It's not the Sholeswriter (see 1868 below). Today is Friday, June 23, 2017, the 174th day of the year with 191 days remaining.
- Sunrise: 5:37am
- Sunset: 8:36pm
...giving us 14 hours and 46 minutes of daylight. 2% of the waning moon will be visible, setting at 8:16pm
Tides at the Golden Gate
High: 12:42pm/11:33pm
Low: 5:32am/5:16pm
Special international celebrations today…
- Grand Duke's Birthday - Luxembourg
- Independence Day - Switzerland (Jura only)
- Ligo Day - Latvia
- Victory Day - Estonia
- Jonines (summer solstice) Night - Lithuania
- Jonsok / Sankthansaften / Midsummer's Eve - Norway
- Midsummer Party - Denmark
It’s also…
- International Widows' Day
- Let It Go Day
- National Eat At A Food Truck Day
- National Hydration Day
- Pink Flamingo Day
- Take Your Dog To Work Day
- Public Service Day
- Runner's Selfie Day
- SAT Math Day
- Typing Day
- National Pecan Sandie Day
On this day in…
1180 – First Battle of Uji, starting the Genpei War in Japan.
1280 – The Battle of Moclín takes place in the context of the Spanish Reconquista pitting the forces of the Kingdom of Castile against the Emirate of Granada. The battle resulted in a Granadian victory.
1305 – A peace treaty between the Flemish and the French is signed at Athis-sur-Orge.
1314 – First War of Scottish Independence: The Battle of Bannockburn (south of Stirling) begins.
1532 – Henry VIII of England and Francis I of France sign a secret treaty against Emperor Charles V, Holy Roman Emperor.
1611 – The mutinous crew of Henry Hudson's fourth voyage sets Henry, his son and seven loyal crew members adrift in an open boat in what is now Hudson Bay; they are never heard from again.
1683 – William Penn signs a friendship treaty with Lenni Lenape Indians in Pennsylvania.
1760 – Seven Years' War: Battle of Landeshut: Austria defeats Prussia.
1780 – American Revolution: Battle of Springfield fought in and around Springfield, New Jersey (including Short Hills, formerly of Springfield, now of Millburn Township).
1794 – Empress Catherine II of Russia grants Jews permission to settle in Kiev.
1810 – John Jacob Astor forms the Pacific Fur Company.
1812 – War of 1812: Great Britain revokes the restrictions on American commerce, thus eliminating one of the chief reasons for going to war.
1860 – The United States Congress establishes the Government Printing Office.
1865 – American Civil War: At Fort Towson in the Oklahoma Territory, Confederate, Brigadier General Stand Watie surrenders the last significant rebel army.
1868 – Christopher Latham Sholes received a patent for an invention he called the "Type-Writer."
1887 – The Rocky Mountains Park Act becomes law in Canada creating the nation's first national park, Banff National Park.
1894 – The International Olympic Committee is founded at the Sorbonne in Paris, at the initiative of Baron Pierre de Coubertin.
1913 – Second Balkan War: The Greeks defeat the Bulgarians in the Battle of Doiran.
1914 – Mexican Revolution: Pancho Villa takes Zacatecas from Victoriano Huerta.
1919 – Estonian War of Independence: The decisive defeat of the Baltische Landeswehr in the Battle of Cēsis; this date is celebrated as Victory Day in Estonia.
1926 – The College Board administers the first SAT exam.
1931 – Wiley Post and Harold Gatty take off from Roosevelt Field, Long Island in an attempt to circumnavigate the world in a single-engine plane.
1938 – The Civil Aeronautics Act is signed into law, forming the Civil Aeronautics Authority in the United States.
1940 – Adolf Hitler goes on a three-hour tour of the architecture of Paris with architect Albert Speer and sculptor Arno Breker in his only visit to the city.
1941 – The Lithuanian Activist Front declares independence from the Soviet Union and forms the Provisional Government of Lithuania; it lasts only briefly as the Nazis will occupy Lithuania a few weeks later.
1942 – World War II: The first selections for the gas chamber at Auschwitz take place on a train full of Jews from Paris.
1942 – World War II: Germany's latest fighter aircraft, a Focke-Wulf Fw 190, is captured intact when it mistakenly lands at RAF Pembrey in Wales.
1943 – World War II: The British destroyers HMS Eclipse and HMS Laforey sink the Italian submarine Ascianghi in the Mediterranean after she torpedoes the cruiser HMS Newfoundland.
1946 – The 1946 Vancouver Island earthquake strikes Vancouver Island, British Columbia, Canada.
