August 23^rd is

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National Ride the Wind Day *

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Valentino Day *

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National Spongecake Day

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WORLD FESTIVALS AND NATIONAL HOLIDAYS

Argentina – Buenos Airies:
Tango Festival y Mundial

Malaysia – Rajah if Perlis Birthday

United States –
San Diego CA:
◊  Humphreys Concerts by the Bay
Saratoga Springs NY:
◊  Saratoga Chamber Music Festival

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On This Day in HISTORY

30 – Conqueror of Egypt Octavian executes Cleopatra’s son by Julius Caesar and Mark Antony’s eldest son

1305 – Sir William Wallace is executed for treason at Smithfield in London

MORE! The South Pole, Rudolf Valentino and Keith Moon, click

1614 – University of Groningen is established in the Dutch Republic

1628 – George Villiers, first Duke of Buckingham, stabbed to death by John Felton

1838 – First class to graduate from Mount Holyoke Female Seminary, South Hadley MA, one of the earliest colleges for women, now Mount Holyoke College

1898 – Southern Cross Expedition leaves London bound for the Antarctic. First expedition to over-winter on Antarctic mainland, pioneered use of dogs and sledges

1902 – Fannie Farmer opens Miss Farmer’s School of Cookery in Boston MA

1926 – Silent film idol  Rudolf Valentino dies at age 31 because of a ruptured ulcer. Thousands mourn.  Valentino Day * is on the anniversary of his death

1927 – Anarchists Sacco and Vanzetti executed in spite of worldwide pleas for pardon

1947 –  Keith Moon,  drummer for The Who, is born

1948 – World Council of Churches, a global fellowship of Christian churches, is formed

1954 – First Flight of C-130 Hercules aircraft

1962 – U.S. Telstar relays first live broadcast between U.S. and Europe

1973 – Stockholm, Sweden, bank robbery hostage crisis lasts 5 days, term “Stockholm syndrome” is coined to describe hostages sympathy with their captors

1977 – Paul MacCready’s Gossamer Condor-2, piloted by cyclist Bryan Allen, wins the Kremer prize for human-powered flight, flying a figure-eight course at 11 mph, for a distance of 2, 172 meters. National Ride the Wind Day * commemorates this feat.

1989 – Singing Revolution: two million from Estonia Latvia and Lithuania join hands on the Vilnius-Talinn road

1996 – President Clinton imposed limits peddling cigarettes to minors

2011 – Magnitude 5.8 (moderate) earthquake in Virginia causes an estimated $200 million–$300 million in damages to monuments and structures in Washington DC

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Visuals

• Gossamer Condor-2
• International flags
• 1908 postcard of original Rockefeller Hall at Mount Holyoke
• Rudolf Valentino as The Sheik, 1921
• C-130 Hercules circa mid-1950s

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