There is so much happening in the natural world, during the month of July. The Thunder Full Moon is July 21st, referencing the propensity for those afternoon thunderstorms in the Northeast during the month of July. Animals take advantage of the abundance of food, and everything luxuriates in the long, warm summer days. July is a time of growing maturity within the plant and animal world here in New England. And while some animals are still laying eggs and having babies, many baby animals have already begun to fly, find their own food, and venture out on their own. Plants, including milkweed, are flowering and many insects have matured and started the cycle of the life again by having babies. Whereas fish, amphibians and reptiles are mostly “hardwired,” and are quickly able to find their own food and fend for themselves, birds and mammals often depend on instruction and guidance from their parents. Dependence, independence and interdependence mean different things for plants, animals and people. “From the river to the coastline/from the mountain to the forest/every living being from wolf to tortoise/fin, fur and feather, we’re all together/this land was made for you and me.”
In the United States we celebrate Independence Day commemorating the founding of the United States of America and freedom from the English crown. What it means to grow, mature, learn and be free in relation to others and the conditions that shape our lives means different things in different cultures, communities, families and individuals. As children grow and learn, they discover that psychological, intellectual and political freedom are interconnected, but are not the same thing. Children develop different notions of what it means “to be free.” Human beings are “conditionally” free, i.e. they react, act, and reflect on the different “conditions” that shape and inform their lives. It is safe to say that in encountering, living with, and learning about one another and other forms of life, we expand our sense of human potential, what it means to be human, and what it means to be free. On a more personal level, I remember as a child trying to assert my freedom in some particular way ( not going to bed?), and my father at the same time trying to assert his control, by ironically quoting A.S. Neil ( the great architect of the “free school”) and yelling “Freedom NOT LICENSE.” There is of course the great philosophical, political and practical problem of freedom “FROM” certain limiting constraints, and freedom “TO” create something new, create a better school, or create a better society. Exploring how individuals grow and mature within different ecosystems, webs of interdependence, and vehicles of oppression and liberation, provides a thought provoking and rich context for how we, as human beings, can mature, learn, find freedom and meaning, and continue to grow throughout our whole lives.
July 1st
Canada Day
Silly Putty trademarked in 1952
Emily Arnold McCully, illustrator, children’s book author, writer of Mirette on the Highwire, b. 1939
Mary Calderone , physician and first medical director of Planned Parenthood, b. 1904
The Walkman, a portable audio cassette player, makes its first appearance in stores in Japan
Missy Elliot, rapper, songwriter, producer, b. 1971
Milkweed flowering
July 2nd
Patrice Lumumba, Congo Independence activist, b. 1925
Jean Craighead George, children’s author, naturalist, and write of many books including, My Side of the Mountain and Julie with the Wolves
Sylvia Rivera, feminist, community worker, drag queen, fought tirelessly for gender/queer equality, b.1951
Vermont officially abolished slavery in its constitution in 1777
Africans on the Cuban ship Amistad rose up against their captors and seized control of the ship that was transporting them to slavery, in 1839
Alligator falls out of the sky in Charlestown, South Carolina during thunderstorm in 1843
July 3rd
Franz Kafka, writer of the suffering, alienation, and confusions of modern life, b. 1925
Dave Barry, humorist and young adult children’s writer, b. in 1947
The USS Vincennes mistakenly shoots down a civilian airplane from Iran killing all 290 people aboard, in 1988
Sac Spider builds a nursery for her young, dies, and as a corpse, provides the first food for her babies (https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=UKiAXDmDJpg)
July 4th
United States Independence Day
Booker T. Washington founded The Tuskegee Normal and Industrial Institute in 1881
Rube Goldberg, inventor , engineer and political cartoonist, famous for the Rube Goldberg machine, which uses a series of moving parts to perform simple tasks, thus responsible for the delightful children’s game Mousetrap.
Freedom of Information Act in the US is signed into Law providing for the disclosure of government information to the public, in 1966
Alice In Wonderland published, 1865
Barred Owls are fledging ( developing wing feathers) at five weeks ( confusingly enough the process of raising a baby bird until it is able to fly is also called fledging) . The baby owl will be able to actually fly 5-6 weeks later.
