Local
2019: Salt Lake gets a weather observatory under the India Meteorology Department on June 11. Named Meteorological Observatory Salt Lake, the Sector V centre measures maximum and minimum temperature, humidity, rainfall etc. This is the third of its kind in the city after the ones in Alipore and Dum Dum.
Prasanta Chandra Mahalanobis Sourced by the Telegraph
National
1893: Prasanta Chandra Mahalanobis is born on June 29. He grows up to become a statistician and scientist, discovering the Mahalanobis distance — a statistical measure — founding the Indian Statistical Institute and is remembered for his role in the Planning Commission of free India. Mahalanobis dies in 1972, also in the month of June, a day before his 79th birthday.
1947: The Bengal Legislative Assembly meets on June 20 to decide the future of the Bengal Presidency. Voting is conducted to decide whether the land is to go to India or Pakistan as a whole or divided as per east and west Bengal, based on religion and allotted to the two countries. Finally the east goes to Pakistan and the west to India.
1981: A passenger train travelling through Bihar gets derailed and plunges into the Bagmati river from atop a bridge, killing about 800 people on board. The June 6 accident proves to be the deadliest rail accident in history. Experts say it may have been the result of a cyclone, flash flood or brake failure while trying to avoid hitting a cow on the tracks.
Tunguska event Sourced by the Telegraph
Global
1908: The largest impact event on Earth in recorded history takes place in Siberia on June 30. Called Tunguska event, the explosion flattens about 80 million trees over an area of 2,150km² of forest and kills three people in a sparsely populated land. Since no impact crater is found, the reason is thought to be an air-burst meteoroid.
1941: Soviet anthropologists exhume the body of Timur, who founded the 14th century Timurid Empire around what would later be Afghanistan, Iran and central Asia, on June 19. His tomb and casket apparently had inscriptions, cursing that opening his tomb would unleash an invader even more terrible than himself. Three days later Adolf Hitler launches Operation Barbarossa, the largest military invasion of all time, upon the Soviet Union.
2001: Nkosi Johnson, HIV and AIDS awareness activist and himself a patient, dies on June 1. The South African first made headlines when a primary school refused to admit him due to his condition. Together with his adoptive mother, Nkosi began an institute for HIV-positive mothers and children. At the time of his death, he was the longest-surviving HIV-positive born person in South Africa. He was 12.
Sports & entertainment
1962: A FIFA World Cup soccer match between Chile and Italy proves to be so violent that it is dubbed the Battle of Santiago, after the Chilean capital where it takes place on June 2. The first foul occurs 12 seconds after kick-off and players spit, punch and kick one another. Injuries include a broken nose. Police has to intervene four times, including dragging out a player who refuses to leave the ground after being sent off. Chile wins 2-0.
1964: Sangam, released on June 18, becomes the first Hindi film to be screened in theatres with two intervals. This is because of the film’s unusually long runtime — three hours and 58 minutes. Starring Raj Kapoor, Vyjayanthimala and Rajendra Kumar, the film is a big hit.
1984: Russian software engineer Alexey Pajitnov creates a tile-matching video game on June 6. He presents it to his colleagues who soon get addicted to it. Within weeks the game spreads to every institute in Moscow that has a computer and has to be banned at some places to restore worker productivity. The game, Tetris, goes on to become one of the best-selling video game franchises of all time.
What is your most treasured personal memory of June? Write to The Telegraph Salt Lake, 6 Prafulla Sarkar Street, Calcutta 700001 or email to saltlake@abpmail.com
