December 13th is

National Cocoa Day

National Day of the Horse *

National Popcorn String Day *

National Violin Day
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MORE! Kenneth Patchen, Grandma Moses and Yasser Arafat, click

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WORLD FESTIVALS AND NATIONAL HOLIDAYS

Bhutan – Dochula: Druk Wangyel Tshechu
(military victory)

Guatemala – Chichicastenango:
Fiesta de Santo Tomas/Palo Volador
(dance of the fliers)

Malaysia – Selangor:
Birthday of the Sultan

Malta – Jum ir-Repubblika
(republic day)

Santa Lucia – Saint Lucia Day

Sri Lanka – Unduwap Poya (Sangamitta brings Bo tree sapling/full moon day)

Sweden – Saint Lucia Day
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On This Day in HISTORY

1294 – Saint Celestine V resigns the papacy after only five months to return to his previous life as an ascetic hermit

1545 – Catholic ecumenical Council of Trent begins

1577 – Sir Francis Drake leads five ships sailing from Plymouth, England, on his round-the-world voyage

1636 – The Massachusetts Bay Colony organizes three militia regiments to defend the colony against the Pequot Indians, precursor of the U.S. National Guard

1642 – Dutch explorer Abel Tasman reaches New Zealand

1769 – Dartmouth College founded by Reverend Eleazar Wheelock, under royal charter from King George III, on land donated by Royal governor John Wentworth

1779 – Smithfield Cattle and Sheep Society holds the first Smithfield Show in London, now the leading agriculture show in the UK

1809 – Early experimental abdominal surgical procedure on Jane Todd Crawford in Kentucky, without an anesthetic

1816 – John Adamson received a patent for a dry dock

1827 – John & Peter Delmonico open their first New York restaurant, Delmonico & Brothers Cafe

1830 – Mathilde Fibiger born, Danish feminist, and novelist, Clara Raphael, Tolv Breve (Clara Raphael, Twelve Letters)

1838 – Pierre-Marie-Alexis Millardet born, French botanist who saved the vineyards of France from total destruction by the grape phylloxera, an insect which sucks the fluid from grapevines, by grafting the French vines on American rootstock, which was resistant to phylloxera. Also develops the first widely used plant fungicide

1903 – Carlos Montoya is born, Spanish guitarist and composer

1911 – Kenneth Patchen is born, American poet

1912 –Luiz Gonzaga is born, Brazilian singer-songwriter

1913 – The U.S. Federal Reserve System is established

1921 – Britain, France, Japan and the U.S. sign the Four Power Pacific Treaty, agreeing not to seek territorial expansion, and mutual consultation in territorial disputes

1928 – George Gershwin’s An American in Paris premieres

1937 – During the 2^nd Sino-Japanese War, Nanking falls to the Japanese army, and over 300,000 Chinese civilians are slaughtered, injured or raped

1948 – Jeff Baxter born, American guitarist-songwriter-producer, Steely Dan, The Doobie Brothers

1949 – The Knesset votes to move the capital of Israel to Jerusalem

1959 – Archbishop Makarios III becomes the first President of Cyprus

1961 – Painter “Grandma Moses” passes away at the age of 101

1962 – NASA launches Relay 1, first active repeater communications satellite in orbit

1964 – President Johnson and Mexican President Gustavo Diaz Ordaz end a 100-year-old border dispute by setting off an explosion diverting the Rio Grande River to reshape the border between the state of Texas and Mexico

1966 – Jimi Hendrix releases his single “Foxy Lady”

1967 – Constantine II of Greece launches unsuccessful counter-coup against the Regime of the Colonels

1972 – Eugene Cernan and Harrison Schmitt begin final extra-vehicular activity (EVA) or “Moonwalk” of Apollo 17, to date the last time humans to set foot on the Moon

1974 – Malta becomes a republic within the Commonwealth of Nations

1981 – General Jaruzelski declares martial law in Poland, in response to Solidarity’s growing influence and activism

1988 – PLO Chairman Yasser Arafat gives a speech at a UN General Assembly meeting in Geneva, Switzerland, after U.S. authorities deny him a visa to visit New York

1989 – Taylor Swift born, American singer-songwriter-guitarist

1991 – North Korea and South Korea sign a non-aggression agreement

1993 – U.S. Supreme Court rules that a hearing must be held before property linked to illegal drug sales can be seized

1997 – The Getty Center in Los Angeles, CA, opens with a ribbon cutting ceremony

1998 – Puerto Rican voters reject U.S. statehood in a non-binding referendum

2002 – European Union announces that Cyprus, the Czech Republic,  Estonia,  Hungary,  Latvia, Lithuania, Malta, Poland, Slovakia, and Slovenia will become members in 2004

2004 – U.S. Senate Resolution 452 proclaims the first National Day of the Horse *

2010 – Foodimentary launches the first National Popcorn String Day *

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Visuals

• Holiday Hot Cocoa
• Guarneri violin 1732 – Guarneri del Gesu Ferni
• International flags
• The Golden Hind, flagship of Sir Francis Drake
•  Dartmouth College, present day
• Kenneth Patchen, quote from his poem “The Character of Love Seen as a Search for the Lost”
• Bennington, painting by Grandma Moses (Anna Mary Robertson Moses)
• Horses running
• Popcorn string with cranberries

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