August 25th is

Banana Split Day *

Kiss and Make Up Day

National Park Service Day *

Second-Hand Wardrobe Day

Whisky Sour Day

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WORLD FESTIVALS AND NATIONAL HOLIDAYS

Bangladesh and India– Sri Krishna Jananti/Janmashtami
(birthday of Lord Krishna)

Nepal – Gaura Parba
(3-day festival for Krishna,
Shiva, Parvati and Ganesh)

North Korea – Day of Songun
(inspection of Seoul Ryu Kyong Guards)

Saint Barts – Feast of St. Louis

Uruguay – Día de la Independencia

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On This Day in History

1543 – First Europeans arrive in Japan

1609 – Galileo Galilei demonstrates his first telescope to Venetian lawmakers

MORE! Banana Splits, ‘Great Moon Hoax’ and Bruce Springsteen, click

1814 – British troops destroy the U.S. Library of Congress during the War of 1812

1835 – “The Great Moon Hoax” – The New York Sun runs a satirical series, “reprinted” from the long-defunct Edinburgh Journal of Science, claiming sightings through a telescope of life on the moon, including unicorns, two-legged beavers, bat-like humanoids, rushing rivers and lush vegetation. Most readers believe the stories are true, including some scientists from Yale University, who show up at the Sun wanting to see the “science journal”

1894 – Kitasato Shibasaburō discovers bubonic plague’s infectious agent, publishes his findings in The Lancet

1904 – (Exact date unconfirmed) David Strickler, apprentice pharmacist in Latrobe PA, invents the Banana Split *

1914 – The German Army deliberately destroys the Catholic University of Leuven library.  Hundreds of thousands of irreplaceable books and Gothic and Renaissance manuscripts are lost

1916 – The Organic Act of 1916 creates the National Park Service * as part of the Department of the Interior

1918 – Leonard Bernstein, composer-conductor, is born

1945 – Chinese Communist Party supporters kill U.S. intelligence officer John Birch

1948 – House Un-American Activities Committee, first-ever televised congressional hearing: “Confrontation Day” between Whittaker Chambers and Alger Hiss

1950 – President Harry Truman orders U.S. Army to seize control of the nation’s railroads to avert a strike

1975 – Bruce Springsteen’s Born to Run album released

1998 – Dolly Parton releases Hungry Again album

2012 – NASA Voyager 1 spacecraft is first man-made object to enter interstellar space

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Visuals

• National Park Service Centennial logo
• International flags
• ‘Life on the Moon’ hoax lithograph NY Sun 1835
• Yellowstone Park souvenir 1916 – first U.S. National Park

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