June Days of Note and Other Calendrical Miscellanea
This month is named for the Roman goddess Juno, wife/partner of Jupiter; queen of the heavens; protector of women, childbirth, and marriage.
The Anglo-Saxon name for both June and July is Liða, spelled Litha in modern English, according to the Venerable Bede, who wrote in the 8th century. The word means “mildness,” referring to calm weather and calm seas at this time of year (in northern Europe). June is Ærraliða, “before Litha,” and July is Æfteraliða, “after Litha.” But the Anglo-Saxon calendar is lunar, so its months don’t exactly correspond to our modern months; like other lunar calendars, a month begins when the new crescent moon first appears, usually a day or two after what we now call the “new” moon, and a day begins at sunset, which was a common premodern practice still observed by the Jewish and Islamic calendars.
According to one modern reconstruction, by Byron Pendason on his website Mine Wyrtruman, the month Ærraliða, begins tonight, May 28, so go outside after sunset and see if you can spot the sliver of a crescent moon in the west heralding the new month (if it’s not cloudy, that is). Deriving his information from Bede (the only extant source about the pre-Christian Anglo-Saxon calendar), Pendason says that a year was reckoned to begin upon the first new moon after the winter solstice, and when there are 13 new moons from one winter solstice to the next, the extra month is inserted in the summer, between the two Lithas, and called Thriliða (“Third Litha”), which may explain the “before” and “after” naming conventions for the other two early summer months.
Nowadays, the name Litha is widely used as the pagan name for the summer solstice itself, though that may be a modern coinage attributed to J.R.R. Tolkien, according to John Michael Greer in The New Encyclopedia of the Occult. Pendason also doubts that the word pertained to the actual day of the solstice and prefers the term midsummer.
June is also Pride Month, a celebration of LGBTQ+ persons and a commemoration of the uprising at New York’s Stonewall Inn on June 28, 1969, widely credited as the start of the gay liberation movement. See June 28 for more.
Sat., May 31. The dragon boat festival takes place in China on the fifth day of the fifth lunar month, which is May 31 this year. It features races in long narrow boats decorated with dragon heads, tails and other ornamentation, which are powered by teams of people wielding paddles, with a drummer-caller at the head and a steerer at the rear. The tradition goes back more than 2,000 years and is associated with the start of rice planting season, to please the dragon diety and encourage rainfall. Though Chinese in origin, dragon boat races now take place around the world and have become a popular international water sport. Races are held on multiple dates throughout the boating season.
Mon., June 2. Republic Day marks the forming of the Italian Republic in 1946.
Mon., 2–Tu., 3. Shavuot, aka Festival of Weeks, is a Jewish holiday commemorating the giving of the Torah. The observance begins at sunset Sunday, June 1. It is the origin of the Christian festival of Pentecost, see more below at June 8.
Tue., 3. World Bicycle Day was enacted in 2018 by the UN to urge planning and actions that make bicycling and walking easier and safer for all, provide access to bicycles for poor people, and promote bicycling in general.
Thu., 6. D-Day commemorates when Allied troops—European and American—landed in Normandy, France, in 1944, leading to the defeat of the Nazis in WWII.
Memorial Day in South Korea begins with a siren sounding at 10 a.m., which prompts people to pray for one minute in memory of those who have died in service to the country.
Swedish National Day commemorates the election of King Gustav Vasa in 1523, considered the foundation of modern Sweden and the end of the Kalmar Union that had joined the Scandinavian countries under one monarch since 1397. The date was celebrated informally starting in 1916 but didn’t become official until 2005, when it replaced Whit Monday (the day after Pentecost) as a public holiday.
Sat., 7. Eid-al-Adha, meaning “feast of the sacrifice,” is an Islamic holiday commemorating Abraham’s willingness to sacrifice his son in obedience to God. It takes place during the annual Hajj (pilgrimage to Mecca).
Sun., 8. Pentecost, aka Whitsunday in the UK, is the 50th day from Easter and the occasion when the holy spirit descended upon a gathering of Christ’s followers, considered the founding event of the Christian Church. They had gathered for the Jewish festival of weeks, or Shavuot—called Pentecost by some Greek Jews, from the Greek word for 50, because it occurs seven weeks (and a day?) after Passover. The UK name is derived from “White Sunday” because newly baptized congregants would wear a white robe on this day. For others, wearing something red symbolizes the appearance of the holy spirit as a flame above each person at the original event.
Mon., 9. The Monday after Whitsunday is known as Whit Monday and is a holiday in many European countries. In 2005, the French government canceled it, but people refused to work anyway. It was reinstated in 2008.
Sat., 14. Flag Day in the US commemorates the passage of the first Flag Act on June 14, 1777: “Resolved, that the flag of the thirteen United States be made of thirteen stripes, alternate red and white; that the union be thirteen stars, white in a blue field, representing a new constellation.”
Sun., 15. Father’s Day in the US.
Mon., 16. Bloomsday is named for Leopold Bloom, the protagonist in James Joyce’s novel Ulysses, because all the events in the book took place on this day.
South Africa’s Youth Day commemorates the 1975 student protest against the Bantu education system of segregation.
