weird and wacky holidays happening in June

June 16 is Ladies’ Day

ladies' day

It’s a good thing they changed the logo.

Today is Ladies’ Day, originally devised to attract women to baseball games and convert them into fans. In actuality, it was designed to sell more tickets by getting men to bring their wives and, by extension, their children to games. (While women wouldn’t win the right to cast a ballot for nearly 40 years, we hope they got a vote in this case.)

The New York Gothams’ management held the first Ladies’ Day on Tuesday, June 16, 1883, at the Polo Grounds in Manhattan. All women, both escorted and unescorted, were admitted free of charge. This was quite progressive for the time, since unescorted women were considered “loose” or “of ill repute.” The Gothams beat the Cleveland Spiders 5-2 that day. (The team later changed its name to the New York Giants.)

Ladies’ Day proved so popular that it became a weekly tradition for many ball clubs. As more women began to fill the grandstands, baseball games gradually evolved into a more family-oriented affair. Never underestimate the power of marketing to change the world.

Happy Ladies’ Day to one and all!

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June 15 is Magna Carta Day

magna carta dayMagna Carta Day, explained in the style of Jeff Spicoli:

In 1215, the king of England was a total wad, so a bunch of rich baron dudes got together and decided his divine right was bogus, so they drew up some cool rules they called the Great Charter until somebody said it sounded way more righteous in Latin. They took it to the king on June 15th and told him, “Sign it, or you’ll never party again,” which was a gnarly scene for a minute, but then he signed it. 

The Pope was not cool with that and said, “Later, dudes!” and kicked all the baron guys out of the church. But none of it matters anyhow because Julius Caesar’s calendar was a mess so we use a different one now, which means the Carta got signed on June 8th, but then, like, did it even happen?

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Buzzard Day

June 14, 2025, is Buzzard Day in Glendive, Montana, and neighboring Makoshika State Park, Montana’s largest park, which spans 11,538 acres at an elevation of 2,415 feet above sea level. It falls on the second Saturday of June and celebrates the return of turkey vultures to eastern Montana.

Buzzard Day

The name Makoshika (Ma-ko’-shi-ka) is derived from a Lakota phrase meaning bad land or bad earth. The park contains rock formations, the fossil remains of Tyrannosaurus Rex and Triceratops, and miles of hiking trails and scenic drives.

Buzzard Day
Today’s main event is Montana’s toughest 10k run. There will also be a 5k run, mini-train rides, and a cornhole tournament. Kids can participate in a fun run, play miniature golf, and jump in a bouncy house. Gomez, a turkey vulture, will visit from ZooMontana, a 70-acre wildlife park in Billings that is the state’s only zoo.

Gomez at ZooMontana

A “Native American Heritage Display” will be on view. Since a 2023 census showed that only 1.22% of Glendive’s 4,831 residents were Native American (90.2% Caucasian, 5.2% Hispanic, 0.1% African American, and 3.3% of other races), we’re guessing there may not be many Lakota on hand to staff the booth.

Makoshika State Park’s visitor center houses a Triceratops skull, other kid-friendly exhibits, and, of course, a gift shop. Pick up souvenirs of your visit and learn about other park events, including a concert series, Montana Shakespeare in the Park, and a summer youth program.

Happy Buzzard Day!

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June 14 is Pop Goes the Weasel Day

pop goes the weasel day

Today is Pop Goes the Weasel Day, celebrating the rhyme we’ve known since childhood and the tune that sticks in our heads every time we hear it played on an ice cream truck. But what does the song mean? pop goes the weasel dayThe short answer is that it’s probably nonsense verse made popular (no pun intended) because children enjoyed shouting, “Pop!” It’s believed to have originated in the 1700s in England, but the first official version of the song wasn’t published there until the 1850s. Within a few years, it jumped the pond and appeared in Boston and New York newspapers.

The British version had many variations but usually shared these basic verses:

Half a pound of tupenny rice,
Half a pound of treacle.
That’s the way the money goes,
Pop! goes the weasel.

Every night when I get home
The monkey’s on the table,
Take a stick and knock it off,
Pop! goes the weasel.

Up and down the City Road,
In and out the Eagle.
That’s the way the money goes,
Pop! goes the weasel.

The first verse seems to refer to cheap rice and treacle, a molasses-based syrup. Several British slang dictionaries agree that “monkey” represented £500, a tidy sum in those days. The Eagle most likely refers to the name of a pub on City Road in London. Today it displays a plaque endorsing this interpretation of the verse.

Is “Pop Goes the Weasel” about a dad who takes the money meant to put better food on the table and heads to the pub to drink it away? Maybe, maybe not. What does any of this have to do with a weasel, and why does it pop? Theories abound:

  1. It refers to a dead weasel. Weasels pop their heads up when alarmed. Apparently, things did not go well for this one.
  2. A “Spinner’s weasel” is a spoked reel that measures yarn and makes a popping sound to indicate the desired length, usually a skein, has been reached.
  3. In English (usually Cockney) rhyming slang, “weasel” is short for “weasel and stoat,” which stands for “coat, ” usually a fancy one to wear to church on Sunday.
  4. “Pop” stands for “pawn.”

This leaves us with a dead rodent, a woman—sorry to reinforce gender norms, but that’s how it was—working her fingers to the bone spinning yarn and/or a man who spends so much on beer that he has to pawn his coat on Monday morning, then work all week so he can buy it back to wear on the following Sunday.

Soon after “Pop Goes the Weasel” arrived in the U.S. in the 1850s, it began to evolve. Today, its lyrics vary but tend to contain some permutation of the following:

All around the mulberry bush,
The monkey chased the weasel.
The monkey thought ’twas all in good sport,
Pop! goes the weasel.

A penny for a spool of thread,
A penny for a needle—
That’s the way the money goes,
Pop! goes the weasel.

Jimmy’s got the whooping cough
And Timmy’s got the measles.
That’s the way the story goes,
Pop! goes the weasel.

Even if we can’t agree on the words and their meanings (or lack thereof), we all remember bits of that first verse, and the tune is universal. What does it remind you of? We think of warm summer days playing tag and running after the ice cream truck.

Happy Pop Goes the Weasel Day. And to all you weasels: Let’s be careful out there.

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