Welcome to the Polish American Journal

June • Czerwiec

Children’s Day (Poland)

Dzień Dziecka is an occasion on which youngsters receive gifts and attend various picnics, programs and sporting events organized just for them in place of normal school lessons.

1926. Ignacy Mocicki elected president of Poland.

1913. Birth of Jerzy Pniewski, physicist. In 1952, he helped discover the elementary particle known as hyper-nuclear material.

1434. Death of Polish King Władysław Jagiello (b. 1348), founder of the Jagiellonian dynasty of Polish kings.

1343. Signing of the Treaty of Kalisz, a peace treaty signed by King Casimir III the Great of Poland and the Teutonic Knights in Kalisz. It concluded the Polish-Teutonic War (1326–1332). The Polish king had to renounce claims to Chełmno Land and Gdańsk Pomerania (Pomerelia). In exchange, Poland regained Kuyavia and the Lands of Dobrzyń.

1935. Famous aviator Amelia Earhart remarks “Loads of fun” after making the first public jump using a parachute designed by the Switlik Parachute Co. The company was founded by Stanley Switlik, who emigrated from Galicia to New Jersey in 1907, and built a training tower on his farm in Ocean County, N.J. Today, Switlik is one of the world’s largest manufacturers of parachutes and other personal survival devices.

1979. First pilgrimage of Pope John Paul II to Poland, through June 10.

1991. Beatification of Joseph Sebastian Pelczar, Bishop of Rzeszow.

1798. Polish playwright and author Julian Niemcewicz visits George Washington at Mt. Vernon. Niemcewicz (1758–1841) came from Poland to America with Kościuszko and remained in America until 1802, returning again in 1804 for a stay of two or three years. A patriot and man of letters from a well-to-do noble family, he in 1803 published in Polish a biography of Washington. His diaries, translated and edited by Metchie J. E. Budka, were published in 1965 with the title Under Their Vine and Fig Tree: Travels through America in 1797–1799, 1805.

1890. Death of Oskar Kolberg (b. 1814), ethnographer who specialized in Polish folklore. Today, the Polish Ministry of Culture of the Polish government awards the Oskar Kolberg Award, considered the highest ethnographic honor, to individuals and groups that research, study, uphold and display Polish folklore, dancing and singing.

1926. Ignacy Mościcki becomes president of Poland.

1102. Death of Władysław I Herman.

1960. Death of General Józef Haller, commander of Polish units under French Command in 1916 during World War I. Haller’s Army became known as the “Blue Army” from the color of its French uniform. Haller’s Army also seized Pomerania and entered Gdańsk in the name of Poland in 1920. Many Polish Americans from the United States, numbering 20,000 plus, volunteered and served with Haller’s Army.

1989. First free elections in Poland since World War II. Solidarity triumphs in the first round to the parliament and the senate (second round held June 18).

1872. Death of famed Polish composer Stanislaw Moniuszko, (b. 1819), Polish composer best known for his opera “Halka.”

1944. Death of Józef Beck, Polish statesman, diplomat, military officer and close associate of Józef Pilsudski. served as the Minister of Foreign Affairs from 1932 to the outbreak of World War II.

1999. John Paul II begins his fourth trip to Poland.

1929. Birth of Boguslaw Schaeffer, Polish composer, musicologist, and graphic artist born in Lwow in 1929. Schaeffer is a member of the avant garde “Krakow Group” of Polish composers along with Krzysztof Penderecki and others.

1530. Birth of Jan Kochanowski, Poland’s greatest humanist and writer of the Renaissance.

1818. Death of Jan Henryk Dabrowski (b. 1755), Polish general and military hero who organized the Polish Legion in Italy in 1797.

1997. Beatification of Mother Maria Jablonska and Mother Maria Karlowska.

1492. Death of Kazimierz IV Jagiello.

1982. President Ronald Reagan and Pope John Paul II meet in the Vatican.

1949. Emanuel Ax, pianist (Artur Rubinstein Competition winner, 1974), born in Lvov, Poland.

1997. Queen Jadwiga (Hedwig, 1373-1399), canonized by St. John Paul II in Krakow.

1983. Birth of Polish soccer star from Katowice, Grzegorz Fonfara.

1987. Third visit of John Paul II to Poland (June 8-14), which includes prayer at the Gdańsk monument to the fallen shipyard workers killed during Solidarity rally. Mass at Zaspa is attended by 1.5 million faithful.

1980. St. John Kanty Prep in Erie, Pa. closes.

1815. Conclusion of the Congress of Vienna, a conference of ambassadors of European states chaired by Austrian statesman Klemens Wenzel von Metternich. The objective was to provide a long-term peace plan for Europe by settling critical issues arising from the French Revolutionary Wars and the Napoleonic Wars.