1946 – The National Democratic Front wins a landslide victory in the municipal elections in French India.
1947 – The United States Senate follows the United States House of Representatives in overriding U.S. President Harry Truman's veto of the Taft–Hartley Act.
1951 – The ocean liner, SS United States, is christened and launched.
1956 – The French National Assembly takes the first step in creating the French Community by passing the Loi Cadre, transferring a number of powers from Paris to elected territorial governments in French West Africa.
1959 – Convicted Manhattan Project spy Klaus Fuchs is released after only nine years in prison and allowed to emigrate to Dresden, East Germany where he resumes a scientific career.
1960 – The United States Food and Drug Administration declares Enovid to be the first officially approved combined oral contraceptive pill in the world.
1961 – Cold War: The Antarctic Treaty, which sets aside Antarctica as a scientific preserve and bans military activity on the continent, comes into force after the opening date for signature set for the December 1, 1959.
1967 – Cold War: U.S. President Lyndon B. Johnson meets with Soviet Premier Alexei Kosygin in Glassboro, New Jersey for the three-day Glassboro Summit Conference.
1969 – Warren E. Burger is sworn in as Chief Justice of the United States Supreme Court by retiring Chief Justice Earl Warren.
1969 – IBM announces that effective January 1970 it will price its software and services separately from hardware thus creating the modern software industry.
1972 – Watergate scandal: U.S. President Richard M. Nixon and White House Chief of Staff H. R. Haldeman are taped talking about using the Central Intelligence Agency to obstruct the Federal Bureau of Investigation's investigation into the Watergate break-ins.
1972 – Title IX of the United States Civil Rights Act of 1964 is amended to prohibit sexual discrimination to any educational program receiving federal funds.
1973 – A fire at a house in Hull, England which kills a six-year-old boy is passed off as an accident; it later emerges as the first of 26 deaths by fire caused over the next seven years by arsonist Peter Dinsdale.
1982 – Chinese American Vincent Chin dies in a coma after being beaten in Highland Park, Michigan on June 19, by two auto workers who had mistaken him for Japanese and who were angry about the success of Japanese auto companies.
1985 – A terrorist bomb aboard Air India Flight 182 brings the Boeing 747 down off the coast of Ireland killing all 329 aboard.
2001 – The 8.4 Mw southern Peru earthquake shakes coastal Peru with a maximum Mercalli intensity of VIII (Severe). A destructive tsunami followed, leaving at least 74 people dead, and 2,687 injured.
2012 – Ashton Eaton breaks the decathlon world record at the United States Olympic Trials.
2013 – Nik Wallenda becomes the first man to successfully walk across the Grand Canyon on a tight rope.
2013 – Militants stormed a high-altitude mountaineering base camp near Nanga Parbat in Gilgit–Baltistan, Pakistan and killed ten climbers, as well as a local guide.
2014 – The last of Syria's declared chemical weapons are shipped out for destruction.
2016 – The United Kingdom votes in a referendum to leave the European Union, by 52% to 48%.
Today’s birthday celebrants include (or included)...
- 1456 – Margaret of Denmark, Queen of Scotland (d. 1486)
- 1489 – Charles II, Duke of Savoy, Italian noble (d. 1496)
- 1534 – Oda Nobunaga, Japanese warlord (d. 1582)
- 1596 – Johan Banér, Swedish field marshal (d. 1641)
- 1612 – André Tacquet, Flemish priest and mathematician (d. 1660)
- 1824 – Carl Reinecke, German pianist, composer, and conductor (d. 1910)
- 1894 – Alfred Kinsey, American entomologist and sexologist (d. 1956)
- 1894 – Edward VIII of the United Kingdom (d. 1972)
- 1912 – Alan Turing, English mathematician and computer scientist (d. 1954)
- 1927 – Bob Fosse, American actor, dancer, choreographer, and director (d. 1987)
- 1929 – June Carter Cash, American singer-songwriter, musician, and actress (d. 2003)
- 1936 – Richard Bach, American novelist and essayist
- 1940 – Adam Faith, English singer (d. 2003)
- 1943 – James Levine, American pianist and conductor
- 1946 – Ted Shackelford, American actor
- 1947 – Bryan Brown, Australian actor and producer
- 1948 – Myles Goodwyn, Canadian singer-songwriter, guitarist, and producer
- 1948 – Clarence Thomas, American lawyer and judge
- 1949 – Gordon Bray, Australian journalist and sportscaster
- 1949 – Sheila Noakes, Baroness Noakes, English accountant and politician
