Day Tripping: June 2

Crowning achievements

A Royal Ascent

In a traditional ceremony that has been held for 900 years, Elizabeth Windsor received the crown as Queen Elizabeth II at Westminster Abbey in 1953. For the first time in the history of the British monarchy, her coronation was televised to the world. Twenty-seven million Britons and millions more watched Elizabeth arrive by a horse-drawn Gold State Coach, wearing a white satin dress. Her husband, the Duke of Edinburgh, attended full-dress Navy uniform.

The three-hour service conducted by the Archbishop of Canterbury was also the first time that a former monarch, Queen Mary, was present for the coronation of a grandchild. Prince Charles was also the first Royal child to witness a mother’s ceremony. Queen Victoria’s granddaughter, Princess Marie Louise, was in attendance at her fourth coronation, having been present for Victoria, Edward VII in 1902, George V in 1911, and King George VI in 1937.

First Landing

Three years before Neil Armstrong’s famous ‘giant leap’, the unmanned Surveyor 1 Lunar Lander became the first American spacecraft to touchdown on the moon’s surface in 1966. The probe completed a soft landing in the vast crater known as Oceanus Procellarum, or ‘Ocean of Storms’, the dark lunar body that is always facing Earth. After a 63 hour flight and descent to the moon. Surveyor 1 sat down on its tripod legs and began collecting photographs, over 11,000 in all.

Also, shortly after landing, the probe started transmitting video back to Earth and continued to so for 12 days. Camera operation was performed remotely through radio commands, continuing to provide vital information until January 1967.

Sky High Winnings

The undisputed champion of game show television, Ken Jennings began his winning streak on this day in 2004. Appearing five days weekly on Jeopardy, Jennings won an astounding 74 matches in a row to earn $2,520,700 before finally being defeated on November 30, almost six months later. Ken answered over 2,900 correct questions during the run and accumulated an average of $33,000 per show.

Jennings’ streak has gone unbeaten and his winning ways continued when he also won a tournament of all-time champions to pad his total winnings to over $4.5 million. When show host Alex Trebek passed away from pancreatic cancer in 2020, Ken Jennings filled in admirably as a guest host for the hit show.

Musical Milestones

In 1989, fifty-two-year-old former bassist for The Rolling Stones, Bill Wyman married his eighteen-year-old girlfriend whom he’d been dating since she was thirteen. The marriage lasted nine months.

If that’s not crazy enough, four years later, Wyman’s son, aged 33, married his former bride's mother, 46.

Narratives

The music industry introduced Blackout Tuesday in 2020 as a response to unrest in the wake of George Floyd’s murder. Many artists and three major labels shut down for the day, replacing their homepages with the hashtag #TheShowMustBePaused.

In Floyd’s honour, Spotify inserted 8:46 minutes of silence in their program. Other streaming channels followed suit, and in the UK, BBC programmed an all-black artist playlist.

Remembrance

Ellas Otha Bates was an integral contributor to the dawn of the rock age through Blues. Better known to us all as Bo Diddley, his music influenced nearly every major rock-and-roll artist in Britain and America. He died in 2008 at 79.

Notable Births

1941 — Rolling Stones drummer Charlie Watts is 80-years-old today.

1955 — Former cast member of Saturday Night Live and funny film actor, Dana Carvey. “Party on Garth!”

1977 — Stepping into the shoes of Leonard Nimoy's Mr Spock, Zachary Quinto

K. Barrett Katie Wallace Maria Rattray Maryam Merchant Dr Mehmet Yildiz Tree Langdon Myriam Ben Salem Phil Truman Chelsea Mandler MAT Terry Mansfield Hollie Petit, PhD. Terry Trueman Dr Preeti Singh John Gruber Bill Abbate James G Brennan ScienceDuuude Marcus Liam Ireland Claire Kelly Noorain Hassan, BMS Amy Pierovich David Acaster Nora Thewriteyard David Perlmutter Joe Luca

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