June 30th

Feast Day of St Martial. Saint Martial was the first bishop of Limoges in today's France,according to a lost vita of Saturnin, first bishop of Toulouse, which Gregory of Tours quotes in his History of the Franks.. Saint Martial also became associated with Saint Valerie of Limoges, a legendary martyr of the 3rd or 4th centuries, who is said to have carried her head to him after decapitation.

1685 English poet and playwright John Gay, author of The Beggar's Opera (1728), was born in Barnstaple. His characters, including Captain Macheath and Polly Peachum, became household names.

"How the mother is to be pitied who has handsome daughters! Locks, bolts, bars and lectures of morality are nothing to them – they break through them all.”  
“A man is always afraid of a woman that loves him too much”  

1704 English pirate John Quelch was executed.  Quelch had a lucrative but very brief career of about one year. His chief claim to historical significance is that he was the first person to be tried for piracy outside England under Admiralty Law and thus without a jury. Before he was hanged, Quelch stepped up while holding his hat and bowed to the spectators. He also gave a short address and warned them, "They should take care how they brought Money into New England to be Hanged for it." He was 38yo.



1859 French acrobat Charles Blondin crosses Niagara Falls on a tightrope. He repeated the feat a number of times thereafter, always with different theatrical variations: blindfolded, in a sack, trundling a wheelbarrow, on stilts, carrying a man (his manager, Harry Colcord) on his back, sitting down midway while he cooked and ate an omeletteand standing on a chair with only one chair leg on the rope.




1908 The Tunguska event occurs in remote Siberia. It is the largest impact event on or near Earth in recorded history. It is classified as an impact even though the asteroid or comet is believed to have burst in the air rather than hitting the surface. It is estimated that the Tunguska explosion knocked down some 80 million trees over an area of 2,150 square kilometres (830 sq mi), and that the shock wave from the blast would have measured 5.0 on the Richter scale. An explosion of this magnitude would be capable of destroying a large metropolitan area,but due to the remoteness of the location no fatalities were documented. This event has helped to spark discussion of asteroid impact avoidance.




1917 American actress and singer Susan Hayward was born at Brooklyn, New York.



After working as a fashion model in New York, Hayward traveled to Hollywood in 1937. She secured a film contract, and played several small supporting roles over the next few years. By the late 1940s, the quality of her film roles had improved, and she achieved recognition for her dramatic abilities with the first of five Academy Award nominations for Best Actress for her performance as an alcoholic in Smash-Up, the Story of a Woman (1947). Her career continued successfully through the 1950s and she received subsequent nominations for My Foolish Heart (1949), With a Song in My Heart (1952) and I'll Cry Tomorrow (1955). She finally won the Academy Award for Best Actress for her portrayal of death row inmate Barbara Graham in I Want to Live! (1958).




1917 American actress, singer, and dancer Lena Horne was born as Lena Mary Calhoun Horne in Brooklyn, New York. Horne joined the chorus of the Cotton Club at the age of sixteen and became a nightclub performer before moving to Hollywood, where she had small parts in numerous movies, and more substantial parts in the films Cabin in the Sky and Stormy Weather. Due to the Red Scare and her left-leaning political views, Horne found herself blacklisted and unable to get work in Hollywood.




1933 English cricketer Michael John Knight Smith, better known as M.J.K. Smith or Mike Smith, was born at  Westcotes, Leicestershire. He was one of England's most popular cricket captains and, as he also played rugby union, Smith was England's last double international.




1934 The Night of the Long Knives, Adolf Hitler's violent purge of his political rivals in Germany, takes place. Leading figures of the left-wing Strasserist faction of the Nazi Party, along with its figurehead, Gregor Strasser, were murdered, as were prominent conservative anti-Nazis (such as former Chancellor Kurt von Schleicher and Gustav Ritter von Kahr, who had suppressed Hitler's Beer Hall Putsch in 1923). Many of those killed were leaders of the Sturmabteilung (SA), the paramilitary brownshirts.





1939 English pianist, composer, and producer Tony Hatch was born at Pinner, Middlesex.




1963 English film, television and theatre actor Rupert Graves is born at Weston-super-Mare, Somerset, Graves's first job after leaving school was as a circus clown. He has appeared in over twenty-five films and over thirty-five television productions; including his more recent role as DI Lestrade in the television series "Sherlock".





1966 Retired Heavyweight boxer Mike Tyson was born in Brooklyn New York. Tyson is a former undisputed heavyweight champion of the world and holds the record as the youngest boxer to win the WBC, WBA and IBF heavyweight titles at 20 years, 4 months, and 22 days old.

Who's This Suarez Guy?

1973 English author Nancy Freeman-Mitford dird aged 68yo at Versailles France six months aafter being disgnosed with Hodgkin's lymphoma, a cancer of the blood. She was one of the renowned Mitford sisters and one of the "Bright Young People" on the London social scene in the inter-war years, and is best remembered for her novels about upper-class life in England and France, and for her sharp and often provocative wit.



1995 American actor and singer Gale Gordon died of lung cancer  at the Redwood Terrace Health Center in Escondido, California, aged 89. Gordon an American character actor perhaps best remembered as Lucille Ball's longtime television foil—and particularly as cantankerously combustible, tightfisted bank executive Theodore J. Mooney, on Ball's second television situation comedy, The Lucy Show. Gordon also had starring roles in Ball's third series Here's Lucy and her short-lived fourth series Life with Lucy. Gordon was also a respected radio actor.



.

2003 American comedian and actor Buddy Hackett died at Malibu, California, a week after suffering a stroke.  Notable roles he portrayed include Marcellus Washburn in The Music Man and Tennessee Steinmetz in The Love Bug.





World Cup News: Brazil continues to go wild over the World Cup. The home team once again showed their capacity to perform with their second draw from four games. England manager Roy Hodgson bemoaned ," Oh what I would weally give for two dwawers!"  Alleged superstriker, Wayne "Thatch" Rooney said, " Well our kid, I just winned the World Cup!I beat our Kai 5-1 in the final as Brazil on FIFA 14, whilst the Mrs unpacks them 115 bags she took to Brazil, phut, should have been like me, just took a carry on bag, knew I wouldn't be there long!"

Yeah! Another Draw!

I Said Wight!

Oh Fuck! Now I've Missed My Mouth Too!