US President Lyndon B. Johnson meets a crowd on the 30th of June, 1966.
Monthly Archives: June 2016
On this day: the Meeker Avenue Bridge
This image of the Meeker Avenue Bridge in New York City under construction was taken on the 29th of June, 1939. Today the bridge is known as the Kosciuszko Bridge.
On this day: the world’s first cruise ship
The Prinzessin Victoria Luise, recognised as the world’s first cruise ship, was launched on the 29th of June, 1900.
Her maiden voyage came on the 5th of January the following year, travelling from Hamburg to New York.
Only five years later her career came to an end when the ship became lodged on rocks in Jamaica. The captain shot himself in his cabin, and the passengers were not rescued until the following morning.
The ship was declared a total loss soon after.
On this day: the sinking of the SS Norge
SS Norge in the late nineteenth century. X
On the 28th of June, 1904 Danish passenger liner SS Norge ran aground near Rockall in the North Atlantic Ocean and sank.
Over 635 people died, with the highest number of victims coming from Norway.
The liner sank twelve minutes after the accident, pulling many who had tried to jump to safety underwater with it, and drowning them.
Herman Wildenvey
Those who survived were saved by British and German ships. One of the survivors was Norwegian poet Herman Wildenvey.
On this day: the Tiflis bank robbery
Russian police file on Joseph Stalin
On the 26th of June, 1907, armed Bolsheviks stole a bank cash shipment in Tiflis (now Tbilisi, the capital of Georgia). Using bombs and guns, the attackers surrounded military and police in Yerevan (now Freedom) Square.
Amongst those involved in organising the robbery were future Soviet dictator Joseph Stalin, and Vladimir Lenin.
Forty people were killed and fifty others were injured in the attack.
Yerevan Square in the 19th century. X
The equivalent of millions of dollars were stolen, but in the end much of the money could not be used to fund Bolshevik activities, as the banknotes’ serial numbers were known to authorities.
On this day: the Igandu train disaster
On the 24th of June, 2002 one of the deadliest train accidents in African history occurred near Igandu, Tanzania.
A passenger train rolled backwards and down a hill, where it hit a goods train. 281 people died.
On this day: the last shot of the US Civil War
America’s Civil War ended on the 9th of May, 1865. However, the final shot fired was on the 22nd of June that year.
The shot was fired from the Confederate-operated CSS Shenandoah. The event took place near the Aleutian Islands in the Northern Pacific Ocean.
The Shenandoah was photographed here in Williamstown in Melbourne, Australia in 1865.
On this day: a new Queen
At 6am on the 20th of June, 1837, eighteen-year-old Victoria was woken to the news she was now Queen of the United Kingdom.
This marked the beginning of the long Victorian era, which concluded with her death in 1901.
The image below, created in 1887, depicts Victoria receiving the news of her accession.
And as illustrated in 1895:
I’m Back
I haven’t really mentioned it on this blog (whereas I’ve been spamming my followers with photographs on others!), but I have been in Europe – Ukraine and Italy – for the past two months.
I am sitting at home now after a thirty-eight hour journey to get here, in which we flew from Rome to Zurich to Singapore to Sydney, and finally to Canberra, and I have just had a much-needed shower! I fully expect to pass out soon. It usually catches up with me in an instant, and when I least expect it.
In other words, it has been two months since I have sat down and looked at comments and things on this blog (all of my posts were scheduled in advance).
So maybe now I can get back to responding to people, and create some new posts!
On this day: the executions of Julius and Ethel Rosenberg
The couple after being found guilty. X
On the 19th of June, 1953 Julius and Ethel Rosenberg were executed by electric chair in Ossining, USA after being convicted of spying for the Kremlin.
Alongside several others, who were imprisoned but not executed (including Ethel’s brother), they were found guilty of passing on information to Moscow about the atomic bomb.
Julius and Ethel under arrest.
The Rosenbergs were the only two people in the United States executed for espionage during the Cold War. Their crime was considered worse because the judge also considered them responsible for deaths in the Korean War.
