June 19 - Juneteenth

Posted on June 19, 2021

Key points

This is an update of my post published on June 19, 2010:

Juneteenth is sometimes called Freedom Day or Emancipation Day. This holiday honors African American heritage, and it commemorates the announcement of the abolition of slavery in Texas on June 19, 1865.

When I first wrote about Juneteenth, in 2010, 36 states celebrated it as a state holiday. Now it is a federal holiday!

By the way, the term Juneteenth is an example of a portmanteau, which is a combination of two words, in this case June and nineteenth, to create a new word.

The words brunch and smog are two more examples of portmanteaus. Do you know what words they combine?

ANSWER: Brunch is a combination of the words breakfast and lunch. Smog is a mash-up of smoke and fog.

For more on Juneteenth, check out last year’s post.

ALSO ON THIS DATE:

Happy Birthday, Lou Gehrig

Born on this day in 1903, in New York City, Gehrig was an awkward athlete as a youth. However, he worked hard and constantly practiced baseball—and he became a star! From 1925 to 1939, Gehrig played in every single Yankee game, which was a record 2,130 games in a row.

Unfortunately, Gehrig came down with a rare disease that forced him to retire and that took his life just two years later. That disease is amyotrophic lateral sclerosis, also called ALS—and sometimes called Lou Gehrig’s disease. One of the best known recent folks with ALS is the famous physicist Stephen Hawking, who died at age 76 after living with ALS more than 50 years!!