February 20th is
Cherry Pie Day
Handcuff Day *
Love Your Pet Day
World Day for Social Justice *
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MORE! Rudolph Valentino, Buffy Sainte-Marie and John Glenn, click
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WORLD FESTIVALS AND NATIONAL HOLIDAYS
Canada –
Alberta/Ontario/Saskatchewan:
› Family Day
Prince Edward Island:
› Islander Day
Manitoba:
› Louis Riel Day (province founder)
Nova Scotia:
› Mi’kmaq Heritage Day
Italy – Brescia
Teatro Sociale Film Festival
United States/U.S. territories –
Presidents’ Day
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On This Day in HISTORY
1472 – Orkney and Shetland are pawned by Norway to Scotland in lieu of a dowry for Margaret of Denmark, who was betrothed to James III of Scotland for 12 years before their wedding in 1469, when she was 13 years old
1547 – Edward VI of England is crowned King of England at Westminster Abbey, the first British monarch to be raised as a Protestant
1673 – The first recorded wine auction takes place in London
1763 – Adalbert Gyrowetz born, Bohemian composer; Viennese Vice-Kapellmeister of the Court Theatre; was a pallbearer at Beethoven’s funeral
1792 – U.S. President George Washington signs the Postal Service Act that created the U.S. Post Office
1805 – Angelina Grimké born, American abolitionist, suffragist and political activist; with her sister Sarah, the only known white Southern women to take active part in the abolitionist movement; her essays and speeches were incisive arguments for ending slavery and advancing women’s rights
1809 – U.S. Supreme Court rules the power of the federal government was greater than that of any individual state
1829 – Yuengling Brewery in Pennsylvania opens, the oldest U.S. brewery still operating
1839 –The U.S. Congress prohibits dueling in the District of Columbia
1872 – Cyrus W. Baldwin patents an electric elevator, installed in NYC’s Stephens Hotel
1872 – Silas Noble and J.Cooley of Massachusetts patent a toothpick-making machine
1872 – NYC’s Metropolitan Museum of Art opens
1873 – The University of California got its first Medical School
1890 – Hershel Geguzin, born in Lithuania, Hollywood restaurateur and professional impostor, posing as Russian Prince Michael Alexandrovich Dmitri Oblensky Romanoff. Romanoff’s restaurant in Beverly Hills attracted Hollywood stars and millionaires
1893 – Gabrielle Petit born, Belgian Red Cross volumteer and spy for the British Secret Service during WWI, arrested by the German military and executed by firing squad
1898 – Jimmy Yancey born, American blues pianist
1901 – Rene Dubos born in France, American microbiologist/environmentalist/author
1901 – The first territorial legislature of Hawaii convenes
1902 – Ansel Adams is born, noted photographer of the American West
1910 – Konstantin Sergeyev born, Russian ballet dancer, director, and choreographer
1912 – Handcuff Day * George Carney patents a new type of handcuff, now standard police issue
1921 – The Four Horsemen of the Apocalypse is released, with Rudolph Valentino doing the tango
1928 – Jean Kennedy Smith born, American diplomat, U.S. Ambassador to Ireland, founder of Very Special Arts, recipient of the Presidential Medal of Freedom
1931 – The U.S. Congress grants California the right to build the Oakland Bay Bridge as a toll-bridge as part of Interstate 80
1933 – The U.S. House of Representatives completed congressional action on the amendment to repeal Prohibition.
1935 – Caroline Mikkelsen, Danish explorer with her husband on a Norwegian expedition, becomes the first woman to stand on an Antarctic island, five miles off the coast of Antarctica
1938 – British Foreign Secretary Anthony Eden resigns in protest over Prime Minister Neville Chamberlain’s decision to negotiate with Italian dictator Benito Mussolini
1940 – Larry Clinton and his orchestra record “Limehouse Blues”
1941 – Buffy Sainte-Marie born, Canadian-American Cree singer-songwriter, producer, and social activist, founder of the Cradleboard Teaching Project
1952 – The African Queen starring Humphrey Bogart and Katherine Hepburn opens in New York City
1958 – Buddy Holly’s first official solo album “Buddy Holly” is released
1962 – John Glenn makes space history, the first American to orbit the world, three times in 4 hours, 55 minutes aboard the Friendship 7 Mercury capsule; he sees the Devil’s Cigarette Lighter, a natural gas well fire in the Sahara, while in flight
1964 – The Beach Boys record “Don’t Worry Baby”
1965 – Ranger 8 crashes on the moon after sending back 1000s of pictures of its surface
1970 – John Lennon’s “Instant Karma” is released in the U.S.
