June 16

It’s Fresh Veggies Day and Fudge Day

ON THIS DAY…
1586 Mary Queen of Scots recognizes Philip II of Spain as her heir
1654 Queen Christina of Sweden, a convert to Roman Catholicism, abdicates her throne
1657 The first pendulum clock was patented by its inventor, Christiaan Huygens
1784 Holland outlaws orange clothes
1836 Formation of the London Working Men’s Association begins the Chartist Movement
1846 The Papal conclave of 1846 concludes. Pope Pius IX is elected pope, beginning the longest reign in the history of the post-apostolic papacy
1871 University Tests Act allows students to enter the Universities of Oxford, Cambridge and Durham without religious tests, except for courses in theology
1884 The first gravity-powered American roller coaster that was commercially successful was put in operation at Coney Island, NY, the invention of La Marcus Thompson
1893 Cracker Jack was invented by R.W. Rueckheim, a unique popcorn, peanuts, and molasses confection which he introduced at the World’s Columbian Exposition, Chicago’s First World Fair
1897 A treaty annexing the Republic of Hawaii to the United States is signed; the Republic would not be dissolved until a year later
1902 Female British subjects (with the glaring exception of Asians, Aborigines and Africans) won the vote in Australia with the Uniform Franchise Act
1903 Pepsi-Cola Co. registered the Pepsi-Cola trademark with the US Patent Office
1903 Ford Motor Company, the vehicle manufacturer, was incorporated
1904 The action of James Joyce’s novel Ulysses takes place on this day, known as Bloomsday after Leopold and Molly Bloom, two of the novel’s main characters
1911 The Computing-Tabulating-Recording Company (CTR) was incorporated, a predecessor of IBM
1922 Henry A. Berliner demonstrated the first helicopter prototype for representatives of the US Bureau of Aeronautics in College Park, Maryland
1939 Tarzan Finds a Son, starring Johnny Weissmuller and Maureen O’Sullivan, opens in US movie theaters
1943 Charlie Chaplin marries Oona O’Neil, the daughter of famed playwright Eugene O’Neill and socialite Agnes Boulton; he was 54, she was 17
1948 The storming of the cockpit of the Miss Macao passenger seaplane, operated by the Cathay Pacific airline, marks the first skyjacking of a commercial plane
1949 The first gas turbine-electric locomotive in the US was publicly demonstrated in, Erie, PA
1952 My Little Margie starring Gale Storm premiered on CBS-TV
1955 Pope Pius XII excommunicates Juan Perón
1956 Ted Hughes marries Sylvia Plath
1956 At Disneyland, Tom Sawyer’s Island and the Rafts to Tom Sawyer’s Island debut in Frontierland
1960 Alfred Hitchcock’s Psycho opened in US movie theaters
1961 Rudolf Nureyev defected from the Soviet Union while in Paris, traveling with the Leningrad Kirov Ballet
1961 Walt Disney purchases the film rights to the Winnie-the-Pooh stories from Mrs. Daphne Milne, wife of the late author A.A. Milne
1963 Soviet cosmonaut Valentina Tereshkova, the first woman in space, is launched into a three-day orbital flight aboard Vostok 6 to study the problem of weightlessness
1965 Those Magnificent Men in Their Flying Machines or How I Flew from London to Paris in 25 hours 11 minutes opened in US movie theaters
1967 The Monterey Pop Festival began at the Monterey Fairgrounds in Northern California
1970 Kenneth A. Gibson is elected mayor of Newark, New Jersey, becoming the first black mayor elected in a major northeastern city in the United States
1970 Woodstock Ventures, the sponsors of the original Woodstock, announced that they lost more than $1.2 million on the festival
1972 Largest single-site hydro-electric power project starts at Churchill Falls, Newfoundland
1975 The Simonstown agreement on naval cooperation between Britain and South Africa ended; the agreement was formally ended by mutual agreement after 169 years
1976 A non-violent march by 15000 students in Soweto, South Africa turns into days of rioting when police open fire on the crowd and kill 566 children
1977 “Not the Beatles but an incredible simulation!” Beatlemania opened on Broadway
1977 Oracle Corporation was incorporated in Redwood Shores, California as Software Development Laboratories (SDL) by Larry Ellison, Bob Miner and Ed Oates
1978 “Grease is the word!” Grease starring John Travolta and Olivia Newton-John opened in US movie theaters
1980 The US Supreme Court ruled that a patent could be issued for a genetically-engineered bacterium in the case of Diamond vs. Chakrabarty; the judges held five to four that the Patent Office should recognize “any” new and useful “manufacture” or “composition of matter,” and that the fact that micro-organisms are alive was without legal significance in the related patent law
1987 A jury in New York acquitted Bernhard Goetz of attempted murder in the subway shooting of four young blacks he said were going to rob him
1995 Joel Schumacher’s Batman Forever starring Val Kilmer, Nicole Kidman, Tommy Lee Jones and Jim Carrey opened in US movie theaters
2003 ABC-TV’s Politically Incorrect is canceled (from sponsors dropping the show) after host Bill Maher makes controversial comments on air regarding the integrity of President George W. Bush
2003 The Hatfields and McCoys sign a formal truce