1922. Joseph (Tykocinski) Tykociner publicly demonstrates for the first time that sound movies are possible.

ST. MARGARET

Ze świętą Małgorzatą zaczyna się lato.

Summer begins on St. Margaret.

1982. Birth of Tara Lipinski, youngest world ice skating champion and gold medal winner at the 1998 Olympics in Nagano, Japan.

1675. France and Poland formed an alliance.

1857. Birth of Antoni Grabowski, Polish chemical engineer known for compiling the first chemistry dictionary in the Polish language. He was also an activist of the early Esperanto movement, and his translations had an influential impact on the development of Esperanto into a language of literature.

1741. Austria ceded most of Silesia to Prussia by Treaty of Breslau.

1887. Founding of the Polish Falcons of America, fraternal insurance benefit society headquartered in Pittsburgh.

1982. Death of Polish-born Marie Lambert, who help promote ballet in Great Britain.

1659. Dr. Alexander (Kurcyusz) Curtius, Polish educator and physician in the colony of New Amsterdam, arrives in the New World.

1915. Death of Józef Brandt, painter of portraits and Bible scenes.

1907. Stanley (Kiecal) Ketchel wins the middleweight boxing crown. He holds the title for three years.

1982. Polish labor union Solidarity strikes in Wroclaw, Nowa Huta, and Gdańsk, Poland, in protest of martial law.

Flag Day (U.S.)

1651. Kostka-Napierski Uprising begins. The Uprising was a peasant revolt that took place at the same time as the more important Khmelnytsky Uprising in the south-east part of the Polish-Lithuanian Commonwealth, and during the Swedish preparation to invade the Polish-Lithuanian Commonwealth.

1811. Birth of Antoni Patek, famous watchmaker and co-founder of one of the most famous Swiss watchmaking companies, Patek Philippe & Company.

1933. Birth of Polish American novelist Jerzy Kosinski, (The Painted Bird, Being There).

1940. In German-occupied Poland, the first inmates arrive at the Auschwitz concentration camp. They are all Polish political prisoners.

2006. Dominic Pacyga named acting Dean of Liberal Arts and Sciences Columbia College in Chicago. He has authored or co-authored four books concerning Chicago’s history, including Polish Immigrants and Industrial Chicago.

1298. Death of Blessed Jolanta, known for her charitable works, and sister of Blessed Kinga.

1669. Election of Michael Korybut Wiśniowiecki.

1983. (June 16-23) Second pilgrimage of John Paul II to Poland.

1999. St. Kinga (Kunegunda) canonized by Pope John Paul II at Nowy Sacz before a crowd of 650,000 people.

1943. Death of Medal of Honor winner 2nd Lt. Joseph Sarnoski in Solomon Islands. Recognized with the nation’s highest military award as the “bravest of the brave,” Sarnoski, of the United States Army Air Corps and a member of the elite crew of “Eager Beavers,” was known as one of the best gunners and bombardiers of the Air Corp.

1501. Death of Jan I Olbracht.

1025. Death of Bolesław I the Brave.

1696. Death of Jan III Sobieski, who defeated the Turks at the Battle of Chocom near Vienna, and is credited with saving Europe from being overrun by Muslims.

1966. Polish American leaders, along with Polish American Congress President Charles Rozmarek, join President Lyndon Johnson at the White House to unveil a painting of Our Lady of Częstochowa to mark the millennium Christianity in Poland.

1861. The first telegraph message is sent from an airborne balloon by Thaddeus Sobieski-Lowe.

1949. Birth of Lech Kaczynski (with his identical twin brother Jarosław), former president of Poland from 2002 to 2010. Kaczynski died in a plane crash en route to commemorate the 70th Anniversary of the Katyń Forest Massacre in Russia on April 10, 2010.

1926. The opera “King Roger,” composed by Polish composer Karol Szymanowski (1882-1937), premiered in Warsaw.

1793. Birth of Aleksander Fredro (d. 1876), Polish dramatist noted for his comedies.

1873. Death of Valerian Sulakowski, who served as Colonel of the 14th Louisiana Infantry and later as chief engineer to Major General Magruder of the Confederate Army during the American Civil War. One of his principal accomplishments was the construction of field fortifications that protected Richmond, Virg.

1954. Birth of Michael Anthony Sobolewski, known in the rock music world as Michael Anthony. He is the former bass guitarist and one of the founding members of the rock band Van Halen. He also is marketing his own brand of hot sauce called Mad Anthony’s Hot Sauce.