1988 – Rihanna born, R&B singer from Barbados, more than 20 million albums sold, Billboard record for youngest solo artist with eleven #1 singles
1992 – Ross Perot announces he is running for U.S. President
2007 – World Day for Social Justice * is proclaimed by the UN General Assembly
2009 – Hershey’s, largest U.S. candy maker, closes its candy factory in Reading PA, which produced Zagnut, York Peppermint Pattie, and 5th Avenue candy bars, among others. Hershey’s factory in Monterey, Mexico is now producing these products
2012 – Scientists report regenerating specimens of Silene stenophylla from a 31,800 year old piece of fruit, greatly surpassing the previous record for oldest plant successfully regenerated
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Visuals
- Cherry pie
- World Day for Social Justice poster
- International flags
- Edward VI of England
- Angelina Grimké, appeal to mothers quote
- View of front, Metropolitan Museum of Art
- Ansel Adams
- Anthony Eden. appeasement quote
- Social Justice goals poster
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Nicole Plyler Fisk
Gene Howington
FFS Guest Blogger
Joy of Fishes
Chuck Stanley
shortfinals
Terry Welshans
ann li-summers
wordcloud9
Flowers For Socrates 
I will take a Cherry Pie and a spoon please. Never liked hand cuffs. I am reeling with the nascent power grab of the Feds, declaring the Federal government has greater power than the states. My reading of the constitution makes me believe that we are supposed to be somewhat like a loose confederation of states joined by a common cause, the enemy and commerce. Somewhat akin to the European Commodity Market. In time it engulfs to the whole.
I like chocolate, I buy chocolate, I eat chocolate and I read the labels of what I eat. In reading the labels I learned something in college and that is as follows. Every piece of chocolate sold by Hersheys, 50% of all profits go to the Hershey Foundation of Pennsylvania. This foundation allows children of inner city’s the opportunity of living on a farm that is owned by the foundation. The children live, eat, farm, raise animals the whole enchilida. You see Milton and his wife had no children and they sort of adopted every disadvantaged child. At one point during the late 80′ and 90’s the foundation tried to expand beyond the original intent of the Hershey foundation. The children sued and the judge found in there favor. That the money is to go to farms etc not to resorts and high end restaurants. A beautiful day for the foundation.
Hi Russell –
If you look at the Articles of Confederation, that was more like what you’re describing – it didn’t work very well, because there were so many conflicts between states over jurisdiction. The Federalist Papers argued for a stronger central government to sort out the disputes, and to make laws that protected the rights of all U.S.citizens more equally, so citizens in one state wouldn’t find some of their rights taken away if they moved to a different state. And a national currency and post office are good things to have a central government handling.
I had heard a little about the Hershey Foundation – didn’t know about the lawsuit – good for the kids! But it does make me sad that so much of their candy isn’t made in the U.S.A. anymore.
Yes, the AoC. I hadn’t had the first cup of coffee.
Ah -completely understandable
I have three Ansel Adams prints. They are among my most prized possessions. My grandmother was an antique collector, and later opened an antique shop. We visited her in the mid-1950s. She showed me a chest of drawers she just bought at auction. Said to look in the top drawer. There were a bunch of old pictures she did not want because some of them were of “nekkid wimmen.” I pulled out the sheaf of photos and was dumbstruck. In addition to a collection of natural light art nudes dated 1913 from the Aurora Studio in Framingham, MA, there were three Adams prints.
The first frame shop I took them to, I laid them out side by side on the counter. I didn’t even tell him what they were, just that I wanted them archival mounted and framed. The owner threw up his hands and said he was afraid to touch them. He thanked me for letting him look at them closely, but refused to frame them. He said those prints scared him. I had to find a frame shop where the technician had no idea what she was seeing.
