Back in 1940, as Britain faced its “darkest hour” of World War II, the nation's future hung in the balance. During a remarkable and harrowing window of eight days in late May and early June, a series of miracles took place, focused on the evacuation of the British army at Dunkirk. Now, exactly eighty years later, we can still learn much from those miraculous events.

Forty years ago, on 5 June 1975, UK voters went to the polls in Britain’s first-ever national referendum. The aim was to resolve the preeminent question of the day: should Britain remain in the European Economic Community (EEC) it had joined two years earlier? UK voters will face another referendum before the end of 2017 on the same issue: should the UK remain a part of the EEC’s successor, the European Union (EU)?

“German Foreign Minister Frank-Walter Steinmeier visited Jerusalem Sunday, in a trip that highlighted Germany’s dilemma of a great affinity for Israel amid growing unease with Israeli government policy” (Deutsche Welle, June 1, 2015).

“Rescuers searched on Tuesday for more than 400 people, many of them elderly Chinese tourists [ages 50-80], missing after a cruise boat was hit by a freak tornado and capsized on the Yangtze River in what may become China’s worst shipping disaster in nearly 70 years.

A severe heat wave in India has killed over 2,300 in the past week as temperatures have climbed above 47 Celsius (116 Fahrenheit) (CNN, June 2, 2015). “Authorities have cancelled doctors’ leave and advised people not to head outside in the middle of the day to avoid the worst of the heat. However for many Indians, staying indoors is not an option. ‘I get headaches, fever sometimes.