RPM chart.
  
  The session musicians who played on this record (who were collectively known as The Wrecking Crew) included Leon Russell on piano; Tommy Tedesco, Bill Pitman and Billy Strange on guitar; Ray Pohlman and Jimmy Bond on bass; and Hal Blaine and Earl Palmer on drums. Tommy Morgan provided the song's harmonica solo.
  
  Jan and Dean reworked the lyrics from "The Little Old Lady from Pasadena" in 1967, renaming the track "Tijuana" and releasing it as a single that same year. The lyrics were now drug related. "Tijuana" was finally released on their 2010 album Carnival of Sound.
  
  The origins of "The Little Old Lady From Pasadena" stem from a hugely popular ad campaign that the Dodge automobile maker debuted in early 1964. Starring actress Kathryn Minner, the commercials showed the white haired elderly lady speeding down the street (and sometimes a drag strip) driving a modified Dodge. She would stop, look out the window and say "Put a Dodge in your garage, Hon-ey!". The song soon followed and she enjoyed great popularity until she died a few years later.
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• In 1966, The first sci-fi soap opera, 'Dark Shadows', premieres on ABC-TV.
  From Wikipedia: 'Dark Shadows is an American gothic soap opera that originally aired weekdays on the ABC television network, from June 27, 1966, to April 2, 1971. The show depicted the lives and loves, trials and tribulations of the wealthy Collins family of Collinsport, Maine. The series became hugely popular when vampire Barnabas Collins (Jonathan Frid) appeared a year into its run. Dark Shadows also featured ghosts, werewolves, zombies, man-made monsters, witches, warlocks, time travel, and a parallel universe. A small company of actors each played many roles; indeed, as actors came and went, some characters were played by more than one actor.
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• In 1967, World's first ATM installed in London.
  From Wikipedia: 'It is widely accepted that the first cash machine was put into use by Barclays Bank in its Enfield Town branch in north London, United Kingdom, on 27 June 1967. This machine was inaugurated by English comedy actor Reg Varney. This instance of the invention is credited to John Shepherd-Barron of printing firm De La Rue, who was awarded an OBE in the 2005 New Year Honours. Transactions were initiated by inserting paper cheques issued by a teller or cashier, marked with carbon-14 for machine readability and security, which in a latter model were matched with a personal identification number (PIN). Shepherd-Barron stated; "It struck me there must be a way I could get my own money, anywhere in the world or the UK. I hit upon the idea of a chocolate bar dispenser, but replacing chocolate with cash." In 1969, the first cash machine installed in Australia was in Sydney. The machine only dispensed $25 at a time and the bank card itself would be mailed to the user after the bank had processed the withdrawal.
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• In 1973, 'Live and Let Die', the 8th James Bond Film, and the first to star Roger Moore, also starring Jane Seymour, was released in the US.
  From Wikipedia: 'Live and Let Die (1973) is the eighth spy film in the James Bond series to be produced by Eon Productions, and the first to star Roger Moore as the fictional MI6 agent James Bond. Produced by Albert R. Broccoli and Harry Saltzman, it was the third of four Bond films to be directed by Guy Hamilton. Although the producers had wanted Sean Connery to return after his role in the previous Bond film Diamonds Are Forever, he declined, sparking a search for a new actor to play James Bond. Moore was signed for the lead role.
  
  The film is adapted from the novel of the same name by Ian Fleming. In the film, a Harlem drug lord known as Mr. Big plans to distribute two tons of heroin free to put rival drugs barons out of business. Mr. Big is revealed to be the disguised alter ego of Dr. Kananga, a corrupt Caribbean dictator, who rules San Monique, the fictional island where the heroin poppies are secretly farmed. Bond is investigating the deaths of three British agents, leading him to Kananga, and is soon trapped in a world of gangsters and voodoo as he fights to put a stop to the drug baron's scheme.
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• In 1985, U.S. Route 66 ceases to be an official U.S. highway.
  From Wikipedia: 'U.S. Route 66 (US 66 or Route 66), also known as the Will Rogers Highway and also known as the Main Street of America or the Mother Road, was one of the original highways within the U.S. Highway System. US 66 was established on November 11, 1926, with road signs erected the following year. The highway, which became one of the most famous roads in America, originally ran from Chicago, Illinois, through Missouri, Kansas, Oklahoma, Texas, New Mexico, and Arizona before ending at Santa Monica, California, covering a total of 2,448 miles (3,940 km). It was recognized in popular culture by both the hit song "(Get Your Kicks on) Route 66" and the Route 66 television show in the 1960s.
  
  US 66 served as a major path for those who migrated west, especially during the Dust Bowl of the 1930s, and the road supported the economies of the communities through which it passed. People doing business along the route became prosperous due to the growing popularity of the highway, and those same people later fought to keep the highway alive in the face of the growing threat of being bypassed by the new Interstate Highway System.
  
  US 66 underwent many improvements and realignments over its lifetime, and it was officially removed from the United States Highway System on June 27, 1985, after it had been replaced in its entirety by segments of the Interstate Highway System. Portions of the road that passed through Illinois, Missouri, New Mexico, and Arizona have been designated a National Scenic Byway of the name "Historic Route 66", which is returning to some maps. Several states have adopted significant bypassed sections of the former US 66 into the state road network as State Route 66.
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Tomorrow June 27 2014 will be 'National Indian Pudding Day', or should it be called ...., no I won't go there.

No. 1 song

• A World Without Love - Peter and Gordon: More
  'Chapel of Love' has been displaced by 'A World Without Love', which will hold the no. 1 spot until July 4 2014, when 'Get Around by The Beach Boys', takes over.

Top movie

• A Shot in the Dark More
  Having displaced 'The Unsinkable Molly Brown', it will be there until the weekend box office of July 5 1964 when, 'Circus World', takes over.

• FamousBirthdays.com: June 27 Birthdays More
• FamousDaily.com: June 27 History More
• History.com: Historical Events on 27th June More
• HistoryOrb.com: Famous Deaths on 27th June More
• On-This-day.com history 27th June More
• On-This-day.com music history 27th June More
• Wikipedia.com: History June 27 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
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• Podcast: Quirks & Quarks. Current science news.
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• Articles and videos: Universe Today. Current space and astronomy news.
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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."
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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