Tidbits of History, June 19

June 19 is World Sauntering Day
National Dry Martini Day
Juneteenth..see 1865

1586 -English colonists left Roanoke Island on June 19, 1586, after failing to establish England’s first permanent settlement in North America.

1846 -– The first officially recorded, organized baseball game was played under Alexander Cartwright’s rules on Hoboken, New Jersey’s Elysian Fields with the New York Base Ball Club defeating the Knickerbockers 23-1. Cartwright umpired.

1862 – The U.S. Congress in 1862 prohibited slavery in United States territories, nullifying Dred Scott v. Sandford.

1865 -– Over two years after the Emancipation Proclamation, slaves in Galveston, Texas, United States, are finally informed of their freedom. The anniversary is still officially celebrated in Texas and 41 other states as Juneteenth.

BD of Lou Gehrig, June 19
Birthday of Lou Gehrig (June 19, 1903), American baseball great, first baseman for the New York Yankees (1923-1939). Died of amyotrophic lateral sclerosis (ALS), now called Lou Gehrig’s disease. In his retirement speech, Gehrig said he thought he was “the luckiest man on the face of the earth”.

From Today in Science
In 1941, Cheerios whole grain oat cereal was invented to provide a more convenient and better tasting alternative to cooked oatmeal. Each piece of the O-shaped cereal is 1/2-inch diameter, and weighs .0025 ounce. Each little “O” puffs itself out, like popcorn, as it explodes from the barrel of a puffing gun at high temperature. It was first called Cheerie Oats when General Mills invented it, but that name had to be changed in 1945, to avoid a conflict with a competitor who suggested they had exclusive rights to use the word “oats” in a commercial name.

The Civil Rights Act of 1964 was approved after surviving an 83-day filibuster in the United States Senate. The most fervent opposition to the bill came from Senator Strom Thurmond (D-SC) and Senator Robert Byrd (D-W.Va.)

June 19, 1978 Garfield
Garfield, holder of the Guinness World Record for the world’s most widely syndicated comic strip, made its debut in 1978.

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