June 23

United Nations Public Service Day
International Widows Day

June 23 : United Nations Public Service Day
The UN General Assembly, in its resolution 57/277, designated 23 June as Public Service Day.

The UN Public Service Day intends to celebrate the value and virtue of public service to the community; highlight the contribution of public service in the development process; recognize the work of public servants, and encourage young people to pursue careers in the public sector.

Since the first Awards Ceremony in 2003, the United Nations has received an increasing number of submissions from all around the world.

This year, on the occasion of the celebration of the United Nations Public Service Day, the UN Public Service Awards Ceremony and a forum on the theme of "The Role of Public Service in Achieving the Millennium Development Goals: Challenges and Best Practices" will take place in Barcelona, Spain from 21 to 23 June 2010.

The appeal came Tuesday on the campaign's 5th anniversary celebrations at the House of Lords, Britain's upper house of parliament.

"I am pleased to see that our campaign for UN recognition of International Widows Day is gaining support from all over the world and call upon the UN to bestow official recognition accordingly," Blair said.

Events

79 – Titus succeeds his father Vespasian as the tenth Roman Emperor.
1180 – First Battle of Uji, starting the Genpei War in Japan.
1305 – A peace treaty between the Flemish and the French is signed at Athis-sur-Orge.
1314 – First War of Scottish Independence: The Battle of Bannockburn (south of Stirling) begins.
1532 – Henry VIII and François I sign a secret treaty against Emperor Charles V.
1565 – Turgut Reis (Dragut), commander of the Ottoman navy, dies during the Siege of Malta.
1611 – The mutinous crew of Henry Hudson's fourth voyage sets Henry, his son and seven loyal crew members adrift in an open boat in what is now Hudson Bay; they are never heard from again.
1661 – Marriage contract between Charles II of England and Catherine of Braganza.
1683 – William Penn signs a friendship treaty with Lenni Lenape Indians in Pennsylvania.
1713 – The French residents of Acadia are given one year to declare allegiance to Britain or leave Nova Scotia, Canada.
1757 – Battle of Plassey – 3,000 British troops under Robert Clive defeat a 50,000 strong Indian army under Siraj Ud Daulah at Plassey.
1758 – Seven Years' War: Battle of Krefeld – British forces defeat French troops at Krefeld in Germany.
1760 – Seven Years' War: Battle of Landeshut – Austria defeats Prussia.
1780 – American Revolution: Battle of Springfield fought in and around Springfield, New Jersey (including Short Hills, formerly of Springfield, now of Millburn Township).
1794 – Empress Catherine II of Russia grants Jews permission to settle in Kiev.
1810 – John Jacob Astor forms the Pacific Fur Company.
1812 – War of 1812: Great Britain revokes the restrictions on American commerce, thus eliminating one of the chief reasons for going to war.
1848 – Beginning of the June Days Uprising in Paris, France.
1860 – The United States Congress establishes the Government Printing Office.
1865 – American Civil War: at Fort Towson in the Oklahoma Territory, Confederate, Brigadier General Stand Watie surrenders the last significant rebel army.
1887 – The Rocky Mountains Park Act becomes law in Canada creating the nation's first national park, Banff National Park.
1894 – The International Olympic Committee is founded at the Sorbonne in Paris, at the initiative of Baron Pierre de Coubertin.
1913 – Second Balkan War: The Greeks defeat the Bulgarians in the Battle of Doiran.
1914 – Mexican Revolution: Pancho Villa takes Zacatecas from Victoriano Huerta.
1917 – In a game against the Washington Senators, Boston Red Sox pitcher Ernie Shore retires 26 batters in a row after replacing Babe Ruth, who had been ejected for punching the umpire.
1919 – Estonian War of Independence: the decisive defeat of the Baltische Landeswehr in the Battle of Cesis. This day is celebrated as Victory Day in Estonia.
1926 – The College Board administers the first SAT exam.
