February 19th is

Chocolate Mint Day

Cracker Jack Prize Day *

Iwo Jima Day *
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MORE! Stan Kenton, Amy Tan and Mickey Mouse, click

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WORLD FESTIVALS AND NATIONAL HOLIDAYS

Belgium – Durbury:
Trails in Motion Film Festival

Canada – Saskatchewan:
Family Day

Malaysia – State Holiday after Act 355 Rally
(RUU355 increases Shariah offense punishment )

Nepal – Democracy Day

Turkmenistan – Flag Day
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On This Day in HISTORY

356 – Emperor Constantius II issues a decree closing all pagan temples in the Roman Empire

1473 – Nicolaus Copernicus born, Polish mathematician and astronomer

1674 – England and the Netherlands sign the Treaty of Westminster, ending the Third Anglo-Dutch War; a provision the Dutch colony of New Amsterdam to English, who rename it New York

1717 – David Garrick born, English actor, playwright, and producer

1743 – Composer Luigi Boccherini born,  Italian cellist and composer

1764 – Gottlieb Sigismund Kirchhof born; develops vegetable oil reefing method, and improves brewing & fermentation

1807 – Former U.S. Vice President Aaron Burr is arrested in Alabama; his secret correspondence with the British and Spanish ministers in Washington reveal he tried to secure money and conceal his design to help Mexico overthrow Spanish power in the Southwest, a violation of the Neutrality Act. He was later tried and acquitted on charges of treason

1833 – Elie Ducommun, Swiss writer/peace activist, 1902 Nobel Peace Prize co-winner

1846 – The formal transfer of government between Texas and the United States takes place. Texas officially became a state on December 29, 1845

1855 – Bread riots in Liverpool England, largely due to high unemployment

1856 – The tintype camera is patented by Professor Hamilton L. Smith

1859 –  Daniel E. Sickles, a New York Congressman, is acquitted of murder on grounds of temporary insanity for killing his wife’s lover, Philip Barton Key II, son of Francis Scott Key, the first time this defense is successfully used in the United States

1864 – The Knights of Pythias is founded in Washington, DC. by a dozen members of what became Lodge No. 1.

1869 – Hovhannes Tumanyan born, Armenian author, national poet of Armenia

1871 –  Lugenia Burns Hope born, American social reformer, founder of the Neighborhood Union, the first woman-run social welfare agency for African Americans in Atlanta GA

1877 –  Gabriele Münter born, German painter

1878 – Thomas Alva Edison patents a music player (the phonograph).

1881 – Kansas became the first state to prohibit all alcoholic beverages.

1912 – Stan Kenton born, American innovative progressive jazz bandleader

1913 – Cracker Jack Prize Day * Cracker Jack begins to put prizes in each box

1917 –  Carson McCullers born, American author: The Heart is a Lonely Hunter and The Member of the Wedding

1922 – Ed Wynn is the first big-name, vaudeville talent to sign on as a radio talent

1942 – U.S. President Franklin Roosevelt signs an executive order giving the military the authority to relocate and intern Japanese-Americans

1944 – Iwo Jima Day *  U.S. forces land at Iwo Jima

1949 – Bollingen Foundation and Yale University award the first Bollingen Prize in poetry ($5,000) to Ezra Pound

1952 – Amy Tan born, American novelist, essayist, and short story writer

1953 – The State of Georgia approves the first literature censorship board in the U.S.; Newspapers were excluded from the new legislation

1956 – The Platters record “Magic Touch”

1958 – The Miracles release their first single “Got A Job”

1959 – Cyprus is granted its independence with the signing of an agreement with Britain, Turkey and Greece.

1963 – The Soviet Union informs U.S. President Kennedy it would withdraw “several thousand” of its troops in Cuba.

1963 – The publication of Betty Friedan’s The Feminine Mystique reawakens the Feminist Movement in the United States as women’s organizations and consciousness raising groups spread

1964 – Simon & Garfunkel complete the original acoustic version of “Sounds of Silence”

1971 – Paul McCartney release “Another Day” in the U.K.

1976 – Iceland brakes off diplomatic relations with Great Britain when the two can’t settle their disagreement over the ‘cod war’ fishing rights issue

1981 – The U.S. State Department calls El Savador a “textbook case” of a Communist plot.

1981 – Ford Motor Company announces its loss of $1.5 billion.

1985 – Mickey Mouse is welcomed to China as part of the 30th anniversary of Disneyland, touring 30 cities in 30 days

1985 – William Schroeder is the first artificial-heart patient to leave the hospital confines

1985 – Mick Jagger releases his first solo album “She’s The Boss” in the U.S.

1986 – The U.S. Senate approves a treaty outlawing genocide,a pact submitted 37 years earlier for ratification

1986 – The Soviet Union launches the Mir space station

1987 – A controversial, anti-smoking TV public service announcement airs for the first time, filming Yul Brynner shortly before he dies of lung cancer

1997 – Deng Xiaoping of China dies at the age of 92, the last of China’s major revolutionaries

1999 – The world’s largest strawberry shortcake is created in McCall Park, Plant City, Florida, the Winter Strawberry Capital of the World, the Guinness record for the world’s largest strawberry shortcake, over 6,000 pounds

2001 – The museum at the Oklahoma City National Memorial Center is dedicated

2002 – NASA’s Mars Odyssey spacecraft begins using its thermal emission imaging system to map Mars

2004 – Former Enron Corp. chief executive Jeffrey Skilling is charged with fraud, insider trading and other crimes in connection with the energy trader’s collapse, and later convicted, sentenced to more than 24 years in prison

2005 – The USS Jimmy Carter is commissioned at Groton CT, the last of the Seawolf class attack submarines

2007 – New Jersey becomes the third state to offer civil unions to gay couples.

2008 – Fidel Castro resigns the Cuban presidency; his brother Raul is later named as his successor
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Visuals

• Chocolate mints
• International flags
• Copernicus vision of solar system
• Elie Ducommun, war quote
• Hovhannes Tumanyan
• Lugenia Burns Hope montage
• Gabriele Münter, painting
• Cracker Jack box
• Carson McCullers, falling in love quote
• Amy Tan, fresh eyes quote
• USS Jimmy Carter model

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