Brexit is finally happening … we think?
The United Kingdom shocked the world (and itself) when it voted to leave the European Union in the summer of 2016. The U.K. is scheduled to officially “brexit” on March 29 at 11:000 am GMT, even though Prime Minister Theresa May still hasn’t arranged a deal with the E.U. about how this will all work.
A lot could still happen between then and now. Some think that May could resign or that the opposition parties could push her out; and there’s even a push for the U.K. to hold a second referendum on whether the country should actually go through with Brexit. Without a solid Brexit plan, the Bank of England has warned that the impact on the country’s economy could be worse than that of the 2008 global financial crisis.
A Japanese Emperor will abdicate for the first time in 200 years.
Emperor Akihito will abdicate his throne on April 30, becoming the first Japanese royal to do so in two centuries. Akihito, who is 84, has said he wants to hand over the throne to his 58-year-old son, Crown Prince Naruhito, before he dies.
Similarly to the Queen of England, the Japanese Emperor is today a strictly ceremonial position, and has been since Japan’s constitution stripped it of political power in 1947. The last Japanese Emperor to abdicate his throne was Emperor Kokaku in 1817.
We mark a century since the bombings, raids and riots of 1919.
In the spring of 1919, a series of mail bombs targeted government officials and prominent people like Supreme Court Justice Oliver Wendell Holmes and John D. Rockefeller, the world’s first billionaire. These bombings, attributed to anarchists, were followed by the “Red Summer,” in which dozens of riots broke out in major cities where black Americans were pushing for civil rights. In Chicago, riots broke out after white people stoned a black boy for swimming at an unofficially whites-only beach. In Elaine, Arkansas, federal troops and white mobs murdered more than 100 black adults and children after sharecroppers tried to organize for fairer wages.
After this came the Palmer raids, a series of violent and abusive law-enforcement raids that carried over into 1920. Police beat and arrested people suspected of being leftist radicals and anarchists, and the government deported hundreds of immigrants, including the Russian anarchist Emma Goldman. The coming year marks a century since these turbulent events.
Tourists will dive into the wreck of the Titanic.
The Titanic II—one man’s questionable replica of the Titanic—won’t set sail until 2022, if at all. But in the meantime, tourists with a cool extra $105,129 will get the chance to tour the first Titanic. The first commercial diving tours of the Titanic wreckage begin June 26.
The summer of ‘69 turns 50.
This summer will mark the 50-year anniversary for a lot of significant events in 1969. They include: when gay and trans customers at the Stonewall Inn fought back against a police raid on June 28; when two Americans walked on the moon for the first time on July 20; and when Charles Manson’s cult shockingly murdered seven people in California in early August.
There was also the Woodstock Music Festival, where half a million young people gathered to listen to Richie Havens, Santana, Sly & the Family Stone, Jimi Hendrix and more on August 15 through 18. Years later, the summer would inspire the title to Bryan Adams’ 1984 hit song about teenage longing, even though Adams himself was actually only 9 years old during the “Summer of ‘69.”