February 1st is

Baked Alaska Day *

Change Your Password Day *

National Freedom Day*

National Get Up Day *

Robinson Crusoe Day *

Spunky Old Broads Day *

National Girls & Women in Sports Day *
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MORE! Victor Herbert, Leymah Gbowee and The Beatles, click

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WORLD FESTIVALS AND NATIONAL HOLIDAYS

Celtic and Pagan – Imbolic (Northern Hemisphere)
Pagan – Lammas (Southern Hemisphere)

India – Vasant Panchami/Saraswati Puja 
(spring religious festivals)

Malaysia – Federal Territory Day

Monserrat – St. Brigid Day

Rwanda – National Heroes’ Day

Senegal – Confederal Agreement Day

Spain – Granada: El Día de San Cecilio
(city’s patron saint)

Venezuela – General Ezequiel Zamora’s 200^th Birthday

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On This Day in HISTORY

1261 – Walter de Stapledon is born, Bishop of Exeter, founder Exeter College, Oxford

1327 – 14-year-old Edward III is crowned King of England after his mother, Isabella of France, and her lover Roger Mortimer depose his father, but Mortimer is the de facto ruler until three years later, when Edward leads a successful coup against him

1552 – Sir Edward Coke born, English barrister and judge; as Attorney General, he led the prosecution of Robert Devereux, Sir Walter Raleigh and the Gunpowder Plot conspirators; considered the greatest jurist of the Elizabethan–Jacobean period

1587 – Queen Elizabeth I signs the death warrant for Mary Queen of Scots

1635 – Marquard Gude born, German classical scholar and proto-archeologist, who collected Greek and Latin inscriptions and copied manuscripts during his travels

1687 – Johann Adam Birkenstock born, German violinist and composer

1709 – Alexander Selkirk, a Scottish sailor put ashore on the uninhabited island of Juan Fernandez after a quarrel with his captain in September 1704, is finally rescued – his adventures were Daniel Defoe’s inspiration for Robinson Crusoe *

1788 – Isaac Briggs and William Longstreet patent the steamboat

1790 – The U.S. Supreme Court convenes for the first time in New York City

1835 – Slavery is abolished in Mauritius

1836 – Emil Hartmann born, Danish organist and composer

1842 – The City Dispatch Post in NYC begins operations, the first company to offer adhesive postage stamps in the western hemisphere

1859 – Victor Herbert born, Irish-American cellist, composer, and conductor

1861 – Texas votes to secede from the Union, over Governor Sam Houston’s objections; he is removed from office when he refuses to swear loyalty to the Confederacy, but also refuses a Union Army offer of help to put down the Confederate rebellion

1862 – Julia Ward Howe’s “The Battle Hymn of the Republic,” is first published in the Atlantic Monthly

1865 – Abraham Lincoln signs the 13^th Amendment outlawing slavery, celebrated as National Freedom Day *

1867 – U.S. bricklayers start working an 8-hour day

1867 – This may be (exact date not confirmed) the day that Charles Ranhofer, pastry chef and witty social commentator at the famed Delmonico’s Restaurant, finished his creation, originally called “Alaska, Florida” but now called Baked Alaska, * Ranhofer’s commentary on “Seward’s Folly” – the $7 million proposed U.S. purchase of Alaska

1873 – Joseph Allard born, Canadian fiddler and composer

1884 – The first volume, A to Ant, if the Oxford English Dictionary is published

1887 – Charles Nordhoff born, English-American lieutenant, pilot, and author

1893 – Thomas A. Edison finishes construction of the first motion picture studio, the Black Maria in West Orange, New Jersey

1895 – Fountains Valley, Pretoria, the oldest nature reserve in Africa, is proclaimed by President Paul Kruger

1896 – Puccini’s opera La Boheme premieres in Turin

1900 – Eastman Kodak Co. introduces the $1 Brownie box camera

1902 – Langston Hughes born, American poet-author-playwright, major figure in NY’s Harlem Renaissance

1913 – NYC’s Grand Central Station opens. the world’s largest train station at the time

