Every Day Is Special: June 2022

June 30 - Excelsior Diamond Discovered

Posted on June 30, 2022

This is an update of my post published on June 30, 2011:

How'd you like to be a worker at a mine, just busy loading a truck with spadeful after spadeful of dirt—and then you spot the world's largest diamond? What would you do?

The African man who found the Excelsior Diamond in South Africa, on this day in 1893, hid it from his overseer and personally delivered it to the manager of the mine. The blue-white diamond weighed more than 970 carats, and news of its discovery quickly spread all over the world.

For 12 years, this was the record holder of the largest diamond ever found. However, it was supplanted as “the biggest” by the Cullinan Diamond, which was more than 3,000 carats!

The Excelsior Diamond was eventually cut into ten stones.

By the way, do you wonder what happened to the man that found the diamond? He was given a 500-pound reward plus a horse equipped with a saddle and bridle.

This diamond, Lesidi La Rosa, is a little bit larger than
the Excelsior, but I thought that the photo, which includes
adult hands holding the giant stone, gives a better idea of
the size than do all the photos of the Excelsior I saw...

Did you know...?

Diamonds are made of carbon, the same material that makes the graphite in our pencils and coal!

Diamonds are formed in high-pressure, high-temperature conditions deep underground, in the Earth's mantle.

Diamonds are the hardest natural material known, so they are often used in cutting and polishing tools.

Many diamonds are clear and colorless. Small amounts of impurities (such as one atom of the contaminant per million carbon atoms) can give a diamond color. If the contaminating atoms are boron, the diamond is blue; nitrogen atoms make a diamond look yellow, and diamonds that have been exposed to radiation can become greenish.

To see some famous diamonds, check out this website.

Also on this date:

Anniversary of a very sweet art show

Independence Day in the Democratic Republic of the Congo

Anniversary of the Tunguska Event

Anniversary of a Ballet First

Social Media Day

Army Day in Guatemala

Asteroid Day

Anniversary of a tightrope walk over Niagara Falls

National Bomb Pop Day

(Last Thursday of June)

Plan ahead:

Check out my Pinterest boards for:

• July holidays

• July birthdays

• Historical anniversaries in July

June 29 - Discovery of an Island Oxymoron

Posted on June 29, 2022

This is an update of my post published on June 29, 2011:

On this day in 1994, Dr. Tom Rockwell and his student Kevin Colson found the fossilized skull and shoulder blades of a pygmy mammoth sticking out the sand and rock on Santa Rosa Island, in California.

(The word pygmy means “small,” and of course mammoth means “large,” so the pygmy mammoth's name is an oxymoron—that is, a phrase that seems to contradict itself. Of course, mammoths were creatures in the elephant family; the various now-extinct mammoth species were quite hairy compared to modern elephants because they lived during the Ice Age and at higher latitudes than the equator-hugging lands where modern elephants live. The pygmy mammoth fossils discovered on a California island represents a kind of mammoth that is smaller than other mammoths.)

Pygmy mammoths compared in size to "regular
mammoths," above, and to a full grown human, below.

It turned out that the fossilized skeleton that Rockwell and Colson found was nearly complete. This is the only full-sized skeleton of this particular species found anywhere, and it is also the first to be dated—it's about 12,840 years old.

How do skeletons become fossils?

Most organisms rot away to nothing when they die. Very few become fossils—but so many creatures have lived in earth's loooong history, scientists have still managed to find billions of fossils, representing hundreds of thousands of different species.

Here's one way in which an organism can become fossilized:

An animal dies and falls to the bottom of a sea or lake.
Soft parts rot away, leaving the skeleton.
Dirt, sand, bits of rock and shell, and other sediment falls onto the skeleton and buries it.
As more sediment piles on, pressure increases on the lower layers, and they turn to hard rock.
The bones dissolve by ground water, leaving holes of the same shape, which act as molds.
Minerals crystallize inside the molds, creating fossils that are made of minerals but that have the same shape as the original bones.
Later (as in millions of years later), the rock is uplifted and exposed by erosion. The fossils are now exposed, waiting to be discovered.

Of course, some fossils are not mineralized bones (above)...
but rather impressions of shells or bones or even leaves or footprints (below)...

For a longer description of the process of fossilization, go here.

Also on this date:

International Mud Day

Anniversary of Mikhail Baryshnikov's defection

Feasts of Saints Peter and Paul in Chile

Independence Day in the Seychelles

St. Peter and St. Paul Day in Rome

International Day of the Tropics

National Camera Day

Birthday of Doctor William Mayo

Plan ahead:

Check out my Pinterest boards for:

June holidays

June birthdays

Historical anniversaries in June

And here are my Pinterest boards for:

June 28 - Constitution Day in Ukraine

Posted on June 28, 2022

This is an update of my post published on June 28, 2011:

What a time to talk about a Ukrainian holiday! And yet - what a time to celebrate the modern democratic constitution of this nation!

Since late February, Ukraine has faced a terrible invasion from its larger (area-wise) neighbor, Russia. Ukraine is utterly innocent of wrongdoing but is still paying the price in deaths, injuries, displacement, and destruction - all because of evil intentions on the part of Russia's leader, Vladimir Putin. You probably already know more about this heartbreaking war than you wish to know...So I will relate happier knowledge about Ukraine.

For decades Ukraine was part of the Soviet Union, which was dominated by Russia. Today the Ukrainian language, which is the official language, is supplemented by the Russian, which is also widely known. I wonder if the Russian language has become a lot less used, however, given the terrible atrocities needlessly foisted upon Ukrainians by Russian troops.

Usually concerts and fireworks mark the anniversary of Ukraine's 1998 adoption of its constitution, which made it a semi-presidential republic.

Ukraine is the largest country in Europe (Russia, which is larger in area, lies mostly in Asia).

Ukraine is famous for its Easter eggs, called pysanky, for sunflowers (an important export crop and national symbol), and (unfortunately) for the largest nuclear plant disaster in the world, Chernobyl.

The Ukrainian flag is a yellow field topped by a blue
field. Can you see how this photo of sunflowers and
blue skies echos the Ukrainian flag?

Nowadays, of course, Ukraine is known for its citizens' amazing courage and their courageous comedian/actor-turned-president Volodymyr Zelenskyy.

Ukraine has been known for beautiful architecture (seen below). The saddest part of war is, of course, the loss of people, but I'm bleeding for Ukrainians losing structures and infrastructure, as well!