February 16th is

Do a Grouch a Favor Day

Kyoto Protocol Day *

National Almond Day

National Innovation Day
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MORE! Giambattista Bodoni, Katharine Cornell and Howard Carter, click

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WORLD FESTIVALS AND NATIONAL HOLIDAYS

India – Maharashtra: State Elections

Lithuania – Independence Day

North Korea – Day of the Shining Star
(Kim Jong-il birthday anniversary)

Uganda – Archbishop Janani Luwum Memorial Day
(a leading critic of Idi Amin, murdered by the regime)
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On This Day in HISTORY

116 – Emperor Trajan sends laureatae (laurel letters, laurel being a victory symbol) to the Senate in Rome as conqueror of Parthia, declaring the war over and bemoaning being too old to go further and repeat the conquests of Alexander the Great

1249 – Dominican priest and diplomat André de Longjumeau sent by French King Louis IX as ambassador to Güyük Khan of the Mongol Empire; Longjumeau speaks Arabic and “Chaldean” (probably Syriac or Persian); previously the Pope’s emissary to the Mongols

1709 – Charles Avison born, English composer, author of Essay on Musical Expression, the first music criticism published in English

1740 – Giambattista Bodoni born, Italian printer, designer of several typefaces

1741 – Benjamin Franklin publishes The General Magazine and Historical Chronicle 

1804 – Lt. Stephen Decatur leads a successful raid into Tripoli harbor to burn the U.S. Navy frigate Philadelphia, which had fallen into the hands of pirates

1831 – Nikolay Semyonovich Leskov born, Russian novelist and short-story writer

1838 – Henry Brooks Adams born, American historian, author of The History of the United States of America (1801 to 1817)

1843 – Henry M. Leland born, American inventor, engineer and automotive entrepreneur; founder of American luxury automotive marques, Cadillac and Lincoln

1852 – Studebaker Brothers wagon company, which will become the automobile manufacturer, is established

1857 – The National Deaf Mute College is incorporated in Washington DC, the first school in the world for advanced education of the deaf; renamed Gallaudet College

1858 – William Vandenburg and James Harvey patent the first ironing board

1868 – The NYC group, The Jolly Corks, changes its name to the Benevolent and Protective Order of Elks (BPOE)

1874 – The Silver Dollar becomes legal US tender

1881 – The Canadian Pacific Railway is incorporated by Act of Parliament at Ottawa

1883 – The Ladies Home Journal begins publication

1893 – Katharine Cornell born, American stage actress, writer, theater owner and producer, “First Lady of the American Theatre” who is one of the first winners of the Tony Award, given by the American Theatre Wing; among first inductees into the American Theatre Hall of Fame (established in 1972)

1900 – Mary Elizabeth Switzer, American public administrator and social reformer, advocate for increasing government’s role in assisting people with disabilities; worked on the Vocational Rehabilitation Act of 1954, a major expansion of federal funding and services for the physically and mentally disabled, also authorized grants to fund research and rehabilitation programs

1909 – Richard McDonald born, McDonald’s brother, the ‘golden arches’ designer

1914 – The first airplane flight between Los Angeles and San Francisco

1918 – Lithuania proclaims its independence from the Russian Empire

1920 – Anna Mae Hays born, chief of U.S. Army Nurse Corps, promoted on the same day as Elizabeth Hoisington, the first two women Brigadier Generals in the U.S. Military

1923 – Howard Carter unseals the burial chamber of Egyptian Pharaoh Tutankhamen

1932 – James E. Markham receives the first patent for a fruit tree, for a peach tree with fruit which ripens later than other varieties

1937 – Research chemist Wallace H. Carothers patents Nylon; one of its first uses was as a replacement for hog bristles in toothbrushes

1938 – The U.S. Federal Crop Insurance program is authorized

1942 – Shep Fields and his orchestra record “Jersey Bounce”

1946 – The prototype of the Sikorsky S-51 helicopter makes its first test flight

1959 – Fidel Castro seizes power in Cuba after overthrow of President Batista

1960 – The U.S.S. Triton begins the first underwater circumnavigation of the globe, completed on May 10

1968 – The first U.S. 911 emergency telephone system is inaugurated in Haleyville AL

1971 – Aretha Franklin records “Spanish Harlem”

1975 – Cher, her weekly variety show after the Sonny break-up, premieres on CBS-TV

1985 – Hezbollah emerges as a Shi’ite Islamic organization in Lebanon

1988 – First documented combat action by US military “advisors” in El Salvador

1989 – Egypt, Iraq, Jordan & North Yemen form a common market

1999 – O.J. Simpson’s 1968 Heisman Trophy is sold for $230,000 to help settle a $33.5 million civil judgment for the deaths of his ex-wife, Nicole Brown, and Ron Goldman

2005  – The date when the Kyoto Protocol * becomes effective, an international treaty extending the 1992 UN Framework Convention on Climate Change, committing to greenhouse gas emissions reduction, signed by 140 nations. The U.S. has never signed

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Visuals

• Bowl of almonds
• Do a Grouch a Favor Day card
• International flags
• Trajan crowned in laurels
• Bodoni typeface
• Henry Adams, with power quote
• Katharine Cornell actors quote
• Prototype Sikorsky S-51 helicopter first test flight
• Kyoto Protocol logo

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