July 5th
Andrew Ellicott Douglas invented the dendrochronology method that is used for tree ring dating, b. 1867
National Labor Relations Act was signed into Law in 1935
Dolly the Sheep first live cloned mammal is “born” in 1966
P.T. Barnum, American businessman founded Ringling Brothers, Barnum and Bailey Circus, in 1810
New Moon
July 6th
US backed militia force King of Hawaii to sign constitution, stripping native people of rights in 1887
Frida Kahlo, Mexican painter and communist, b. 1907
14th Dalai Lama, current Tibetan spiritual leader since 1950, b. 1935
Common Loon eggs hatching
July 7th
James Baldwin’s, (author of “Talk to Teachers”) The Fire Next Time tops the bestseller list in 1963
Nikki Giovanni, African American poet, children’s writer, activist, author of the children’s book of poems “I Am Loved” and the necessary “Racism 101”, b. 1943
Marc Chagall, Russian-French, early modernist painter, b. 1877
Mary Harris “Mother” Jones began the “March of the Mill Children” to protest child labor and exploitation
Sandra Day O’Connor is the first woman to be appointed to the Supreme Court of the US, 1981
Common wood nymph butterflies mating
July 8th
National Congress of American Indians wins a court battle to prevent states having jurisdiction over tribes, in 1954
Kathe Kollwitz, German painter, printmaker, sculptor, who used her art to depict the devastating effects of of war, poverty, and hunger on people, b. 1867
Hawaii was annexed to the U.S. in 1898
Ernst Bloch, Marxist utopian theorist, philosopher of radical hope, b. 1875
July 9th
Sculpture of King George in Bowling Green NY melted down to make bullets for the revolution in 1776
Nikola Tesla, Croation electrical engineer who invented the radio, X-rays, vacuum tube amplifiers alternating current, and much more, reshaped the world of electrical engineering, b. 1856
Nancy Farmer, former chemist an insect pathology technician, writes futuristic, fantastical adventures like House of the Scorpion for young people, born in 1941
The Fourteenth Amendment to the Constitution, which guarantees “equal protection” under the law, adopted in 1868
July 10th
Mildred Wirt Benson, journalist and author of many of the earliest Nancy Drew novels, b. in 1901
Nicolas Guillen, leader of the Afro-Cuban poetry movement, b. 1902
Paper Wasps exchange food; adults capture insects, feed them to their larvae that can eat them and then the larvae release a nutrient rich saliva that the adults in turn eat
Greenpeace ship ,the Rainbow Warrior, bombed and sunk by French government operatives, killing photographer Fernando Pereira, 1985
July 11th
American Indian Movement (AIM) established in 1968
Patricia Pollaco, renowned children’s author, who blends folk tales, emotional realism, and family stories, b. 1944
E.B. White, children’s author of Stuart Little, Charlotte’s Web, and The Trumpet of the Swan, b. 1899
July 12th
Henry David Thoreau, naturalist, essayist, poet, philosopher, proponent of civil disobedience, b. 1817
Johanna Spyri, author of Heidi, b.1897
Buckminster Fuller, American architect, futurist, invented the geodesic dome, b. 1895
Pablo Neruda, Chilean poet who explored love politics and everyday life, b. 1904
“Now for another fluvial ( mud) walk…It is an objection to walking in the mud that from time to time you have to pick the leeches off you” Thoreau’s Animals” July 12th , 1852
July 13th
Marcia Brown, author and illustrator of beautiful retellings of traditional folktales and fairytales, b.1918
Erno Rubik, Hungarian inventor of the Rubik’s Cube, b. 1944
Indian Pipe plants are flowering, and since they lack chlorophyll they get energy from fungi through their roots
July 14th
Bastille Day ( France) celebrates the fall of the despised Bastille State Prison, in 1789
Under the presidency of Donald Trump, unidentified federal cops force protestors into unmarked vans in Portland Oregon, in 2020
Peggy Parish, author of the Amelia Bedilia books, b. 1927
Gustav Klimt, Austrian symbolist painter, primarily known for ( among other things) his lush, erotic portraits of the female body, b. 1862
Woody Guthrie, folksinger, advocate for the poor and the downtrodden, chronicler of the lives and the land of the peoples of North America, b. 1912
Shark Awareness Day
July 15th
BP Oil spill contained after leaking 4.9 million barrels for three months into the Gulf of Mexico and killing 11 people, 2010
Aldus Page Maker, the first desktop publishing program, shipped to consumers in 1985
The Longest Walk, a transcontinental walk for Native American justice, https://www.zinnedproject.org/news/tdih/longest-walk-ends/ ended in 1978
The Rosetta Stone, an ancient Egyptian rock inscribed with a decree by King Ptolemy V in hieroglyphic, demotic and Greek languages, discovered in 1799
Jacques Derrida, important literary, cultural critic who founded the movement of critical deconstruction, b. 1930
From the moment they are born baby skunks are able to protect themselves by using their musk filled anal glands to spray toward anything that threatens them ( babies only have a teaspoon or two of musk when they are born)
July 16th
First Atomic explosion at Alamogordo, NM, 1945
J.D. Salinger publishes Catcher in the Rye, in 1951
Amazon sells its first book in 1995
Ida B. Wells, Journalist, writer, African American Civill Rights Activist, b. 1862
World Snake Day
July 17
Eric Garnier says “I can’t breathe,” before he is choked to death during an arrest by police in NYC, 2014
Great Blue Heron Nestlings are growing and will soon be flying
Disneyland opens its doors for the first time in 1955
July 18th
8,000 “low-caste” Indians in Mumbai riot after funeral for 10 children killed by police, in 1997
Green Frog Tadpoles are changing inside and out as they complete their metamorphosis into mature frogs
Felicia Bond, illustrator of the If You Give A Mouse a Cookie, among many others, b. 1954
Robert Hooke, English physicist, wrote Micrographia about all the minute things he could see by using a microscope, b. 1635
July 19th
Victory for the Sandinista led revolution in Nicaragua in 1979 . The slogan was arriba los pobres del mundo—raise up the poor of the world. The actual “outcome” of the revolution remains to be determined.
