June 30, 2020
Day 182 of 366

 

June 30th is the 182nd day of the year. It is Teachers’ Day in the Dominican Republic.

 

In the United States, today is “celebrated” as Social Media Day.

 

Historical items of note:

• In 1688, the Immortal Seven issued the Invitation to William, which would culminate in the Glorious Revolution.
• In 1864, United States President Abraham Lincoln granted Yosemite Valley to California for “public use, resort, and recreation”.
• In 1905, Albert Einstein sent the article On the Electrodynamics of Moving Bodies, in which he introduced special relativity, for publication in Annalen der Physik.
• In 1917, actress Susan Hayward was born.
• In 1922, United States Secretary of State Charles Evans Hughes and Dominican Ambassador Francisco J. Peynado signed the Hughes–Peynado agreement, which ended the United States occupation of the Dominican Republic.
• In 1925, Charles Jenkins was granted the United States patent for Transmitting Pictures over Wireless. Basically, it’s the early television.
• In 1934, the Night of the Long Knives, Adolf Hitler’s violent purge of his political rivals in Germany, took place.
• In 1937, the world’s first emergency telephone number, 999, was introduced in London.
• In 1942, naval officer and oceanographer Robert Ballard was born.
• In 1956, actor, singer, and comedian David Alan Grier was born.
• In 1959, actor Vincent D’Onofrio was born.
• In 1966, the National Organization for Women, the United States’ largest feminist organization, was founded.
• In 1971, the crew of the Soviet Soyuz 11 spacecraft was killed when their air supply escaped through a faulty valve.
• In 1972, the first leap second was added to the UTC time system.
• In 1982, actress Lizzy Caplan was born.
• In 1997, the United Kingdom transferred sovereignty over Hong Kong to China.

 

In 1908, the Tunguska Event occurred.

It was the largest impact event on Earth in human recorded history, resulting in a massive explosion over Eastern Siberia. The event occurred near the Podkamennaya Tunguska River in Yeniseysk Governorate (now Krasnoyarsk Krai) in Russia. The explosion over the sparsely populated Eastern Siberian Taiga flattened an estimated 80 million trees over an area of 830 square miles of forest, and eyewitness reports suggest that at least three people may have died in the event.

The explosion is generally attributed to the airburst of a meteoroid of about 328 feet in size. There was no impact crater since the object is thought to have disintegrated at an altitude of 3 to 6 miles above the surface.

In commemoration of the event, June 30th is observed as International Asteroid Day, a day that aims to raise awareness about asteroids and what can be done to protect the Earth, its families, communities, and future generations from a catastrophic event.

Asteroid Day was co-founded by Stephen Hawking, filmmaker Grigorij Richters, B612 Foundation President, Danica Remy, Apollo 9 astronaut Rusty Schweickart and Brian May, Queen guitarist and astrophysicist. The declaration was co-signed by over 200 astronauts, scientists, technologists and artists, including Richard Dawkins, Bill Nye, Peter Gabriel, Jim Lovell, Apollo 11 astronaut Michael Collins, Alexei Leonov, Bill Anders, Kip Thorne, Lord Martin Rees, Chris Hadfield, Rusty Schweickart, and Brian Cox.

 

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.