“... Harvest, ‘the private diary of David Peterley now for the first time printed’, opened in June 1930 as David Peterley disembarked at Liverpool. This framing of the book provoked much bewilderment. Readers were not told whether or when David Peterley had died or how his papers came to reach McGill University in Canada. They were told that since 1946 ...”

“... to call it. Referendum Day fell strangely, smack between the birthday of my Francophile father (22 June) and my Francophile mother (24 June), both long dead. That evening, after the polls had closed, there were eight of us at supper; all had voted Remain, while feeling little enthusiasm for those who had publicly argued our ...”

“... Nixon’s men were caught breaking into the headquarters of the Democratic National Committee in June 1972, Richard Helms, then director of the CIA, refused to help with the cover-up. In February 1973, after his re-election, Nixon fired Helms and replaced him with James Schlesinger. In an initiative to regain public trust as the crisis escalated, Schlesinger ...”

“... enterprise would have been seriously imperilled: This is what happened. On a calm, black night in June, 1941, Sergeant-Pilot Thomas Prosser was poaching over Northern France. His Hurricane 11B was black in its camouflage paint. Inside the cockpit, red light from the instrument panel fell softly on Prosser’s hands and face; he glowed like an avenger ...”

“... writing Too close to the bone – this must have been in March 1988. A few weeks later Jacqueline Rose and I went away with Jen White and Allon to spend a night in Wells and to look at the cathedral, which Allon knew by heart from photographs but had never seen. By now, a second bone-marrow transplant seemed to have failed; he was very weak, and had to spend ...”

“... really worth while. Fuck them.’ Fuck them indeed, but only up to a point. Six months later on 14 June 1988, he trumpeted: We are now poised to put in place my personal chef d’oeuvre, the Fur Labelling Order. It has to lie on the table for a month, and then a brief debate in the House after ten, and if necessary a perfunctory whipped vote on a two liner. I ...”

“... So began a rampage around Europe from Hamburg to Petersburg and beyond. Could a common English rose have got away with the scenes and scandals Lola created? Much was forgiven her in the name of southern fire and the lovely, ‘obviously Spanish face’, in the words of a Dresden critic, one of a thrilled and horrified chorus spouting similar nonsense ...”

“... eve of World War Two it still appeared secure. The war created a new situation in Indochina: after June 1940, the French administration sided with Vichy, then, once Tokyo had entered the war in 1941, fell under the overall control of the Japanese, who chose to rule the area indirectly through the French, a situation that prevailed right up to March ...”

“... opposed to Saudi Arabia in Yemen Qatar, among Palestinians and, more recently, in Syria. On 24 June it ran the story of Aitken interfering with witnesses alongside the Guardian cartoon by Austin showing two Gulf Arabs holding a sword marked ‘Truth’, and the caption, ‘They’re for Sale from the British.’ Between such extremes there is little room ...”

“... each recruiting and running its own partisans, SOE was an intelligence professional’s bad dream. June 1942: enter young Leo Marks. Having failed to convince the cryptographic services that he was suitable for the coding unit at Bletchley, but evincing a wayward brilliance that indicated he was too smart to do routine work, Marks was assigned to keep an eye ...”

“... exiled, waving from twenty thousand leagues Under force eights the Lusitania, Hood, Tirpitz, Mary Rose lie barnacled, Cell-like binnacles of another life Lost to the world above but frozen here Among squid, mantas, coral, nameless shoals Writhing in a lurid, marine Somme Is the sea Scottish? What are the oceans’ flags? Britannia is ash on the surface of the ...”

“... of annual growth in government outlays for research, presidential medal-pinning ceremonies in the Rose Garden for revered elders of the profession, and expressions of respect for science produce a wonderful tranquillising effect on the endless frontier. With rare exceptions, this combination has prevailed for most of the collaboration between science and ...”

“... before. No less striking is that whereas in 2008, 78 per cent of Jews voted for Obama, a poll in June this year found that only 56 per cent still supported him. By a majority of more than seven to one, Jewish Democrats take Israel’s side against the president and by more than two to one they agree that he is ‘naive in thinking he can make peace with the ...”

“... Britain’s Jews was relatively secure, became more problematic as social and political tensions rose. The Jewish population, around 60,000 in 1880, was 180,000 by 1905; anti-Jewish sentiment also increased. There were claims that East European Jews were essentially un-English and unassimilable and that Britain should avoid ‘a premature fusion with ...”

“... was beginning to falter. According to the Statistical Review of World Energy, published every June by BP, oil consumption jumped from 69.5 million barrels a day at the end of 1995 to 85.2 million barrels at the end of 2007. Some of this huge rise was generated by increased fuel consumption in the United States (where giant SUVs had become all the ...”