June 23– Alan Turing
Persecuted gay British computer theorist, cyanide victim.
*Brittany: Pardon of the Fire. The pagan Feast of the Sun, celebrated until a soldier displayed finger of John the Baptist in the 16th century.Bonfires and romancing continue, and a “dragon” still lights fires.
*Festival of the Purple Void.
*New Orleans: Major Annual Voodoo. Ceremonies since 1820, held at Lake Pontchartrain since the 1850s.
* Sweden: Maypoles erected in countryside.
ALSO ON JUNE 23 IN HISTORY…
930 — World’s oldest parliament established, Iceland.
1889 — Russian poet Anna Akhmatova born, Bolshoy Fontan, near Odessa.
1912 — Gay British computer theorist Alan Turing born, London, England.
1964 — Freedom Riders Chaney, Goodman & Schwerner murdered, Mississippi.
Excerpted from The 2009 Autonomedia Calendar of Jubilee Saints: Radical Heroes for the New Millennium by James Koehnline and the Autonomedia Collective