December 14th is

Bouillabaisse Day

Monkey Day

Roast Chestnuts Day *

Quantum Theory Day *

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MORE! Aphra Behn, Dick Rutan and Jeana Yeager. click

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WORLD FESTIVALS AND NATIONAL HOLIDAYS

Bangladesh – Martyred Intellectuals Day *

Thailand – Bangkok:
Full Moon Party

Taiwan – Chingshan Wang’s Birthday

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On This Day in HISTORY

1287 – The Zuiderzee sea wall in the Netherlands collapses, killing over 50,000 people

1542 – James V of Scotland dies, and his six-day-old daughter, Princess Mary Stuart becomes Mary, Queen of Scots

1546 – Tycho Brahe born, Danish astronomer and chemist

1640 – Aphra Behn born, English Restoration playwright and author

1789 – Marianna Szymanowska born, Polish pianist-composer

1799 – The first U.S. President, George Washington, dies at the age 67

1819 – Alabama becomes the 22nd U.S. state

1896 – Glasgow District Subway Company opens the Glasgow Underground Railway

1897 – Margaret Chase Smith born, American educator and politician

1900 – Professor Max Planck of Berlin University reveals his revolutionary Quantum Theory – Quantum Theory Day *

1902 – Commercial Pacific Cable Company lays the first Pacific telegraph cable from San Francisco to Honolulu

1911 – Roald Amundsen, Olav Bjaaland, Helmer Hanssen, Sverre Hassel, and Oscar Wisting become the first to reach the South Pole

1911 – Spike Jones is born, American singer and bandleader

1916 – Shirley Jackson born, American author

1918 – For the first time in Britain, women (over 30) vote in a General Election

1920 – Clark Terry is born, American Jazz flugelhorn pioneer

1939 – The Soviet Union is expelled from the League of Nations for invading Finland

1940 – Plutonium (Pu-238) is first isolated at Berkeley, California

1955 – Albania, Austria, Bulgaria, Cambodia, Ceylon, Finland, Hungary, Ireland, Italy, Jordan, Laos, Libya, Nepal, Portugal, Romania and Spain join the United Nations

1961 – In Washington DC, the Presidential Commission on the Status of Women is established by Executive Order, and Eleanor Roosevelt heads the commission

1962 – NASA’s Mariner 2 becomes the first spacecraft to fly by Venus; and  Bob Dylan’s first single “Mixed-Up Confusion” is released

1964 – Heart of Atlanta Motel v. United States: The U.S. Supreme Court unanimously upholds Title II of the 1964 Civil Rights Act under the Commerce Clause granting Congress the power to regulate enterprises with “a direct and substantial relation to the interstate flow of goods and people,” including places of public accommodation

1968 – Marvin Gaye’s I Heard It Through the Grapevine is #1 on the charts

1971 – Over 200 East Pakistani intellectuals are executed by the Pakistan Army and their local allies, commemorated in Bangladesh as Martyred Intellectuals Day *

1981 – Israel’s Knesset ratifies the Golan Heights Law, extending Israeli law to the occupied Golan Heights

1985 – Wilma Mankiller becomes the first woman to lead a major American Indian tribe as she formally takes office as principal chief of the Cherokee Nation of Oklahoma

1986 – The experimental aircraft Voyager, piloted by Dick Rutan and Jeana Yeager, takes off from California on the first non-stop, non-refueled flight around the world

1993 – A judge in Colorado strikes down as unconstitutional the state’s voter-approved Amendment Two prohibiting gay rights laws

1995 – Classified documents from the White House are released, revealing the FBI had spied on John Lennon and his anti-war activities during the early ’70s in a possible attempt to have Lennon deported

2004 – The Millau Viaduct, the tallest bridge in the world, is formally inaugurated near Millau, France

2012 – Sandy Hook Elementary School shooting: Twenty-eight people, including the gunman, are killed in Sandy Hook CT

2015 – Holiday Insights launches Roast Chestnuts Day * on the first day of the Twelve Days of Christmas

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Visuals

• Bouillabaisse
• Quantum Theory
• International flags
• Infant Mary, Queen of Scots
• Roald Amundsen and his team at the South Pole
• Shirley Jackson with Lottery quote
• Dick Rutan’s aircraft Voyager
• The Millau Viaduct
• Roasted chestnuts

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