December 15th is

Bill of Rights Day *

Cat Herders Day

National Cupcake Day

National Gingerbread Latte Day

______________________________________________________________

MORE! Jane Austen, Gustave Eiffel and Franklin D. Roosevelt, click

______________________________________________________________

WORLD FESTIVALS AND NATIONAL HOLIDAYS

Alderney – Homecoming Day

Nepal – Constitution Day

Netherlands – Koninkrijksdag
(Kingdom charter day)

______________________________________________________________

On This Day in HISTORY

37 – Nero, last Roman emperor of the Julio-Claudian dynasty, is born

1654 – A meteorological office in Tuscany begins taking daily temperature readings

1657 –-  born, French organist-composer in service to King Louis XIV, know for grands motets requiring large choral and orchestral groups

1791 – The Virginia General Assembly ratifies the U.S. Bill of Rights, the last state needed to become law – celebrated as Bill of Rights Day *

1815 – Jane Austen’s Emma is published

1832 – Gustave Eiffel born, French architect-engineer, co-designer of the Eiffel Tower

1840 – Napoleon Bonaparte’s remains are interred in Les Invalides in Paris, returned from St. Helena, where he died in exile

1854 – In Philadelphia, the first street cleaning machine goes into service

1888 – Maxwell Anderson born, American playwright, Key Largo, Anne of the Thousand Days, The Bad Seed 

1890 – Hunkpapa Lakota leader Sitting Bull is killed on the Standing Rock Reservation, leading to the Wounded Knee Massacre

1896 – Betty Smith born, American author, A Tree Grows in Brooklyn

1905 – The Pushkin House is proposed by a non-governmental organization in Saint Petersburg, Russia, to preserve the cultural heritage of Alexander Pushkin, but they also begin acquiring manuscripts and libraries of other Russian authors. When the Russian Revolution shuts down all non-governmental institutions, Pushkin House is put under the umbrella of the Russian Academy of Sciences (1918), with Maxim Gorky as one of its “honorary” directors. As it expands its collections, the official name is changed to the Institute of New Russian Literature (1920)

1906 – The London Underground’s Great Northern, Piccadilly and Brompton Railway opens

1907 – Oscar Niemeyer born, Brazilian architect, designer of UN Headquarters in NY

1911 – Stan Kenton, American jazz pianist-composer, is born

1913 – Nicaragua becomes a signatory to the Buenos Aires Convention, a mutual recognition of copyrights by nations in Central and South America, plus the U.S.

1913 – Muriel Rukeyser is born, American poet, social justice and feminist activist

1916 – The WWI Battle of Verdun ends

1925 – The third Madison Square Gardens opens

1933 – The Twenty-first Amendment to the United States Constitution officially becomes effective, repealing the Eighteenth Amendment that prohibited the sale, manufacture, and transportation of alcohol

1938 – U.S. President Franklin D. Roosevelt presides over ground-breaking ceremonies for the Jefferson Memorial in Washington DC

1939 – Gone with the Wind (highest inflation adjusted grossing film) premieres at Loew’s Grand Theatre in Atlanta, Georgia, to an all-white audience – the film was finally shown in a “colored” movie house four months later

1941 – U.S. President Franklin D. Roosevelt proclaims Bill of Rights Day

1942 – Kathleen Blanco born, American Democratic politician, first woman elected as governor of Louisiana; Dave Clark born, English drummer-songwriter- producer

1944 – A single-engine plane carrying Big Band leader-composer/U.S. Army Major Glenn Miller disappears in thick fog over the English Channel while en route to Paris – declared a death in absentia

1945 – During the Post-WWII  U.S. Occupation of Japan, General Douglas MacArthur orders that Shinto be abolished as the state religion of Japan

1959 – The Everly Brothers record “Let It Be Me” in New York City

1961 – Adolf Eichmann is sentenced to death after being found guilty by an Israeli court of 15 criminal charges, including crimes against humanity, crimes against the Jewish people, and membership in an outlawed organization

1965 – NASA’s Gemini 6A, crewed by Wally Schirra and Thomas Stafford, is launched from Cape Kennedy FL.  After four orbits, it achieves the first space rendezvous, with Gemini 7

1970 – Soviet spacecraft Venera 7 lands on Venus, the first successful soft landing on another planet

1973 – The American Psychiatric Association votes 13–0 to remove homosexuality from its official list of psychiatric disorders, the DSM-II

1978 – U.S. President Jimmy Carter announces that the United States will recognize the People’s Republic of China and sever diplomatic relations with Taiwan

1989 – Second Optional Protocol to the International Covenant on Civil and Political Rights is created, with the goal of abolition of the death penalty, though Article 2.1 permits parties to make a reservation allowing execution “in time of war pursuant to a conviction for a most serious crime of a military nature committed during wartime”

1993 – The Downing Street Declaration, jointly issued by British Prime Minister John Major and Irish Taoiseach Albert Reynolds, affirms both the right of the Irish people to self-determination, and that Northern Ireland would be transferred to the Republic of Ireland from the United Kingdom only if a majority of its population was in favor of the change, a major step toward the Good Friday Agreement in 1998

2001 – The Leaning Tower of Pisa reopens after 11 years and $27,000,000 spent to fortify it, without fixing its famous lean.

2005 – Introduction of the Lockheed Martin F-22 Raptor into USAF active service

2009 – Boeing’s 787 Dreamliner makes its maiden flight from Seattle WA

2009 – The Washington, D.C. City Council voted to legalize same-sex marriage

2010 – U.N. Security Council unanimously votes  to lift 19-year-old sanctions on weapons and civilian nuclear power of confidence against the government of Iraq

_____________________________________________________________

Visuals

• Cat Herder cartoon
• Bill of Rights poster
• Bust of Nero
• Jane Austen, with first line of Emma
• Blueprint page for the Eiffel Tower
• Paul Muni on cover of February 1940 Playbill for Key Largo
• First page of Betty Smith’s A Tree Grows in Brooklyn
• Great Northern, Piccadilly and Brompton Railway poster
• Muriel Rukeyser with quote
• Gone with the Wind premiere in Atlanta GA
• Engineering to save the Leaning Tower of Pisa
• Lockheed Martin F-22 Raptor
• Boeing 787 Dreamliner

_____________________________________________________________