Thu., 19. Juneteenth, known in Texas as Emancipation Day, commemorates the arrival on June 19, 1865, of Union soldiers led by Maj. Gen. Gordon Granger, in Galveston, Texas, to enforce the Emancipation Proclamation, which had been in effect since Jan. 1, 1863, but had been ignored by Texas. “In accordance with a proclamation from the Executive of the United States, all slaves are free,” announced Granger. It had been an official observance or holiday in 46 states, including Texas, prior to it becoming a Federal holiday in 2021, after it was signed into law by President Biden.
Corpus Christi, meaning “body of Christ,” is a Christian celebration of the Eucharist, or Holy Communion, a ritual that re-creates the last supper that Jesus had with his disciples, when he said that the bread and wine were his body and blood. It’s often observed on the Sunday following the date.
Fri., 20. The summer solstice occurs when the sun is directly over the Tropic of Cancer, 23.5 north latitude. For every place north of that, today is the longest day. Although astronomers pin the event to a specific time (02:42 UTC on the 21st, which is 9:42 p.m. today in North America), it’s not really any different for a few days before and after this: The word solstice comes from Latin solstitium, “sun standing still,” because its position in the sky changes hardly at all for about a week. It is more commonly known as Midsummer where it is celebrated, because it occurs midway between May Day (seen by some as the beginning of summer) and Lughnasadh (August 1—seen as the beginning of the harvest). However, to astronomers, the solstice is the beginning of summer.
Matariki is the New Year in the Maori (New Zealand) lunar calendar, indicated by the rising of the Matariki star cluster (aka Pleiades).
These children are waving Greenlandic flags. Photo from Visit Greenland.
Sat., 21. Greenland’s National Day is celebrated on June 21 because that’s the summer solstice in Greenland, when the capital city, Nuuk, enjoys 21 hours of daylight. The national festival begins with singing, speeches, flying the flag, and church services; throughout the day, festivities also include folk music and dancing, skill demonstrations, special programs at museums, and, notably, kaffemik, lively social gatherings with coffee, pastries, and other foods. In Denmark, Greenland’s flag is flown to mark the day.
The first National Day was celebrated in 1985; although Greenland is still part of the Kingdom of Denmark, it has operated under home rule since 1979. On June 12, 2009, the Act on Greenland Self-Government was passed by the Danish parliament, signed by Queen Margrethe, and scheduled to take effect on June 21 that year. The act granted Greenland’s government authority over the administration of its justice, labor, and finance operations, and over its mineral resources. It also opens a path to full independence whenever the people of Greenland want to pursue it: “Decision regarding Greenland’s independence shall be taken by the people of Greenland.” (Chapter 8, section 21)
The act, which also recognizes Greenlandic, an Inuit dialect, as the official language, begins with this preamble: “Recognising that the people of Greenland is a people pursuant to international law with the right of self-determination, the Act is based on a wish to foster equality and mutual respect in the partnership between Denmark and Greenland. Accordingly, the Act is based on an agreement between Naalakkersuisut [Greenland Government] and the Danish Government as equal partners.”
National Indigenous Peoples Day is observed throughout Canada, but only a public holiday in the Yukon and NW Territories.
The Saturday after the summer solstice is Midsummer in Sweden, a festive national holiday celebrated outdoors with music, dancing, special foods, and flowers.
Kupala Night is a midsummer celebration in Ukraine and other Slavic countries that predates Christianity in the region. Ivan Kupala is John the Baptist, and the holiday is known as St. John’s Eve elsewhere. Formerly observed on July 6 in Ukraine, following the old (Julian) calendar as per the Russian Orthodox church, it is now celebrated on the actual solstice, with other European Christians.
Mon., 16–Sun., 22. Pollinator Week promotes education and action to protect pollinators, with local events listed on the Pollinator Partnership’s website. https://www.pollinator.org/pollinator-week
Thu., 26. Al-Hijri is the Islamic New Year. Also known as Muharram 1, or the beginning of the month of Muharram, it commemorates The Prophet’s migration from Mecca to Medina in 622 CE.
Image borrowed from Case Western Reserve University.
Sat., 28. In the early morning hours of June 28, 1969, police in New York raided the Stonewall Inn on Christopher Street, a popular gay bar. This sort of thing happened often at establishments that catered to LGBTQ+ clientele throughout the country, but this time was different: “A strange mood was in the crowd — I noticed the full moon. Loud defiances mixed with skittish hilarity made for a more dangerous stage of protest; they were feeling their impunity,” wrote Howard Smith for the Village Voice a few days later. Then a woman who had been peacefully resisting arrest by walking away was roughly handled by the police as they forced her into the car; cries of “Police brutality!” and more rang out, and it soon erupted into a full-blown riot. News of the event got around the city and protests continued for a week.
A year later, the newly formed Christopher Street Liberation Day Committee organized the first Gay Pride Week culminating with a march on June 28. By 1972, activists were calling June Gay Pride Month and eventually LGBTQ+ Pride Month. Pres. Bill Clinton signed the first official declaration recognizing June as Pride Month in 1999.
Tau Day (t=6.283185 … ) celebrates the ratio of a circle’s circumference to its radius: C/r. It was founded in 2010 by scientist Michael Hartl, who argues that it is a better “circle constant” than pi (p).
Ukraine’s Constitution Day commemorates the Constitution of Independent Ukraine adopted on June 28, 1996, five years after gaining independence from the collapsed Soviet Union. Prior to 1991, Ukraine had never been an independent state. Because it’s on a Saturday this year, it would be officially observed on Monday, June 30, except all holidays are suspended these days because the country is under martial law.