June

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June  (listen) (help·info) is the sixth month of the year in the Julian and Gregorian calendars and one of the four months with a length of 30 days. Ovid provides two etymologies for June's name in his poem concerning the months entitled the Fasti. The first is that the month is named after the Roman goddess Juno, wife of Jupiter and equivalent to the Greek goddess Hera, whilst the second is that the name comes from the Latin word iuniores, meaning "younger ones," as opposed to maiores ("elders") for which the preceding month May is named (Fasti VI.1–88). See: Months in various calendars also called the season of the unicorn.

In both common and leap years, no other month begins on the same day of the week as June. This month and May are the only two months that have this property. June ends on the same day of the week as March every year.

June is the month with the longest daylight hours of the year in the Northern Hemisphere and the shortest daylight hours of the year in the Southern Hemisphere.

June in the Northern Hemisphere is the seasonal equivalent to December in the Southern Hemisphere and vice versa.

In the Northern hemisphere, the beginning of the meteorological summer is 1 June. In the Southern hemisphere, the beginning of the meteorological winter is 1 June.

At the start of June, the sun rises in the constellation of Taurus; at the end of June, the sun rises in the constellation of Gemini. However, due to the precession of the equinoxes, June begins with the sun in the astrological sign of Gemini, and ends with the sun in the astrological sign of Cancer.

June is known for the large number of marriages that occur over the course of the month. According to one etymology, June is named after Juno (Hera). Juno was the goddess of marriage and a married couple's household, so some consider it good luck to be married in this month.^[1]

In Iceland, folklore says that if you bathe naked in the morning dew on the morning of June 24, you are supposed to keep aging at bay for longer.

June is considered in modern usage to be the generic term used for the sixth calender month, and thus can be used as a non-proper noun.

Events in June

June, from the Très riches heures du duc de Berry

June, Leandro Bassano

Trooping the Colour is celebrated in June in London

• Festa della Repubblica Italian Republic Day is celebrated in Italy on the second of June each year. The day commemorates the institutional referendum held by universal suffrage in 1946.
• Adur festival The first two weeks of June every year.
• Madaraka Day June 1 to commemorate when Kenya gained internal self-rule.
• Flag Days of Sweden (June 6), United States (June 14—see Flag Day in the United States), Denmark (June 15), Argentina (June 20), and Romania (June 26).
• D-Day landings by Allied forces in Normandy, June 6, 1944.
• Primož Trubar Day, on 8 June, a public holiday in Slovenia in commemoration of the birth of the founder of the Slovene literary language, who was according to some sources born on 8 June 1508
• Kamehameha Day, on June 11, is a state holiday in Hawaii, US, honoring the first ruler of the one-time kingdom.
• Philippine Independence Day is on June 12.
• Feast of St. Anthony of Padua June 13
• United Kingdom – Trooping the Colour (Military celebration of the monarch's official birthday held in London on the second Saturday of June)
• Bloomsday in Ireland and worldwide for fans of James Joyce's Ulysses is June 16
• Youth Day in South Africa June 16
• The Comrades in South Africa June 16.
• Juneteenth, (aka Freedom Day or Emancipation Day) primarily in Texas June 19,
• "Martyrs Day" in Eritrea June 20
• West Virginia Day in the U.S. state of West Virginia June 20.
• The solstice called the summer solstice in the northern hemisphere and the winter solstice in the southern hemisphere occurs on dates varying from 20 June to 21 June (in UTC). In the pagan wheel of the year the summer solstice is the time of Litha and the winter solstice is that of Yule.
• Feast of the Birth of St. John the Baptist (Saint-Jean-Baptiste Day in Quebec) June 24.
• Statehood Day (Slovenia) in Slovenia June 25
• Feast of St. Peter and St. Paul, principal patrons of the Roman Catholic Church, June 29
• Mother's Day (in Luxembourg on the second Sunday in June)
• Father's Day (in Belgium on the second Sunday in June)(in the United States, the United Kingdom, Mexico, Venezuela, the Netherlands, Ireland and Canada on the third Sunday in June)
• Midsummer is celebrated in Finland and Sweden on the third Friday in June.
• Gay pride celebrations take place in many countries in honour of the Stonewall riots.
• The majority of the Portland Rose Festival occurs.
• The first Monday in June is one of the public holidays in the Republic of Ireland; in the Irish Calendar the month is called Meitheamh and is the middle month of the summer season. Secondary schools are off during the month (and also July and August), while June is the last month in primary schools.
• The second Sunday in June is Canadian Rivers Day.
• Children's Day celebrated in many eastern European countries including Portugal, Poland, Slovakia, Romania as well as China and other countries throughout the world.
• Almost all of interleague play in baseball occurs in this month, with 15 of the 18 interleague games occurring this month. The other three are played on the third weekend in May (Fri-Sun).
• Caribbean-American Heritage Month (United States)
• Bike month in the Lower mainland in British Columbia, Canada
• Independence day (June 17) in Iceland
• Fishermansday (first Sunday in June) celebrating the work of fishermen and those lost at sea. (Iceland)
• June is Black Music Month
• In the United States June is LGBT Pride Month.
• June 12 is Philippine's Independence Day

June symbols

Red and white roses

• June's birthstones are the pearl, the Moonstone (gemstone), and the Alexandrite. The meaning is health and longevity.
• Its birth flowers are the honeysuckle and the rose.^[2]
• The horoscope for June is Gemini (astrology) or Cancer (astrology).

References

Wikiquote has a collection of quotations related to: June

Look up june in Wiktionary, the free dictionary.

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