December 8th is

National Brownie Day

Pretend To Be A Time Traveler Day *
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MORE!  Jean Sibelius, Graham Nash and Jenny Shipley, click

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WORLD FESTIVALS AND NATIONAL HOLIDAYS

Christianity – Immaculate Conception Day (feast day of the belief God preserved Mary from original sin from the moment of conception – Catholic dogma since 1854)

Albania – Dita Kombëtatr e Rinisë
(national youth day)

Falkland Islands – Battle Day

Equatorial Guinea – Patrona de Guinea
(patron saint of  Equatorial Guinea)

Guam – Santa Marian Kamalen
(patron saint of Guam)

Kuwait – Prophet’s Birthday Holiday

Macedonia – St. Kliment Ohridski
(patron saint of Macedonia)

Northern Mariana Islands – Constitution Day

Panama – Mothers Day

Paraguay – Caacupé: Santa María de Caacupé
(festival of the Virgin)

Uzbekistan – Konstitutsiya Kuni
(Constitution day)

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On This Day in HISTORY

877 – Louis the Stammerer, son of Charles the Bald, crowned king of the West Frankish Kingdom, at Compiègne

1660 – A woman –likely Margaret Hughes, but possibly Anne Marshall – appears on an English public stage for the first time, in the role of Desdemona in a production of Shakespeare’s play Othello

1765 – Eli Whitney is born, inventor of the cotton gin

1776 – George Washington’s retreating army crosses the Delaware River from New Jersey to Pennsylvania

1813 – Premiere of Beethoven’s Symphony No. 7 in A major

1854 – In his Apostolic constitution Ineffabilis Deus, Pope Pius IX proclaims the dogma of Immaculate Conception, that the Blessed Virgin Mary was conceived free of Original Sin

1863 – U.S. President Abraham Lincoln announces plans for Southern Reconstruction

1865 – Jean Sibelius is born, Finnish composer

1886 – At a convention of union leaders in Columbus OH, the American Federation of Labor  (AFL) is founded, and Mexican painter Diego Rivera is born

1894 – James Thurber, American humorist author and
cartoonist, is born 

1897 – Josephine Bell, British physician and novelist, is born – All Is Vanity

1914 – The first musical revue featuring a score completely by Irving Berlin, Watch  Your Step, opens at NYC’s New Amsterdam Theatre

1922 – Northern Ireland ceases to be part of the Irish Free State

1925 – Carmen Martín Gaite born, Spanish novelist-essayist, El cuarto de atrás (The Back Room) 

1927 – The Brookings Institution, one of the United States’ oldest think tanks, is created by merging three organizations founded by philanthropist Robert S. Brookings

1941 – U.S. President Franklin D. Roosevelt’s famous Pearl Harbor Address to Congress and the nation: “Yesterday, December 7, 1941—a date which will live in infamy…”

1949 – The United Nations Relief and Works Agency for Palestine Refugees in the Near East is established to provide aid to Palestinian refugees who left their homes during the 1948 Palestinian exodus.

1952 – On I Love Lucy, a pregnancy is talked about on a TV show for the first time

1953 – U.S. President Dwight D. Eisenhower delivers his “Atoms for Peace” speech, leading to government program to supply equipment and information on nuclear power to schools, hospitals, and research institutions around the world

1967 – The Rolling Stones release Their Satanic Majesties Request album in the U.K.

1968 – Graham Nash announces formation of Crosby, Stills and Nash three days after he quit the Hollies

1980 – In New York City, Mark David Chapman shoots John Lennon to death, who had  autographed an album for Chapman earlier in the day

1984 – In Roanoke, Virginia, a jury finds Hustler magazine publisher Larry Flynt innocent of libeling Reverend Jerry Falwell with a parody advertisement. However Falwell was awarded $200,000 for emotional distress

1987 – U.S. President Reagan and Soviet leader Mikhail S. Gorbachev sign a treaty to destroy their nations’ arsenals of intermediate-range nuclear missiles

1993 – U.S. President Clinton signs into law the North American Free Trade Agreement

1994 – In Los Angeles, 12 alternate jurors are chosen for the O.J. Simpson murder trial

1997 – Jenny Shipley was sworn in as the first female prime minister of New Zealand

1998 – The U.S. Supreme Court ruled that police could not search a person or their cars after ticketing for a routine traffic violation

1999 – In Memphis, TN, a jury found that in 1968, Rev. Martin Luther King Jr. had been the victim of a vast murder conspiracy, not a lone assassin

2007 – First ‘Pretend To Be A Time Traveler’ Day * created by the Koala Wallop online community

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Visuals

• Brownies with nuts
• Pretend To Be A Time Traveler Day poster
• International flags
• 14th-century depiction of Louis the Stammerer’s coronation
• James Thurber quote on Progress
• New Zealand Prime Minister Jenny Shipley quote on Peace

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