The summer solstice at Stonehenge will be streamed live over social media on June 20 (photo courtesy English Heritage)
Who: English Heritage
What: Livestreamed summer solstice
Where: English Heritage Facebook and other social media
When: Saturday, June 20, 3:41 pm (sunset) and 11:07 pm (sunrise), free
Why: Located near Amesbury in Wiltshire, the mysterious prehistoric rock monument known as Stonehenge has been closed during the pandemic. It is scheduled to reopen until July 4, meaning thousands of locals and tourists will not be able to make the annual pilgrimage to experience the summer solstice there on June 20. But that’s good news for the rest of the world, as for the first time, the solstice will be officially livestreamed, from sunset (3:41 pm) to sunrise (11:07 pm) on June 20. It usually costs about thirty dollars to visit the stone circle, but social media across England will be streaming for free those two moments when the Northern Hemisphere is farthest from the sun. True, it might look eighteen inches or less on your computer monitor, iPad, or smartphone, but as Spinal Tap explained, we’re talking about “Stonehenge! ’Tis a magic place / Where the moon doth rise with a dragon’s face / Stonehenge! Where the virgins lie / And the prayers of devils fill the midnight sky.” You can enhance your experience of the virtual Stonehenge, where Darwin studied worms, which was once put up for auction (and purchased for £6,600 by a local resident), and about which we still know so few details regarding who built it and why, via the English Heritage’s free audio guide, as well as by watching Rob Reiner’s This Is Spinal Tap again.