August 27th is

Just Because Day

The Duchess Who Wasn’t Day *

National Pots de Creme Day

Jeff Cook Day (state of Alabama) *

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WORLD FESTIVALS AND NATIONAL HOLIDAYS

Canada -Calgary:
Fireworks Festival (finale)

Japan – Makinohara:
Windblow Sagara Festival

Netherlands – Vijfhuizen:
Mysteryland Festival

Moldova –
Ziua Republicii (Independence)

South Korea – Daegu:
International Bodypainting Festival

U.K. – London:
South West Four

United States –
Fort Washington, MD:
› Chesapeake Crab & Beer Festival
Missoula MT: The Lantern Fest
Brooklyn NY: Afropunk Fest

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On This Day in HISTORY

1828 – U.K. brokers Uruguay’s independence at peace talks with Brazil and Argentina

1859 – Petroleum discovered in Titusville PA, site of world’s first commercial oil well

MORE! Krakatoa erupts, Canada’s “Famous Five” and Mariner-2 

1883 – Krakatoa erupts in 4 enormous explosions, the last so loud it was heard 3000 miles away in Perth, Australia. It destroys 2/3 of the island, sets off tsunamis, leaves 36,000 dead and causes five years of frigid worldwide “volcanic winters”

1927 – The “Famous Five” Canadian women file a petition to Supreme Court of Canada, asking, “Does the word ‘Persons’ in Section 24 of the British North America Act, 1867, include female persons?”

1928 – Kellogg-Briand Pact, named for authors U.S. Secretary of State Frank Kellogg and French Foreign Minister Aristide Briand, signed by the U.S., France and Germany. Ultimately 61 nations sign the pact, which inspires similar provisions in the United Nations charter in 1945.

1939 – First Flight of turbojet-powered Heinkel He 178, world’s first jet aircraft

1949 – Country rock lead guitar, fiddle and keyboard player Jeff Cook of Alabama is born.  August 27th has been proclaimed as Jeff Cook Day * in the State of Alabama

1957 – Malaysia’s Federal Constitution comes into force, establishing its Federation as a constitutional monarchy, led by a Prime Minister, with the Monarch filling a mostly ceremonial role.

1962 – NASA Mariner-2 unmanned space mission to Venus is launched

1979 – The Irish Republican Army kills Lord Louis Mountbatten, his grandson and 2 others with a bomb hidden in his fishing boat at Mullaghmore, County Sligo, Ireland

1991 – Eurpean Community recognizes the independence of Estonia, Latvia and Lithuania. Moldova declares its independence from Russia

1993 – Michael Jackson’s Neverland Ranch is raided by the police after a child who stayed there alleges molestation, but no charges are filed at the time

2003 – Mars makes its closest approach to Earth in nearly 60,000 years, just 34,646,418 miles (55,758,005 km) away

2012 – An unknown fan starts The Duchess Who Wasn’t Day,* apparently mistakenly believing August 27 was her date of birth (it’s actually April 27, 1855), to celebrate author Margaret Wolfe Hungerford, who wrote under the pen name “The Duchess” and coined “Beauty is in the eye of the beholder” in her novel Molly Bawn

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Visuals

• Pot de Creme au Chocolat
• International Flags
• Lithograph of Krakatoa erupting
• NASA’s Mariner-2
• Picture of Mars from NASA Hubble Space Telescope 2003
• Margaret Wolfe Hungerford

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