June 2022 Childhood Nature Culture Calendar

June is the month of the Strawberry Full Moon symbolizing the first fruits of the New year as Spring comes to an end and Summer begins. As Mary Holland writes in her essential phenological calendar of New England, Naturally Curious, June is a time of engagement. When I walked outside to walk my dog I saw my first fireflies. June is National Pollinators Month ( little bit of an oxymoron if you ask me but you get the point), and it is filled with the hatches of different insects, the blossoming of flowers and the most food that has been available since the end of last year’s summer. Animals are mating and giving birth, young creatures are making their first forays into the world. It is an amazing time to spend time outdoors

Indigenous Environmental Network formed in 1990

National Pollinators Month

June 1st

First public phone booth installed in New Haven CT, 1880

N.A.A.C.P. founded by W.E. B Dubois and others in 1909

Vietnam War Veterans Against the War founded in 1967

June 2nd

Marquis de Sade, writer, sexual provocateur, source of the word ‘sadism”, b. 1740

Indian Citizen Act granted Native people born in the United States citizenship, 1924 (right to vote was governed by state laws and many states barred Native people the right to vote until 1957)

Helen Oxenbury, author of We’re Going On A Bear Hunt, b. 1938

Harriet Tubman leads an armed raid that frees over 800 people in South Carolina, in 1863

June 3rd

Curtis Mayfield, soul, funk musician, lyricist, b. 1942

Allen Ginsberg, beat poet, activist, b. 1944

Josephine Baker, dancer, actress, stripper, spy b. 1906

June 4th

National Trails Day a day of service and appreciation of local, state, regional, and federal trails (first Saturday in June)

Muhammad, Islamic, prophet, mystic visionary, b. 570 ( exact day is unclear)

Congress passes the 19th Amendment and women get the vote in the Unites States in 1919 ( class and race laws continue to obstruct women from voting, 1919

Over 10,000 Haitian farmers protest the Monsanto Corporation donation of 475 tons of genetically modified seeds by burning them in 2010

June 5th

James Connolly, Scotch born Irish Revolutionary, Wobbly ( Marxist/Socialist) “Governments in capitalist society are but committees of the rich to manage the affairs of the capitalist class,” b. 1868

Saint Boniface killed by druids for chopping down sacred tree, 753

AIDS epidemic recognized by the medical community in 1981

Richard Scarry, writer and illustrator of the much loved Busytown books, b. 1919

June 6th

Frozen food sold in retail stores for the first time time, in 1930

Half a million people protest the murder of George Floyd in over 550 cities, 2020

First roller coaster opens in Coney Island NY, 1884

Debtors’ Prisons abolished in the US in 1778

Peter Spier, writer and illustrator of unique children’s books People and Noah’s Ark

Cynthia Rylant, prolific writer of children’s book including All In A Day and Life, b. 1954

James Meredith leads the March Against Fear from Memphis Tennessee to Jackson Mississippi to encourage Black people to register to vote, is shot by a sniper, but recovers sufficiently to finish the March before reaching Memphis, 1966

Robert Patch, 6 years old, youngest person to receive a patent, for his toy truck, 1963

June 7th

Prince, revolutionary musician, b. 1958

First color tv broadcast in 1953

Susan Blow, opened the first successful kindergarten in the United States, b. 1843

June 8th

World Oceans Day

June 9th

Donald Duck’s film debut, in 1934

June 10th

Maurice Sendak, renowned children’s writer and illustrator, author of Where the Wild Things Are and In the Night Kitchen, b. 1928

June 11th

U.S. State Department permits transgender persons to change gender on passport without surgery

African American residents of Diamond, Louisiana won their fight with Shell Oil to pay for the relocation of residents due to hazardous environmental and health conditions caused by the company’s actions in the area, in 2002

June 12th

Red Rose Day

Anne Frank, juvenile author of her famous diary and victim of the Holocaust, b.1929

Supreme Court legalizes interracial marriage in the case of Mildred and Richard Loving versus Virginia case, in 1967

Good and Plenty candy trademark registered in 1928

National Children’s Day (celebrated the second Sunday of the month of June

June 13th

William Butler Yeats, Irish poet, b. 1865

New York Times publishes the Pentagon Papers, leaked by Daniel Ellsberg, hastening the end of the Vietnam War, 1971

