Holidays and commemorative dates:
Ivan Kupala (John’s Day, Kupala Night) is one of the most important holidays in the Slavic calendar, which coincides with the Christmas of John the Baptist, who baptized Jesus Christ in the Jordan River. The traditions of the holiday include various rites such as gathering herbs and flowers, weaving wreaths, decorating buildings with greenery, lighting bonfires, destroying scarecrows, jumping over fire or green bouquets, pouring water, fortune-telling, witch-hunting, and nightly revelry.
Since ancient times, Ivan Kupala has been celebrated as a holiday of the Sun, mature summer and green mowing. People tied themselves with flowers, wore wreaths, led dances and sang songs. Older people produced “living fire” by rubbing dry sticks, lit bonfires, in the center of which they placed a pole with a burning wheel, which symbolized the Sun. These celebrations originated in pagan times in honor of the Sun God and his wife, the light-bearing Zaryada, the red maiden. After the transition to the New Julian calendar, Ivan Kupala is celebrated on June 24, or more precisely, on the night of June 24. In European countries, St. John’s Day or St. John’s Day is celebrated during the summer solstice.
Pool day – every year on June 24, the world celebrates an unofficial but very pleasant holiday – Swimming Pool Day. This holiday is not only about sports, because swimming brings joy to everyone.
International Fairy Day – this is a holiday for everyone who believes in the world of fairies, both children and adults. It is also an opportunity to immerse yourself in history, folk tales and traditions where fairies have always been important characters.
Events on this day:
1901 – the first exhibition of Pablo Picasso opened in Paris in the gallery on rue Lafitte.
1917 – Volodymyr Vynnychenko announced the text of the First Universal of the Central Rada, adopted the day before, in Sofia Square in Kyiv.
1947 – UFOs were officially reported for the first time.
1973 – 90-year-old Eamon de Valera, the oldest statesman in the world, who helped Ireland gain independence from Great Britain, resigned as president of Ireland.
1934 – the capital of the republic was moved from Kharkiv to Kyiv by decision of the People’s Committee of the Ukrainian SSR. On the same day, the relocation of the highest state and Communist Party institutions began, on the occasion of which celebrations and a military parade were held in the new capital.
On January 18, 1934, the second secretary of the Central Committee of the Communist Party of Ukraine and at the same time the first secretary of the Kharkiv Regional Committee Pavlo Postyshev raised the official question of returning the capital of Soviet Ukraine to Kyiv at the plenum of the Central Committee of the CP(b)U. The latter reported that the Central Committee of the CPSU(b) and Comrade Stalin personally proposed to move the capital from Kharkiv to Kyiv.
Some are of the opinion that initially Kyiv was supposed to become the capital of the Ukrainian SSR, and Kharkiv received the prerogative by accident. There is also an assumption that Kyiv did not receive the status of the capital right away because it did not initially support the Bolsheviks.
Kharkiv received the status of the capital in December 1917. But already in January of the following year, everything changed: the Donetsk-Kryvorizka Soviet Republic appeared. Only on December 19, 1919, with the creation of the Ukrainian SSR, the city was returned to its former title. Then Kharkiv became the center of political, economic and cultural life of the republic for 15 years.
1941 – with the aim of “unloading the prisons of the Lviv region from counter-revolutionary, criminal-political elements”, 2,072 people were shot in three Lviv prisons.
1963 – Zanzibar gained independence from Great Britain.
1982 – Jean-Louis Chrétien became the first French cosmonaut to fly to the Salyut-7 orbital station on the Soviet Soyuz-T6. Together with Soviet cosmonauts Dzhanibekov and Ivanchenkov, Chretien spent 7 days, 21 hours and 51 minutes in space. After returning to Earth, he became the fifth Frenchman to receive the title of Hero of the Soviet Union.
1985 – the US premiere of the movie “Cocoon” directed by Ron Howard, about a group of elderly people who were “healed” by extraterrestrials.
1998 – The Constitutional Court of Turkey decided to no longer consider adultery a crime for women. Before that, adultery went unpunished for men, while a woman could receive up to three years in prison.
2004 – the death penalty was declared unconstitutional in the state of New York.
2010 – the new leader of the ruling Labor Party in Australia and the 27th prime minister of the country for the first time became a woman – Julia Gillard. She resigned from her position on June 27, 2013.
2011 – the trial of the former Prime Minister of Ukraine Yulia Tymoshenko in the case of concluding a gas contract with Russia on January 19, 2009 began in the Pechersk District Court of Kyiv. On October 11, 2011, the court found Tymoshenko guilty under Part 3 of Art. 365 of the Criminal Code (abuse of power and official authority) and sentenced her to seven years in prison with a ban on holding public office for three years. The court also satisfied the civil lawsuit of Naftogaz of Ukraine, which demanded Tymoshenko to compensate damages in the amount of 1.516 billion hryvnias (189.5 million US dollars).