Hi Chuck –
Great that you rescued the prints – Adams work is so exquisite. Did you ever find out who photographed the nudes that were mixed in with them?
The name of the photographer (or the model) is not on them, but the studio and date are rubber stamped on the back. I have tried researching them online, but come up empty. The studio apparently is long gone. I have not tried calling anyone in the Framingham art community to see if anyone knows anything. I have considered putting them up for auction. Similar prints usually sell for about $225-$300 each.
Mexicans making chocolate? What do they know about that? The answer is—- everything!
Some of my favorite chocolate is Nestle’s Abuelita, a hot chocolate drink in the style of the gods. For those unfamiliar with this concoction,, it is a solid tablet of sugar, chocolate liquor, cocoa butter and cinnamon that is blended with hot milk into a soothing sweet drink.
Of course chocolate was originally Aztec, not as candy, or even sweet, but as a drink, possibly fermented. And Mexican-style hot chocolate is delicious.
I’m sure the modern-day Hershey’s plant in Monterey does a great job producing the candy, but Hershey’s has been such an example of good American business practices that it really brings home how much pressure there is in a global market to produce everything cheaper to stay competitive.
There is a human cost to that, and also a long-term business cost that I don’t think is being factored into these decisions. If American workers lose their decent-paying jobs, and have to work for minimum wages, then who will be your market here?
Henry Ford was smart enough to know that he had to pay much higher than the prevailing wage to his workers so they could afford to buy the automobiles they built. Not only were they an obvious market, but they were also more likely to build a better product when there was a chance they could own it themselves.
In the 1960s, Hershey made a bar called the “Tropical Bar” that would not melt in the tropic heat. It may have been around in the 40s as well, I don’t know for sure. This bar was as hard as a rock and had a semi-sweet taste – if you could bust it into a bite size piece. Every “Supplemental Pack” that accompanied our field rations had a box of them within it. I loved them. Most of the guys in my area didn’t like how hard they were, so handed them out to the kids as were drove through the villages. Some of the more evil guys threw them pretty hard, trying to make new VC converts, I guess.
Candy bars that could raise a welt if thrown at someone. Who knew?
We have some meal bars in our earthquake kit which are almost that hard – you’d need a sharp knife to cut them up.
IIRC, the original formula for the non-melt Hershey bar was developed during WW2 so it could be put in ration packs going to the South Pacific and North Africa. The rock-like consistency was legendary. I never saw one, but my uncles who served told me about them. I got the idea nobody would risk breaking a tooth on them, so they shaved them with their K-Bar knife.
Tropical Bars were still in production in the 1980s at the Hershey Oakdale, CA plant. We did a factory tour there with our kids and they were for sale in the gift shop. Ours were in an off-white wrapper with blue printing, the WWII bars had red printing. It looks like they were reformulate and re-issued in 1990’s, discontinued in 1991.
http://www.hersheyarchives.org/essay/details.aspx?EssayId=39
My Dad probably had them – he was in the Navy in the South Pacific shooting aerial recon photos and then processing them – temps in the dark room were often above 140 degrees, and they had to put ice in the water to keep the heat from ruining the prints. So a candy bar that didn’t melt would have been handy.
He never mentioned them though – his food stories were about the horrible reconstituted eggs and Spam.
I agree. The dried egg product looks like scrambled eggs, but the only way I could eat them was with a heavy sprinkling of pepper. On the other hand, I like Spam (now available with chopped jalapenos, bacon flavor, low salt and a half dozen other varieties. It is the primary meat in Hawaiian cooking! I wonder how they came to like it so much? GI leftovers?
LOL –
All I know is my Dad refused to ever eat Spam again – Mom and I always had a “special” meal when he went away on business – Spam, okra and cherry pie – things we liked that he hated.
who could hate Cherry Pie, unamerica. That sad, really sad.
I know – he did love apple pie, as long as it was a la mode.
I hear you, a cherry pie, spoon and half gallon of bluebells homemade vanilla.