The official start of summer is today – Sunday, June 20th, 2021.
If that’s not specific enough, the EXACT moment summer starts is tonight at 10:32 p.m. Central, 11:32 p.m. Eastern & 8:32 p.m. Pacific.
That’s when the North Pole is at its maximum tilt toward the sun, making it the longest day of the year, here in the Northern Hemisphere.
Here are ten more facts for the start of summer:
1. The term “dog days of summer” comes from astronomy. Sirius is called the “Dog Star” and rises in late July. In ancient Greece, the “dog days” meant the hottest part of the year.
2. The world’s largest scoop of ice cream weighed 3,010 pounds. A company in Wisconsin pulled it off in 2014, and then used it to hand out free scoops all weekend.
3. We tend to be happier in summer. A study in 2011 found it’s true by analyzing tweets from 2.4 million people. They say it might be because there’s just more sun.
4. The Eiffel Tower gets six inches taller in summer, because the metal expands from the heat.
5. Wham-O started selling Frisbees in 1957. But the first frisbees were actually PIE TINS college students liked to throw around. And it’s also where the name came from. They got the tins from the Frisbie Pie Company in Bridgeport, Connecticut.
6. We’ll eat around 150 million hot dogs on Fourth of July weekend alone this summer. That’s enough to stretch across the country more than five times.
7. There are over 300 varieties of watermelon in the world.
8. There’s enough water in an Olympic-sized swimming pool to take 9,400 baths. That’s enough to take one bath a day for 25 years.
9. Popsicles were invented by mistake. Back in 1905, a guy in San Francisco left some sugary water out overnight, and it froze. Then he realized it was delicious.
10. Americans drink about three billion gallons of iced tea a year. According to the national Tea Association, over 75% of all the tea we drink here is of the iced variety.