1305. Death of Wenceslaus II.

1918. Birth of Eddie Lopat (Lopatynski), New York Yankees star.

1983. Pope John Paul II’s beatification of Fr. Raphael (nee Jozef) Kalinowski, OCD. Raphael was the first friar to have been canonized (1991) in the Order of the Discalced Carmelites since co-founder, St John of the Cross (1542-1591).

1940. Gen. Władysław Sikorski establishes Polish government-in-exile in London.

1866. Birth of Kazimierz Zorawski, renowned mathematician whose work in differential geometry and fluid mechanics contributed greatly to the fields of science, mathematics, astrophysics and physics.

Father’s Day (Poland)

Dzień Ojca, like Mothers’ Day, this occasion is also celebrated on this fixed date rather than on the third Sunday of June.

St. John’s Eve

This Polish midsummer festival of pagan origin is celebrated with bonfires and with candlelit wreaths set afloat on rivers. It is believed that the forest comes to life this night.

1290. Death of Henryk IV Probus.

1892. Birth of Mieczysław Horszowski, internationally acclaimed pianist and music teacher whose performances were widely recorded. Horszowski was also a teacher at the Curtis Institute and continued to teach and perform until shortly before his death in Philadelphia in 1993 at the age of 100 years old.

1767. Formation of the Radom Confederation, an armed league of Polish nobles who sought to defend the Golden Liberties, a system that gave equal status and extensive legal rights and privileges to all nobles.

1651. Kostka-Napierski Uprising ends.

1812. Napoleon crossed the Nieman River [in Lithuania] and invaded Russia. The French army under Napoleon crossed the Nemunas River near Kaunas. Prior to his march into Russia, Napoleon had taken land from Russia and returned it to Polish control in Warsaw. This assured him safe passage through Poland and Lithuania on his way to Russia.

1914. Birth of Jan Karski, Polish World War II resistance fighter and scholar. In 1942 and 1943, He reported to the Polish, British, and American governments on the situation in Poland, the destruction of the Warsaw Ghetto and the Holocaust.

1648. Cossacks slaughter 2,000 Jews and 600 Polish Catholics in Ukraine.

1838. Birth of Jan Matejko (d. 1893), considered Poland’s greatest painter of historical scenes, his works are in Warsaw and the Vatican.

1886. Birth of Fr. Justin Figas, OFM, founder of the Fr. Justin Rosary Hour.

1941. Germans invaded Dubno, Poland, and encouraged the Ukrainians to do whatever they want to 12,000 Jews living there.

1447. Coronation of Kazimierz IV Jagiello.

2004. Dr. Thaddeus Gromada, the Executive Director of the Polish Institute of the Arts and Sciences in America, gives a presentation at the Library of Congress, outlining the issues of Poland’s entry into the European Union.

1807. Napoleon sets up Polish “state” of the Duchy of Warsaw.

1447. Coronation of Kazimierz Jagiello, son of Władysław Jagiello.

1943. Germany completes construction of Crematory III at Birkenau in the Auschwitz complex.

1295. White Eagle made symbol of Poland.

1295. Coronation of Przemysł II.

1940. Death of Ralph Modjeski (b. 1861 Rudolf Modrzejewski), famed American Polish-born architect and bridge builder.

1959. Birth of Janusz Kaminski, who immigrated to America and attended Columbia College in Chicago. He also won the Academy Award for best cinematography twice in the 1990’s - one for “Schindler’s List” and the other for “Saving Private Ryan.”

1697. Election of August II the Strong.

1927. Birth in Warsaw, Poland of Gen. John Shalikashvili (†July 23, 2011) U.S. Chief of Staff in the Clinton Administration.

1941. German troops occupy Galicia, Poland.

1956. Poznań Protests begin, the first demonstration against the Soviet-imposed communist government that was established after the end of World War II. Workers began protests at Poznan’s Cegielski Factories, demanding better conditions and pay and protesting a recent rise in taxes and higher work quotas. The workers took to the streets, and were soon joined by workers from other factories, students, and intellectuals, resulting in over 100,000 people gathering at the Imperial Castle in Poznan, where city officials and the UB police had their headquarters. Among the demands were lower food prices (as seen above), wage increases, and revocation of recent laws that had worsened conditions for workers.

1919. Treaty of Versailles, making Poland a free nation, signed by I.J. Paderewski today.

1941. Death of pianist, composer, and statesman Ignacy Jan Paderewski, 80, in New York City.

1989. Gen. Wojciech Jaruzelski announced he would not run for Poland’s new presidency, saying the people viewed him as the man who imposed martial law.

1911. Birth of Czeslaw Milosz, Polish poet who received the 1980 Nobel Prize in Literature. In 1960, Milosz immigrated to America and settled in California. He became an American citizen and was a teacher at the University of California, Berkeley. In addition to his many poems, he wrote a work of non-fiction, “The Captive Mind.”