14th Amendment, which granted citizenship to all persons born or naturalized in the United States and affirms for any person “equal protection of the laws,” in 1866

June 14th

Strawberry Full Moon

Harriet Beecher Stowe, abolitionist, writer of Uncle Tom’s Cabin, b, in Litchfield CT, 1811

Ernesto “Che” Guevera, Argentinian revolutionary, b. 1928

Bruce Degen, illustrator of The Magic School Bus books, b. 1945

Supreme Court finds compulsory flag salutes unconstitutional in 1943

June 15th

Brian Jacques, adventure writer, author of the Redwall series, b. 1939

June 16

Henri Lefebvre, French, Marxist, historian, philosopher of everyday life

Geronimo, Apache guerilla warrior and leader, b. 1829

Tupac Shakur, visionary rap artist, b. 1971

Supreme Court declares that living organisms that are “products of human ingenuity are patentable, in 1980

June 17th

M.C. Escher, artist who explores patterns, optical illusions and negative space, b. 1889

https://kottke.org/18/05/an-online-collection-of-high-res-scans-of-mc-eschers-prints

June 18th

Chris Van Allsberg, author The Polar Express and Jumanji, b. 1949

White and Black teenagers and protestors attempted to desegregate a “public” swimming pool in Florida, in 1964

June19th

Father’s Day

Juneteenth celebrates the emancipation of Texas slaves and freedom from slavery for Black people in general

Dalia Messick, who used the pseudonym Dale Messick, writes/draws “Brenda Starr” the first cartoon strip by a woman that appeared in a major newspaper, in 1940

June20th

Lloyd Hall, food chemist invented many food preservation methods, b. 1894

June21st

Summer Solstice

First law limiting work hours for children to twelve in 1802

James Chaney, Michael Schwerner and Andrew Goodman, three young Civil Rights Workers tortured and murdered in Mississipi by the KKK

June 22nd

Vatican forces Galileo to recant his view that the earth was not the center of the universe

Octavia Butler, African American Science fiction writer, b. 1947

World Rain Forest Day

June 23rd

Alfred Kinsey, pioneering researcher and theorist in human sexuality, b. 1894

James Hansen testifies to Congress about the greenhouse effect and climate change in 1988

Arthur Melin granted a patent for the Hula-Hoop in 1964

June24th

Ambrose Bierce, author of The Devil’s Dictionary, b. 1842

Kathryn Laskey, author of many non-fiction photograph books including Sugaring, Time, The Weaver’s Craft, and Think Like an Eagle

June25th

Eric Carle, much beloved young children’s author of such classics as A Very Hungry Caterpillar, b. 1929

George Orwell, writer of 1984, and Politics and the English Language, derivation of the adjective “Orwellian,” b. 1903

June 25th

Massachusetts second-grade teacher Anne P. Hale Jr. was removed from her position because of her prior membership in the Communist Party and her lack of “perception, understanding, and judgment necessary in one who is to be entrusted with the responsibility for teaching the children of the Town, in 1954

The Battle of the Greasy Grass formally know as the Battle of Little Big Horn Where Sitting Bull and Crazy Horse successfully led Cheyenne and Lakota warriors against George Custer and 225 American cavalry, in 1876

The Battle of Greasy Grass, Allan Mardon, 1996. Oil on linen, 76 x 136 inches.

June 26th

1,000,000 people march in NYC to commemorate the 25th anniversary of the Stonewall Rebellion

Aime Cesaire, Martinique poet, politician, champion of the notion of “Negritude.”

Charlotte Zolotow, author of many wonderful children’s books that honor the emotional complexity of childhood including William’s Doll, and a long time editor of Children’s literature, b. 1916

Nancy Williard, elegant classicist and nature writer for children, including Sister Water, The Salt Marsh, A Visit to William Blakes Inn, and Pish, Posh said Heironymous Bosch, b. 1938

Walter Farley, author of The Black Stallion, b. 1922

Children’s game Candy Land trademark registered in 1951

June 27th

Helen Keller, socialist, suffragette, anti-war organizer, b. 1880

Emma Goldman, radical anarchist writer and activist, b. 1869