1918 – Russia adopts the Gregorian Calendar

1918 – Muriel Spark born, Scottish playwright and poet, The Prime of Miss Jean Brodie 

1921 – Renata Tebaldi born, Italian Spinto soprano

1924 –  The United Kingdom recognizes the USSR

1924 – Richard Hooker born, American novelist, MASH

1927 – Galway Kinnell born, American poet, Pulitzer Poetry Prize/ National Book Award

1930 – The Times publishes its first crossword puzzle

1934 – Bob Shane born, American folksinger, Kingston Trio

1938 – Jimmy Carl Black born, American vocalist-drummer, The Mother of Invention

1939 – Fritjof Capra, born in Austria, American physicist, author, The Tao of Physics

1939 –  Martha Tilton, Benny Goodman and his orchestra record “And the Angels Sing”

1940 – Frank Sinatra records “Too Romantic” with the Tommy Dorsey Band

1942 – Josef Terboven, Reichskommissar of German-occupied Norway, appoints Vidkun Quisling the Minister President of the National Government

1942 – Voice of America, the official external radio and television service of the United States government, begins broadcasting with programs aimed at areas controlled by the Axis powers

1946 – Trygve Lie of Norway is chosen to be the first United Nations Secretary-General

1946 – The Parliament of Hungary abolishes the monarchy after nine centuries, and proclaims the Hungarian Republic

1950 – Rich Williams born, American guitarist-songwriter, Kansas

1951 – The first telecast of an atomic explosion

1954 – The Secret Storm debuts on CBS-TV

1960 – Four black students stage the first Greensboro NC sit-ins at a lunch counter

1964 – The Beatles have their first number one hit in the United States with “I Want to Hold Your Hand”

1965 – The Hamilton River in Labrador, Canada is renamed the Churchill River in honour of Winston Churchill

1968 – Canada’s three military services, the Royal Canadian Navy, the Canadian Army and the Royal Canadian Air Force, are unified into the Canadian Forces

1972 – Leymah Roberta Gbowee born, Liberian activist, leader of grassroots women’s peace movement against the Second Liberian Civil War, 2011 Nobel Peace Prize

1979 – Ayatollah Ruhollah Khomeini returns to Iran after nearly 15 years of exile

1982 – Senegal and the Gambia form a loose confederation known as Senegambia

1987 – National Girls & Women in Sports Day * is founded in remembrance of Olympic volleyball player, Flo Hyman, and to celebrate the success of Title IX  in expanding access to sports for girls and women, by the NGWSD coalition: Women’s Sports Foundation; National Women’s Law Center;  The President’s Council on Fitness, Sports & Nutrition; and girls inc.

1992 – The Chief Judicial Magistrate of Bhopal court declares Warren Anderson, ex-CEO of Union Carbide, a fugitive for failing to appear in the Bhopal disaster case

1998 – Lillian E. Fishburne becomes the first female African American Rear Admiral

2005 – Spunky Old Broads Day * is part of Dr. Gayle Carson’s launch of her book, How To Be An S.O.B. – A Spunky Old Broad Who Kicks Butt

2009 – The first cabinet of Jóhanna Sigurðardóttir is formed in Iceland, making her the country’s first female prime minister and the world’s first openly LGBT head of state

2012 – Change Your Password Day was created by Gizmodo and Lifehacker as an annual day to help keep your online data secure by changing your passwords – remember, once somebody gets the dates of your family’s birthdays, or the names of your children or pets, it’s an easy hack to get into your private information, so be creative and pick something less obvious

2013 – The Shard, the tallest building in the European Union, is opened in London

2017 – U.S. Figure Skating founds National Get Up Day to inspire everyone to Get Up when we stumble and fall, and they are collecting stories of perseverance in adversity to share at #GetUpDay

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Visuals

• National Girls & Women in Sports Day logo
• International flags
• Exeter College, Oxford University
• Portraits of Queen Elizabeth I and Sir Edward Coke
• Robinson Crusoe frontispiece and title page
• Mutiny on the Bounty front flap and cover
• Langston Hughes, I too sing America quote
• Jóhanna Sigurðardóttir 
• National Get Up Day poster

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