This is your morning Open Thread. Pour your favorite beverage and review the past and comment on the future.
Find the past “On This Day in History” here.
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June 28 is the 179th day of the year (180th in leap years) in the Gregorian calendar. There are 186 days remaining until the end of the year.
In common years it is always in ISO week 26.
This date is the only date each year where both the month and day are different perfect numbers, June 6 being the only date where the month and day are the same perfect number.
On this day in 1919, Keynes predicts economic chaos
At the Palace of Versailles outside Paris, Germany signs the Treaty of Versailles with the Allies, officially ending World War I. The English economist John Maynard Keynes, who had attended the peace conference but then left in protest of the treaty, was one of the most outspoken critics of the punitive agreement. In his The Economic Consequences of the Peace, published in December 1919, Keynes predicted that the stiff war reparations and other harsh terms imposed on Germany by the treaty would lead to the financial collapse of the country, which in turn would have serious economic and political repercussions on Europe and the world.
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A decade later, Hitler would exploit this continuing bitterness among Germans to seize control of the German state. In the 1930s, the Treaty of Versailles was significantly revised and altered in Germany’s favor, but this belated amendment could not stop the rise of German militarism and the subsequent outbreak of World War II.
In the late 1930s, John Maynard Keynes gained a reputation as the world’s foremost economist by advocating large-scale government economic planning to keep unemployment low and markets healthy. Today, all major capitalist nations adhere to the key principles of Keynesian economics. He died in 1946.
Governments ignore Keynes at their own peril.
1098 – Fighters of the First Crusade defeat Kerbogha of Mosul.
1461 – Edward IV is crowned King of England.
1519 – Charles V is elected Emperor of the Holy Roman Empire.
1635 – Guadeloupe becomes a French colony.
1776 – American Revolutionary War: Fort Moultrie is attacked during the Battle of Sullivan’s Island; this event is commemorated in Carolina Day.
1776 – American Revolutionary War: Thomas Hickey, Continental Army private and bodyguard to General George Washington, is hanged for mutiny and sedition.
1778 – American Revolutionary War: Battle of Monmouth is fought between the American Continental Army under George Washington and the British Army led by Sir Henry Clinton.
1807 – Second British invasion of the Rio de la Plata; John Whitelock lands at Ensenada on an attempt to recapture Buenos Aires and is defeated by the locals.
1816 – Execution of participants in the Ely and Littleport riots 1816.
1838 – Coronation of Victoria of the United Kingdom.
1841 – The Paris Opera Ballet premieres Giselle in the Salle Le Peletier
1846 – The saxophone is patented by Adolphe Sax in Paris, France.
1859 – The first conformation dog show is held in Newcastle-upon-Tyne, England.
1865 – The Army of the Potomac is disbanded.
1880 – The Australian bushranger Ned Kelly is captured at Glenrowan.
1881 – Secret treaty between Austria and Serbia.
1882 – The Anglo-French Convention of 1882 marks the territorial boundaries between Guinea and Sierra Leone.
1883 – In Milan in Italy inaugurated the first central European electricity power station.
1894 – Labor Day becomes an official US holiday.
1895 – El Salvador, Honduras and Nicaragua form the Greater Republic of Central America.
1895 – Court of Private Land Claims rules James Reavis’ claim to Barony of Arizona is “wholly fictitious and fraudulent”.
1896 – An explosion in the Newton Coal Company’s Twin Shaft Mine in Pittston City, Pennsylvania results in a massive cave-in that kills 58 miners.
1902 – The U.S. Congress passes the Spooner Act, authorizing President Theodore Roosevelt to acquire rights from Colombia for the Panama Canal.
1904 – The SS Norge runs aground and sinks
1914 – Franz Ferdinand, Archduke of Austria and his wife Sophie are assassinated in Sarajevo by young Serbian nationalist Gavrilo Princip, the casus belli of World War I.
1919 – The Treaty of Versailles is signed in Paris, formally ending World War I between Belgium, Britain, France, Italy, the United States and allies on the one side and Germany and Austria-Hungary on the other side.
1921 – Serbian King Alexander I proclaimed the new constitution of the Kingdom of Serbs, Croats and Slovenes, known thereafter as the Vidovdan Constitution.
1922 – The Irish Civil War begins with the shelling of the Four Courts in Dublin by Free State forces.
1936 – The Japanese puppet state of Mengjiang is formed in northern China.
1940 – Romania cedes Bessarabia (current-day Moldova) to the Soviet Union.
1942 – Nazi Germany started its strategic summer offensive against the Soviet Union, codenamed Case Blue
1948 – The Cominform circulates the “Resolution on the situation in the Communist Party of Yugoslavia”; Yugoslavia is expelled from the Communist bloc.
1948 – Boxer Dick Turpin beats Vince Hawkins at Villa Park in Birmingham to become the first black British boxing champion in the modern era.
1950 – Seoul is captured by North Korean troops.
1964 – Malcolm X forms the Organization of Afro-American Unity.
1967 – Israel annexes East Jerusalem.
1969 – Stonewall Riots begin in New York City marking the start of the Gay Rights Movement.
1973 – Elections are held for the Northern Ireland Assembly, which will lead to power-sharing between unionists and nationalists in Northern Ireland for the first time.
1976 – The Angolan court sentenced US and UK mercenaries to death sentences and prison terms in the Luanda Trial.
1978 – The United States Supreme Court, in Regents of the University of California v. Bakke bars quota systems in college admissions.
1981 – A powerful bomb explodes in Tehran, killing 73 officials of Islamic Republic Party.
1983 – The Mianus River Bridge collapses over the Mianus River in Connecticut, killing 3 drivers in their vehicles.
1989 – The 600th anniversary of the Battle of Kosovo. Serbian leader Slobodan Milosevic delivers the Gazimestan speech at the site of the historic battle.
1990 – Paperback Software International Ltd. is found liable by a U.S. court for copyright violation for copying the appearance and menu system of Lotus 1-2-3 in its competing spreadsheet program.
1992 – The Constitution of Estonia is signed into law.
1994 – Members of the Aum Shinrikyo cult release sarin gas in Matsumoto, Japan; 7 persons are killed, 660 injured.
1996 – The Constitution of Ukraine is signed into law.
1997 – Mike Tyson vs Evander Holyfield II – Tyson is disqualified in the 3rd round for biting a piece off Holyfield’s ear.
2001 – Slobodan Milosevic deported to ICTY to stand trial.
2004 – Sovereign power is handed to the interim government of Iraq by the Coalition Provisional Authority, ending the U.S.-led rule of that nation.
2005 – War in Afghanistan: Three U.S. Navy SEALs and 16 American Special Operations Forces soldiers are killed during Operation Red Wing, a failed counter-insurgent mission in Kunar province, Afghanistan.
2006 – The Republic of Montenegro is admitted as the 192nd Member of the United Nations by General Assembly.
2009 – Honduran president Manuel Zelaya is ousted by a local military coup following a failed request to hold a referendum to rewrite the Honduran Constitution. This was the start of the 2009 Honduran political crisis.
* Christian Feast Day:
* Benignus
* Irenaeus of Lyon (Roman Catholic)
* Paulus I
* Vincenza Gerosa
* Vidovdan, celebrating St. Vitus (Eastern Orthodox Church)
* June 28 (Eastern Orthodox liturgics)
* Soviet Occupation Day (Moldova)