December 6th is

Microwave Oven Day *

National Miners’ Day *

Mitten Tree Day *

National Gazpacho Day

Pawnbroker’s Day

______________________________________________________________

MORE!  Cole Porter, Lynne Fontanne and Vladimir Nabokov, click

______________________________________________________________

WORLD FESTIVALS AND NATIONAL HOLIDAYS

Christianity – Feast Day of Saint Nicholas (patron saint of pawnbrokers)

Åland – Independence Day

Canada – White Ribbon Day

Ecuador – Quito: Founding Day

Finland – Independence Day

Spain – Día de la Constitución Española

United States – Washington DC:
Capitol Christmas Tree Lighting

______________________________________________________________

On This Day in HISTORY

1534 – Sebastián de Belalcázar’s band of settlers founds the city of Quito in Ecuador

1768 – The first edition of the Encyclopædia Britannica is published

1774 – Austria became the first nation to introduce a state education system.

1790 – The U.S. Congress moved from New York to Philadelphia

1846 – The Berlioz opera La Damnation de Faust is debuts in Paris

1865 – The U.S. Constitution’s 13^th Amendment ratified, abolishing slavery in the U.S.

1877 – The first edition of  The Washington Post is published

1884 – The construction of the Washington Monument was completed by Army engineers, 34 years after construction started

1887 – Lynne Fontanne is born in Britain, Broadway stage and film star

1897 – London becomes the world’s first city with licensed taxicabs

1904 – Theodore Roosevelt articulates his “Corollary” to the Monroe Doctrine, stating that the U.S. would intervene in the Western Hemisphere should Latin American governments prove unstable

1907 – The worst mining disaster in American history kills 361 miners in Monongah WV; Miners’ Day * is sponsored by the Miners’ Day Memorial Association of West Virginia, recognized by Congress on December 6, 2009

1917 – Finland proclaims its independence from Russia

1921 – Piero Piccioni born,  Italian film score composer (Swept Away)

1922 – The Irish Free State, a self-governing dominion of Britain, is inaugurated one year to the day after the Anglo-Irish treaty is signed

1923 – U.S. President Calvin Coolidge becomes the first president whose presidential address is broadcast on radio

1926 – In Italy, Benito Mussolini introduces a tax on bachelors

1928 – The Columbian government troops put down a month-long strike by United Fruit Company workers, resulting in an unknown number of deaths

1933 – U.S. federal judge John M. Woolsey rules James Joyce’s Ulysses is not obscene

1939 – Cole Porter’s musical Du Barry Was a Lady opens on Broadway

1943 – Mike Smith born, English singer-songwriter of the Dave Clark Five

1945 – Percy Spenser, while working on a magnetron, notices its effect on food, and begins experiments that lead to his invention of the microwave oven, which he patented on this day – celebrated on Microwave Oven Day *

1947 – Everglades National Park in Florida is dedicated by U.S. President Truman

1953 – Vladimir Nabokov completes his controversial novel Lolita

1967 – Adrian Kantrowitz performs the first human heart transplant in the U.S.

1968 – The James Taylor Album is released in Britain

1969 – The Rolling Stones release their album Beggar’s Banquet

1973 – Gerald R. Ford is sworn in as U.S. vice-president after V-P Spiro Agnew resigns because of income tax evasion and bribery charges

1974 – George Harrison releases “Ding Dong, Ding Dong”

1985 – Tandy Corporation introduces a hand-held cellular phone that weighs 11 pounds and sells for $1.199.00

1989 – White Ribbon Day * commemorated in Canada on the anniversary of the 1989 École Polytechnique Massacre (or Montreal Massacre) when Marc Lépine, an anti-feminist gunman, murdered 14 women at the École Polytechnique in Montreal.

1991 – The movie Star Trek VI – Undiscovered Country premieres

1994 – Orange County, CA, one of the richest counties in the U.S, files for bankruptcy protection after investment losses of about $2 billion, becoming the largest municipality up to that time to file for bankruptcy

2006 – NASA reveals Mars Global Surveyor photographs suggesting the presence of liquid water on Mars

2009 – The Mitten Tree, by Candace Chirstiansen, is published, which inspires Mitten Tree Day* to remind us warm clothing donations are needed for the less fortunate now

______________________________________________________________

Visuals

• Gazpacho
• Mitten Tree Day illustration
• International Flags
• 1768 edition of the Encyclopædia Britannica 
• Postcard of the Washington Monument circa 1885
• Miners’ Day banner
• Excerpt from John M Woolsey‘s ruling on James Joyce’s Ulysses
• First page of Vladimir Nabokov’s Lolita
• Mars Global Surveyor 2006 photo of the Mars surface

______________________________________________________________