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Mandy Rice-Davies

"Well he would, wouldn't he?" is an aphorism that is commonly used as a retort to a self-interested denial. It was said by the model Mandy Rice-Davies (pictured) while giving evidence at the 1963 trial of Stephen Ward, who had been accused of living off money paid to Rice-Davies and her friend Christine Keeler for sex: part of the larger Profumo affair. While being cross-examined Rice-Davies was told that Lord Astor, who owned the Cliveden estate on which Ward rented a cottage, had denied an affair with her; she replied: "Well he would, wouldn't he?" Political, communications and psychological experts have interpreted it as a phrase which indicates the speaker believes a person is making a self-interested, obvious or irrelevant denial. They have also stated it functions as a retort to mistruths made by public figures. Linguistically, it has been noted for its use of the modal verb would to create rhetorical effect. The phrase has been included in The Oxford Dictionary of Quotations since 1979. (Full article...)

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June 28: Vidovdan in Serbia

Gavrilo Princip

572 – Alboin, the king of the Lombards, was assassinated in Verona in a coup d'état instigated by the Byzantines.
1904 – In the worst maritime disaster involving a Danish merchant ship, SS Norge ran aground on Hasselwood Rock and sank in the North Atlantic, resulting in more than 635 deaths.
1914 – Archduke Franz Ferdinand and his wife Sophie, Duchess of Hohenberg, were assassinated in Sarajevo by Gavrilo Princip (pictured), a Yugoslav nationalist, sparking the outbreak of World War I.
1969 – In response to a police raid at the Stonewall Inn in New York City, groups of gay and transgender people began demonstrations, a watershed event for the worldwide gay rights movement.
1989 – President Slobodan Milošević gave a speech at Gazimestan in which he described the possibility of "armed battles" in the future of Serbia's national development.

Paul Broca (b. 1824)
Don Baylor (b. 1949)
Vannevar Bush (d. 1974)
Hussein, Crown Prince of Jordan (b. 1994)

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Julian Assange

In Bolivia, troops led by Juan José Zúñiga storm the presidential palace in an attempted coup.
WikiLeaks founder Julian Assange (pictured) is released from prison as part of a U.S. plea bargain.
Protesters attack the Parliament Buildings in Nairobi, Kenya, leaving 19 people dead and at least 160 others injured.
In ice hockey, the Florida Panthers defeat the Edmonton Oilers to win the Stanley Cup Finals.

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