1931 – Wiley Post and Harold Gatty take off from Roosevelt Field, Long Island in an attempt to circumnavigate the world in a single-engine plane.
1938 – The Civil Aeronautics Act is signed into law, forming the Civil Aeronautics Authority in the United States.
1940 – World War II: German leader Adolf Hitler surveys newly defeated Paris in now occupied France.
1941 – The Lithuanian Activist Front declares independence from the Soviet Union and forms the Provisional Government of Lithuania; it lasts only briefly as the Nazis will occupy Lithuania a few weeks later.
1942 – World War II: the first selections for the gas chamber at Auschwitz take place on a train full of Jews from Paris.
1942 – World War II: Germany's latest fighter, a Focke-Wulf Fw 190, is captured intact when it mistakenly lands at RAF Pembrey in Wales.
1943 – World War II: The British destroyers HMS Eclipse and HMS Laforey sink the Italian submarine Ascianghi in the Mediterranean after she torpedoes the cruiser HMS Newfoundland.
1946 – The 1946 Vancouver Island earthquake strikes Vancouver Island, British Columbia, Canada.
1947 – The United States Senate follows the United States House of Representatives in overriding U.S. President Harry Truman's veto of the Taft-Hartley Act.
1956 – The French National Assembly takes the first step in creating the French Community by passing the Loi Cadre, transferring a number of powers from Paris to elected territorial governments in French West Africa.
1958 – The Dutch Reformed Church accepts women ministers.
1959 – Convicted Manhattan Project spy Klaus Fuchs is released after only nine years in prison and allowed to emigrate to Dresden, East Germany where he resumes a scientific career.
1959 – A fire in a resort hotel in Stalheim (Norway) kills 34 people.
1960 – The United States Food and Drug Administration declares Enovid to be the first officially approved combined oral contraceptive pill in the world.
1961 – Cold War: the Antarctic Treaty, which sets aside Antarctica as a scientific preserve and bans military activity on the continent, comes into force after the opening date for signature set for the December 1, 1959.
1967 – Cold War: U.S. President Lyndon B. Johnson meets with Soviet Premier Alexei Kosygin in Glassboro, New Jersey for the three-day Glassboro Summit Conference.
1968 – 74 are killed and 150 injured in a football stampede towards a closed exit in a Buenos Aires stadium.
1969 – Warren E. Burger is sworn in as Chief Justice of the United States Supreme Court by retiring Chief Justice Earl Warren.
1972 – Watergate Scandal: U.S. President Richard M. Nixon and White House Chief of Staff H. R. Haldeman are taped talking about using the Central Intelligence Agency to obstruct the Federal Bureau of Investigation's investigation into the Watergate break-ins.
1972 – Title IX of the United States Civil Rights Act of 1964 is amended to prohibit sexual discrimination to any educational program receiving federal funds.
1973 – A fire at a house in Hull, England which kills a six year old boy is passed off as an accident; it later emerges as the first of 26 deaths by fire caused over the next seven years by arsonist Peter Dinsdale.
1982 – Chinese American Vincent Chin is beaten to death in Highland Park, Michigan, by two auto workers who had mistaken him for Japanese and who were angry about the success of Japanese auto companies.
1985 – A terrorist bomb aboard Air India flight 182 brings the Boeing 747 down off the coast of Ireland killing all 329 aboard.

Holidays and observances

Christian Feast Day:
Æthelthryth
Marie of Oignies
June 23 (Eastern Orthodox liturgics)
Father's Day (Nicaragua, Poland, Uganda)
Grand Duke's Official Birthday (Luxembourg)
National Day of Remembrance for Victims of Terrorism (Canada)
St John's Eve and the first day of the Midsummer celebrations (although this is not the real summer solstice, see June 20) (Roman Catholic Church, Northern Europe):
First day of Golowan Festival (Cornwall)
First night of Ivan Kupala Day
Jaaniõhtu (Estonia)
Last day of Drăgaica fair (Buzău, Romania)
Līgo (Latvia)
United Nations Public Service Day (International)
Victory Day (Estonia)

For details, contact Datacentre