St. Botolph's Day
Happy St. Botolph's Day!!! June 17 is the feast day of Botolph, a 7th-century English monk. Actual historical details of Botolph are sketchy, but he had a lot of churches named after him and one church in Lincolnshire became the center of "Botolph's Town," shortened to Boston.
A lot of the Puritans who settled the Massachusetts Bay Colony were from the Boston, England area and named their new hometown after it, which is deeply ironic because the Puritan's were staunchly against "papist" practices like naming places after saints.
Today, June 17 is a legal holiday in Suffolk County, Massachusetts (my kids even got the day off from school until a few years ago) but not for any reason to do with Botolph. June 17, 1775 was the date of the Battle of Bunker Hill in Charlestown, MA and so the day is commemorated as Bunker Hill Day.
People also connect the date 6/17 to Boston because the city's area code is 617.
The Boston Celtics won their most recent NBA Championship on June 17, 2008 and if all goes well, they could win another championship tonight!