22 June

0000 This is the Winter Solstice in the southern hemisphere with the shortest day of the year followed by the longest night.

1675 King Charles II established the Royal Greenwich Observatory.

1944 President Franklin Roosevelt signed the Servicemen’s Re-adjustment Act, known as the GI Bill of Rights, to assure returning veterans of a smooth transition back to civilian life with low cost housing loans, unemployment benefits, start-up loans for small business, and funding for education. Soldiers returning from earlier wars often had great difficulty in starting over in civilian life. This bill’s purpose was materially to assist that adjustment. In so doing it transformed higher education from elite to mass because so many veterans used the allowance to go (back) to school.

1960 La Révolution tranquille began with the election of Jean Lesage’s Liberal government in Quebec. Lesage had been a protégé of Mackenzie King. English-speaking bankers in Montréal and Toronto would not buy Quebec bonds, so Lesage went to New York City for finance.

1973 Skylab astronauts splashed down safely in the Pacific Ocean after a record twenty-eight days in space. Skylab included a workshop, a solar observatory, and several hundred life science and physical science experiments. Two more manned missions boarded Skylab in July and November. Plans to stabilise its decaying orbit with a space shuttle mission were not realised in time to stop its re-entry in 1979. Some of the debris of re-entry fell on the property of Kate’s parents in West Australia and we have it framed on the wall. With that background she was keen to see the Skylab replica at the Johnson Space Center in Houston a couple of years ago. Very keen.

1986 Mexico City, Sports. Only a four months after the Falklands War, while tension remained high, Argentina and England met in the World Cup. Argentine Diego Maradona dribbled past five English defenders to score his second goal in a 2-1 win. This goal has been repeatedly voted the greatest one-man goal in World Cup history. Argentina when on to win the Cup in 1986. His ‘Mano de Dios’ goal was scored earlier in this game, and it is the one most closely associated with him. By the way the referees who allowed this goal to stand were from Sweden and Ghana.