GMT

Today in History: June 5
1099 Members of the First Crusade witness an eclipse of the moon and interpret it as a sign they will recapture Jerusalem.

1637 American settlers in New England massacre a Pequot Indian village.

1783 Joseph and Jacques Montgolfier make the first public balloon flight.

1794 The U.S. Congress prohibits citizens from serving in any foreign armed forces.

1851 Harriet Beecher Stowe publishes the first installment of Uncle Tom's Cabin in The National Era.

1872 The Republican National Convention, the first major political party convention to include blacks, commences.

1880 Wild woman of the west Myra Maybelle Shirley marries Sam Starr even though records show she was already married to Bruce Younger.

1956 Premier Nikita Khrushchev denounces Josef Stalin to the Soviet Communist Party Congress.

1967 The Six-Day War between Israel and Egypt, Syria and Jordan begins.

1968 Sirhan Sirhan shoots Democratic presidential candidate Robert F. Kennedy after Kennedy's victory in the pivotal California primary election.

2021 Turkish President Recep Tayyip Erdogan promises to save the country's shores from a build-up of 'sea snot' (marine mucilage) due to pollution and climate change

2023 Former US Vice President Mike Pence declares his candidacy for the Republican presidential nomination

Born on June 5
1878 Francisco "Pancho" Villa, Mexican revolutionary and guerrilla leader.

1949 Ken Follett, novelist (Eye of the Needle, On The Wings of Eagles).

JOTD
A woman is walking through the park when she sees a very attractive man sitting on a park bench. He's reading a book and eating some fruit out of a Tupperware container. Slowly the woman gathers the courage to go ask the man out.

So, she walks over and takes a seat next to him on the bench, turns to him and says, "Sorry to bother you. I know this may be a little forward but I would love to grab coffee with you some time." Flattered, the man responds, "Sure... but what makes you so certain you and I would get along so well?"
"Well," the woman says, "A couple things, actually. I noticed you were wearing an Iron Maiden t-shirt. Iron Maiden are my favourite band of all time. When they went on their reunion tour in 1999 my parents took me to see them in Cleveland. I was 12 years old, it was the first concert I ever went to. I absolutely love Iron Maiden. "
The man can't believe it. "I saw them play Cleveland in '99! First concert I ever went to on my own. My best friend Jimmy Spitz and I told our parents we were sleeping at each others' houses, snuck out, took a bus into the city and saw them play at the Plain Dealer Pavillion!" Naturally, they're both shocked.
"If that isn't weird enough," says the woman, "I noticed you're reading Mark Twain. I was a communications major in university and I actually wrote my thesis on Mark Twain, how he used satire as a lens to comment on current events of the time, comparing him to satirical news sources of today. He's my favourite author"
Now the man is really taken aback, "Get out of here. I was an English major in university! I specialized in 19th century American literature, this is like my fourth or fifth time reading Tom Sawyer, I absolutely love Mark Twain."
They both can't believe it, this has got to be a match made in heaven.
"Ok," the woman says, "well, buckle up because here's the icing on the cake. I noticed you're eating a prune. Prunes are my absolute favourite fruit. When I was a kid, my grandfather lived on a farm. He had an orchard that mainly grew apples and some lemons, but he knew how much my sister and I loved prunes so he kept a couple of plum trees. Every year at the end of the summer, we'd go up and harvest the plums with him. He'd dry them and by the time we'd go back to his place for Thanksgiving he'd always have those prunes saved just for us. They're my favourite fruit! I love prunes, you're eating a prune, this has got to be fate. What do you say?"
The man puts down his fruit and responds,
"It's a date."