October 10^th is

Angel Food Cake Day

Native American Day

Naval Academy Day  *

Shift10 Day *

World Mental Health Day

World Homeless Day

International Stage Management Day

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MORE! Giuseppe Verdi, Emmeline Pankhurst and Angela Merkel, click

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WORLD FESTIVALS AND NATIONAL HOLIDAYS

Argentina – Día del Respeto a la Diversidad

Austria – Referendum Say

Belize – Pan America  Day

Canada and Norfolk Island – Thanksgiving Day

Chile – Encuerto de Dos Muertos

Cuba – War of Independence Day

Curaçao – National Flag and Anthem Day

Fiji – Fiji Day

Japan and St Maarten – Constitution Day

Kenya – Moi Day

North Mariana Islands – Commonwealth Cultural Day

North Korea – Party Foundation Day

Suriname – Maroons Day *

Taiwan – National Day & Moi Day

Turks and Caicos Islands – Heritage Day

Uruguay – Día de la Raza/Sarandi Battle

United States and its territories – Columbus Day

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On This Day in HISTORY

1760 – The Ndyuka people, one of six ‘Maroon’ peoples in Suriname and French Guiana, descended from African slaves brought to work on Dutch-owned plantations who escaped into the rain forests, sign a treaty with Dutch colonizers that secured their territorial autonomy, celebrated as Maroons Day *

1813 – Giuseppe Verdi is born, Italian composer of 26 operas

1845 – The Naval School opens in Annapolis MD with 50 midshipmen – later renamed the U.S. Naval Academy *

1846 – English astronomer William Lassell discovers Triton, Neptune’s largest moon

1865 – John Wesley Hyatt patents the billiard ball

1868 – Carlos Manuel de Céspedes issues the “10th of October Manifesto” signaling the start of an all-out military uprising to gain Cuba’s independence from Spain

1886 – The Tuxedo dinner jacket makes its debut in New York City, named by multi-millionaire members of the Tuxedo Club at Tuxedo Park, an upper NY state retreat developed by Pierre Lorillard IV, scion of the Lorillard Tobacco Company family

1903 – The Women’s Social and Political Union (WSPU) is founded by Emmeline Pankhurst and her daughters Christabel and Sylvia in Manchester, later moving operations to London, a militant organization campaigning for suffrage for British women. Their slogan: “Deeds, not words”

1913 – U.S President Wilson triggers the rigged explosion of Gamboa Dike, completing construction of the Panama Canal

1940 – Lanny Ross records “Moonlight and Roses”

1959 – Pan American World Airways announces first global air service

1962 – The BBC bans “The Monster Mash” song by Bobby ‘Boris’ Pickett, for being “too morbid”

1965 – The Red Baron makes his first appearance in the Peanuts comic

1973 – Fiji becomes independent after nearly a century of British rule

1984 – U.S. Congress passes 2nd Boland Amendment, outlaws solicitation of 3rd-party countries to support the Contras, also bars use of funds available to CIA, defense, or intelligence agencies for “supporting, directly or indirectly, military or paramilitary operations in Nicaragua by any nation, group, organization or individual”

1987 – Tom McClean sets 54 day/18 hour record rowing solo across the Atlantic Ocean

1988 – U2 releases their album Rattle and Hum

1994 – Iraq announces its withdrawal from Kuwaiti border. No pullback is observed

1995 – Gary Kasparov wins chess championship against Viswanathan Anand

2005 – Angela Merkel becomes Germany’s first female chancellor

2016 – Shift10 Day, * movement to encourage buying from non-chain businesses, asking people to spend 10% of their budgets at local businesses and farmers markets

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Visuals

• Park Bench Sleeper painting by Charles M. Williams
• International flags
• Triton in orbit around Neptune
• Evolution from long-tailed coat to Tuxedo
• WSPU Hammersmith Chapter Banner – Museum of London
• Snoopy’s first battle with the Red Baron
• Angela Merkel

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