June 25, 2020
Day 177 of 366

 

June 25th is the 177th day of the year. It is Teacher’s Day in Guatemala, Arbor Day in the Philippines, and Independence Day in Mozambique.

 

In the United States, today is “celebrated” as National Strawberry Parfait Day, National Catfish Day, National Leon Day, National Bomb Pop Day, and National Handshake Day. The last two are typically observed on the last Thursday in June.

 

Historical items of note:

• In 1848, a photograph of the June Days uprising, a revolt staged by underpaid French workers, became the first known instance of photojournalism.
• In 1876, the Battle of the Little Bighorn occurred. Known to the Lakota and other Plains Indians as the Battle of the Greasy Grass, and commonly referred to as Custer’s Last Stand, it was an armed engagement between combined forces of the Lakota, Northern Cheyenne, and Arapaho tribes and the 7th Cavalry Regiment of the United States Army. The battle was the most significant action of the Great Sioux War of 1876 and resulted in the death of Lieutenant Colonel George Armstrong Custer when the American forces were defeated.
• In 1900, Taoist monk Wang Yuanlu discovered the Dunhuang manuscripts, a cache of ancient texts that are of great historical and religious significance, in the Mogao Caves of Dunhuang, China.
• In 1903, British novelist, essayist, and critic George Orwell was born.
• In 1910, the United States Congress passed the Mann Act, which prohibited interstate transport of women or girls for “immoral purposes”.  Its primary stated intent was to address prostitution, immorality, and human trafficking, particularly where trafficking was for the purposes of prostitution. It was one of several acts of protective legislation aimed at moral reform during the Progressive Era. In practice, its ambiguous language about “immorality” resulted in it being used to criminalize even consensual sexual behavior between adults. It was amended by Congress in 1978 and again in 1986 to limit its application to transport for the purpose of prostitution or other illegal sexual acts.
• Also in 1910, Igor Stravinsky’s ballet The Firebird premiered in Paris. The performance brought him to prominence as a composer.
• In 1913, American Civil War veterans arrived at the Great Reunion of 1913, commemorating the fiftieth anniversary of the Battle of Gettysburg. All honorably discharged veterans in the Grand Army of the Republic and the United Confederate Veterans were invited. 53,407 veterans attended, including approximately 8,750 Confederate soldiers. President Woodrow Wilson summarized the peaceful spirit of the reunion: “We have found one another again as brothers and comrades in arms, enemies no longer, generous friends rather, our battles long past, the quarrel forgotten—except that we shall not forget the splendid valor.”
• In 1923, Captain Lowell H. Smith and Lieutenant John P. Richter performed the first-ever aerial refueling in a DH.4B biplane.
• In 1925, actress June Lockhart was born.
• In 1945, singer-songwriter Carly Simon was born.
• In 1947, The Diary of a Young Girl (better known as The Diary of Anne Frank) was published.
• In 1950, the Korean War began with the invasion of South Korea by North Korea.
• In 1976, Missouri Governor Kit Bond issued an executive order rescinding the Extermination Order, formally apologizing on behalf of the state of Missouri for the suffering it had caused to members of The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints. Missouri Executive Order 44 was issued on October 27, 1838, by Governor Lilburn Boggs in the aftermath of the Battle of Crooked River. The battle took place between Mormons and a unit of the Missouri State Militia in northern Ray County, Missouri, during the 1838 Mormon War, the first of the three Mormon Wars. Governor Boggs, claiming that the Mormons had committed open and avowed defiance of the law and had made war upon the people of Missouri, directed that “the Mormons must be treated as enemies, and must be exterminated or driven from the State if necessary for the public peace—their outrages are beyond all description”.
• In 1978, the rainbow flag representing gay pride was flown for the first time during the San Francisco Gay Freedom Day Parade.
• In 1982, Blade Runner was released.
• In 1996, Independence Day premiered.
• In 1997, an unmanned Progress spacecraft collided with the Russian space station Mir.

 

June 25th is World Vitiligo Day.

Vitiligo occurs in one to two percent of the population worldwide. It is a loss of color in the skin creating a variety of patterns on the skin from loss of pigment. Vitiligo is often called a disease instead of a disorder and that can have a significant negative social and/or psychological impact on patients, in part because of numerous misconceptions still present in large parts of the world.

The idea of a World Vitiligo Day was first nursed by Steve Haragadon, the founder of the Vitiligo Friends network, and then developed and finalized by Ogo Maduewesi, a Nigerian vitiligo patient who is the founder and Executive Director of the Vitiligo Support and Awareness Foundation (VITSAF).

 

The Thing About Today is an effort to look at each day of 2020 with respect to its historical context.

For more creativity with a critical eye, visit Creative Criticality.