BORN:
1723 Adam Smith, moral philosopher and a pioneering political economist; he is known primarily as the author of two treatises: The Theory of Moral Sentiments (1759), and An Inquiry into the Nature and Causes of the Wealth of Nations (1776)
1829 Geronimo, prominent Native American leader of the Chiricahua Apache who defended his people against the encroachment of the United States on their tribal lands for over 25 years
1890 Stan Laurel, music hall and vaudeville comedian, film actor, writer, director, and, certainly, comic genius
1902 Barbara McClintock, scientist regarded as one of the most important figures in the history of genetics; her work on the cytogenetics of maize led her to theorize that genes are transposable – they can move around – on and between chromosomes
1902 George Gaylord Simpson, paleontologist known for his contributions to evolutionary theory and to the understanding of intercontinental migrations of animal species in past geological times
1907 Helen Aberson, children’s author best remembered for her book Dumbo, the Flying Elephant
1907 Jack Albertson, vaudevillian, Oscar-Tony-Emmy Awards-winning actor (The Subject Was Roses, Chico and the Man, Charlie and the Chocolate Factory)
1909 Archie Fairley Carr, biologist who was recognized as the foremost authority on turtles
1938 James Bolam, actor (New Tricks, To Kill a King, The Stalker’s Apprentice, Second Thoughts, Only When I Laugh, The Likely Lads, The Loneliness of the Long Distance Runner)
1938 Joyce Carol Oates, author and the Roger S. Berlind ’52 Professor in the Humanities with the Program in Creative Writing at Princeton University, where she has taught since 1978
1955 Laurie Metcalf, 3-time Emmy Award-winning actress (Roseanne, Desperately Seeking Susan, Uncle Buck, JFK, Toy Story)
1966 Martha, Paul McCartney’s sheepdog for whom he wrote the song “Martha my Dear,” was born in High Wycombe

DIED:
1930 Elmer Sperry, electrical engineer and inventor of the gyrocompass, dies at 69
1959 George Reeves, actor (Gone with the Wind, Blood and Sand, The Adventures of Sir Galahad, The Adventures of Superman), dies under mysterious circumstances at 45
1971 Sir John Reith, the first Director-General of the British Broadcasting Corporation (1927-38) who was often called the “father of the BBC,” dies at 81
1977 Wernher von Braun, engineer who was one of the most important developers of rockets and their evolution to applications in space exploration; his contributions include the Explorer satellites; Jupiter, Pershing, Redstone and Saturn rockets, and Skylab, dies at 65
1981 Jule Gregory Charney, meteorologist who, working with John von Neumann, first introduced the electronic computer into weather prediction and improved understanding of the large-scale circulation of the atmosphere, dies at 64
1982 James Honeyman Scott, guitarist for The Pretenders, died of a drug overdose at 25
1984 Sir John Randall, physicist whose critical improvements to the cavity magnetron, the microwave-generating device used in radar, was a major contribution to winning WWII, dies at 79