Nelson Mandela, South African politician, fought to end apartheid, and succeeded, b. 1918
Seneca Falls Convention, one of the first women’s rights conventions to be held in American history began in 1848
Turkey Vultures keep cool on hot summer days by defecating on their legs. Evaporation cools the birds while strong acids kill bacteria that accumulates on the birds’ bodies from eating dead animals
July 20th
Kenneth Grahame, author of The Wind and the Willows, b. 1859
Martin Provenson, husband of Alice Provenson, wrote and illustrated over 40 children’s books with her, while crafting a unique artistic style that was true combination of their individual talents, b. 1916
Frantz Fanon, psychiatrist, cultural theorist, political philosopher, who wrote The Wretched of the Earth, and Black Skin White Masks and who explored the psychopathology of colonization and cultural efforts at decolonization
International Chess Day
Juvenile Bald Eagles are learning to fly
July 21st
Rail workers burn yards, drive troops from city, after city cops kill 26 striking workers in Pittsburg, PA, in 1877
The first robot-related fatality in the United States occurred when a factory robot in Jackson, Michigan crushed a 34 year old worker
Elizabeth Key became the first woman of African descent to sue for her freedom and win, in 1656
Marshall McLuhan, Canadian author, theorist, semiotician, who came up with the slogan “the medium is the message,” b. 1911
Red Fox kits are growing up
July 22
Alexander Calder, sculptor, primarily known for his mobiles, , b. 1898
Monarch Butterfly eggs are hatching into caterpillars
Amy Vanderbilt, author of The Complete Book of Etiquette, b. 1908
July 23
Start of seven day riot in Detroit, after police raided an illegal after hours drinking club that was the site of a welcome home party for two, returning, African American Vietnam war veterans, that resulted in 43 dead, 467 wounded, and 388 homeless.
International Whaling Commission bans commercial whale hunting after 1986, in 1982 (Iceland, Norway, Japan, and some Native Nations, still actively engage in whaling)
First public swimming pool opens in Boston, in 1827
Common Loon Chicks are learning to catch prey
July 24
Amelia Earhart, American aviator, was the first woman to pilot across the Atlantic, b. 1898
Twelve year old Santos Rodriguez was killed by police when an officer forced the boy and his friend to play Russian Roulette to try and get him to confess to a crime in 1973
July 25
Svetlana Savitskaya becomes the first woman to walk in space, 1984
Louise Joy Brown was the world’s first test-tube baby, through in-vitro fertilization, to be conceived, in 1968
Juvenile Green Herons are becoming independent
July 26
Americans with Disabilities Act passed into law in 1990
Carl Jung, Swiss psychologist, invented “Jungian psychology” (comprised of the ego, the individual unconscious, and the collective unconscious, which is made up of “universal” archetypes), explored the shadow self and self acceptance, and was instrumental in the conceptual birth of Alcoholics Anonymous, b. 1875
Aldous Huxley, English sci-fi writer, author of Brave New World, b. 1894
James Lovelock, English scientist and futurist known for proposing the Gaia hypothesis that understands the Earth as a kind of super-organism, b. 1919
The country of Liberia was founded primarily by freed enslaved Africans from the United States in 1847
Jean Luc Nancy, political philosopher, who explored the ground of different communities, and in the “Inoperative Community” theorized community as neither a collection of individuals, nor a single thing, but a being-with, b. 1940
July 27th
Paul Janeczko, writer and anthologist of poems for children and guides to teachers on how to help children read and write poetry, b. 1945
Canadian scientists Frederick Banting and Charles Best isolated insulin, and within a year, the first human sufferers of diabetes were receiving insulin treatments
Gary Gygax, American game designer, who co-invented the “Dungeons and Dragons” roleplaying game, b. 1938
Bugs Bunny makes his debut in “A Wild Hare,” in 1940
July 28th
Beatrix Potter, children’s author and illustrator, conservationist, naturalist, farmer, who wrote Peter Rabbit, Squirrel Nutkin and many other wonderful stories, b. 1866
W.E. B. Dubois and the NAACP organized a silent march down 5th Avenue in New York tp the massacres and lynching of African Americans in 1917
Dragonflies mating
July 29th
Kathleen Krull, writes biographies about very interesting people like Jim Henson and Harry Houdini for young people, b. 1952
Jenny Holzer, neo-conceptual artist, primarily interested in the delivery of words and ideas in public spaces, b. 1950
July 30th
Marcus Pfister is a Swedish author who writes the immensely popular Rainbow Fish books, b. 1960
The Monopoly board game was copyright registered in 1933 and Charles Darrow was the first millionaire game designer when he sold the patent to Parker Brothers
Jean Baudrilliard, French cultural and media theorist, who theorized post modern society as the age of the simulacrum, b. 1929
July 31
J.K. Rowling author of the Harry Potter series of books, b. 1965
Spring Peepers metamorphosing from tadpoles into their “adult” bodies
