Moments in Time – May 23, 2018

#Middlebury #MomentsInTime

• On June 6, 1683, The Ashmolean, the world’s first university museum, opens in Oxford, England. Today, the collection at the Ashmolean Museum of Art and Archaeology ranges from the earliest implements of man, made about 500,000 years ago, to 20th-century works of art.
• On June 10, 1692, in the Massachusetts Bay Colony, Bridget Bishop, the first colonist tried in the Salem witch trials, is hanged after being found guilty of practicing witchcraft. Bishop, known for her dubious moral character, frequented taverns, dressed flamboyantly (by Puritan standards) and had been married three times.
• On June 4, 1942, the Battle of Midway begins. During the four-day sea-and-air battle, the outnumbered U.S. Pacific Fleet succeeded in destroying four Japanese aircraft carriers while losing only one of its own, the Yorktown.
• On June 9, 1956, bestselling crime novelist Patricia Cornwell, creator of crime-solving medical examiner Kay Scarpetta, is born. Her mother had a nervous breakdown when Cornwell was 9 and tried to give the children away to evangelist Billy Graham and his wife. The Grahams placed the children in foster care.
• On June 5, 1967, the Six-Day War begins when Israel launches simultaneous attacks against Egypt and Syria. Jordan subsequently entered the fray. By the time the United Nations cease-fire took effect on June 11, Israel had more than doubled its size.
• On June 7, 1976, New York magazine publishes the story that becomes the film “Saturday Night Fever.” “The Tribal Rites of the New Saturday Night,” by journalist Nik Cohn, thought to be a true story about a Brooklyn disco dancer, was almost entirely fabricated.
• On June 8, 1999, some 1.3 million copies of “Hannibal,” the final book in the Hannibal Lecter series by Thomas Harris, arrive at bookstores. The cannibalistic serial killer first appeared in Harris’s 1981 book, “Red Dragon,” as a minor character.

(c) 2018 Hearst Communications, Inc.
All Rights Reserved