I have some questions for a piece of writing I am working on. There’s no deadline, but I am helping a friend and would appreciate an answer asap.
The writing is about events that took place on “the longest day of the year” in 1994. I know that the summer solstice falls on either June 21 or June 22, but, not having a 1994 calendar on hand and having had no luck with the online perpetual calendars, I am not sure whether June 21 or June 22 was the summer solstice for 1994.
The writing also concerns a Midsummer celebration in Old World Wisconsin. On what date or dates would the celebration have taken place in 1994? About a month or two ago, I posed this question to a site that tells about that place and has a calendar of events for it, but they never answered my e-mail.
The crummy library in our town hasn’t been of any help to me with these questions. At this rate, I’ll never get this writing done, and I hate to disappoint my friend, who doesn’t even have internet access. Can anyone out there help me?
The Summer Solstice in 1994 occurred at 14:48 Universal Time on June 21. Midsummer Day is always June 24.
Here is a link to my source.
There is a potential for confusion regarding midsummer.
Midsummer Day is a specific legal (holi?)day in Great Britain that is recognized/celebrated on June 24, the Feast of John the Baptist. As such, it is probably a holdover from the period in which the entire calendar was marked around the Christian liturgical calendar.
On the other hand, midsummer, (note the lack of capitalization and the lack of the qualifying “Day”) is a reference to the solstice and would float from year to year depending on the actual astronomical event.
Given that Wisconsin’s heritage tends to be taken more from Germany than Great Britain, a (purely unsubstantiated) WAG would put that celebration on June 20 and June 21, 1994.
(Other sources for the event information could be 1) the newspaper from the town where Old World Wisconsin is held (the Yahoo Yellow pages can get you the name/address (and URL if there is one) of the newspaper or 2) the Wisconsin tourist/travel bureau.)