Pop Culture Happenings: June

Looking back, it’s easy to wonder where the time went. Science has figured out how to get some of it back, even if it’s only a second here and there. Let’s use those seconds to indulge in some nostalgia about our favorite alien and wizard.

__1972 · 50 years ago__

Hey, 1972, give me a second, will ya! We all know about leap years and that pesky Feb. 29 every four years, but less well-known is June 30, 1972, when we added the first leap second.

The reason for both has to do with the rotation of the earth matching up with atomic clocks. The earth’s rotation fluctuates faster — or slower, depending on climate and geological events — but atomic clocks do not. There have been 37 leap seconds added since 1972. Thanks, science!

__1982 · 40 years ago__

Only 364 days after introducing the world to Indiana Jones, on June 11, 1982, Steven Spielberg landed a UFO in suburban Los Angeles, and out shuffled that stubby extraterrestrial with giant blue eyes, a glowing heart and the finger that can heal young Elliot’s “ouch.”

Keeping his camera low, Spielberg helped us see the story from a kid’s point of view: Reese’s Pieces, freeing frogs from dissection, MacGyver-ing a Speak & Spell to let E.T. phone home, kids on dirt bikes being chased by scary government dudes with guns and that magical bicycle flight across the moon. E.T. did what too few movies do today: Let us joyfully celebrate the fun of youth, even in the midst of harsh realities like divorce and riding the school bus.

__1997 · 25 years ago__

“Yer a wizard, Harry.”

What wouldn’t a kid — or adult, for that matter — give to have Hagrid say the same to them? Kids and grown-ups alike got to imagine just that when the first Harry Potter book was published June 26, 1997.

J.K. Rowling says the idea just “fell into” her head one night in 1990 while riding home on a train. (Departing from Gate 9 and three quarters?) She spent the next six years writing “The Philosopher’s Stone,” the first book in the series, and was paid an advance of 2,500 pounds when it sold to Bloomsbury Children’s Books. Today, after seven books, eight movies, two theme parks and more merchandising than you can shake a wand at, the Harry Potter franchise is valued at more than $25 billion.