February 22nd is

Orphan’s Fund Pink Shirt Day *

George Washington’s Birthday

Cook a Sweet Potato Day

Walking the Dog Day

World Thinking Day *

Inconvenience Yourself Day *

National Margarita Day

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MORE! Oscar Wilde, Edna St. Vincent Millay, and Luis Buñuel, click

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WORLD FESTIVALS AND NATIONAL HOLIDAYS

Philippines – People Power Day
(school holiday)

Russia – Maslenitsa
(bye to winter/pancake gorging until Lent)

Saint Lucia – Independence Day
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On This Day in HISTORY

705 – Empress Wu Zeitan, who became the de facto ruler of China (690-705) after her husband Emperor Gaizong’s debilitating stroke and later death, is forced to abdicate after a successful coup. Wu Zeitan is the only woman in Chinese history to wear the yellow robes as monarch which had been reserved for the sole use of emperors

1371 – Robert Stewart, grandson of Robert the Bruce on his mother’s side, becomes Robert II, King of Scots, the founding monarch of the House of Stewart

1630 – Quadequine, brother of Massasoit, Wampanoag tribal leader, offers popcorn to English colonists as a token of goodwill during peace negotiations. While popcorn had long been used in North America – ears of popcorn about 4,000 years old have been found in caves in New Mexico – it was a new treat for the colonists

1632 – Galileo’s Dialogue Concerning the Two Chief World Systems is published

1732 –George Washington born, Commander-in-Chief of the Continental Army, from 1775 to 1783; first U.S. President, from 1789 –to 1797

1778 – Rembrandt Peale born, American artist, painted portraits of Washington and Jefferson; son of artist Charles Peale, who also painted George Washington; opens Peale Museum in 1814 in Baltimore, first building designed and built as a museum in the Western Hemisphere, one of the first museums to use gas lighting

1784 – The U.S. sailing vessel, Empress of China, leaves New York harbor, in a voyage to become the first merchant ship of a newly independent America to enter Chinese waters; the Empress returned to New York May 11, 1785. Samuel Shaw was aboard, who would become America’s first consul in China, and the success of the voyage marked a major step in opening U.S trade with China

1788 – Arthur Schopenhauer born, German philosopher

1817 – Niels Wilhelm Gade born, Danish composer

1819 – James Russell Lowell born, American poet, editor, and U.S. ambassador to Spain (1877-1879) and the British Court of St. James (1880-1885)

1819 – The Adams-Onís Treaty between the U.S. and Spain is signed: Spain cedes Florida to America because it had become more expensive than profitable, and its loss allowes them to settle boundary disputes between the U.S. lands acquired in the Louisiana Purchase from France, and the New Spain territories, especially in Texas

1822 – Isabella Beecher Hooker, suffragist, lecturer, sister of Harriet Beecher Stowe; lobbied U.S. Congress to get women their full rights as U.S. citizens; wrote and presented a bill in 1870 to the Connecticut General Assembly to give married women property rights; she presented it every year until it passed in 1877

1834 – Albert Heinrich Zabel born, German harp virtuoso and composer

1855 – After donations raised by the Washington National Monument Society run out, U.S. Congress votes to appropriate $200,000 for continuing work on the monument. But the American Party, dubbed the “Know Nothing Party,” a rabidly anti-immigrant, anti-Catholic political party, seizes control of the WNM Society, and the next morning Congress tables the resolution. The Know Nothings only add about four feet to the height of the structure, and they lose control of the WNM society in 1858

1857 – Robert Baden-Powell born, British author of Scouting for Boys (1908), founder and first Chief Scout of The Boy Scouts Association (1909), and co-founder with his sister Agnes of the Girl Guides (1910)

1859 – To prevent another takeover of the Washington National Monument Society, President Buchanan signs into law the Act of February 22, 1859, to incorporate the society “for the purpose of completing the erection now in progress of a great National Monument to the memory of Washington at the seat of the Federal Government.”

1865 – U.S. state Tennessee adopts a new constitution that abolishes slavery

1878 – Frank Woolworth opens his first store in Utica NY, “Woolworth’s Great Five Cent Store” which quickly failed because of a poor location. He took his sign, found a better location in Lancaster PA, and it grew into a chain of over 1,000 stores by 1919, when Frank Woolworth died

1885 – The Washington Monument is finally dedicated, 37 years after the cornerstone was laid on July 4, 1848, but it is not opened to the public until 1889

1892 – Oscar Wilde’s Lady Windermere’s Fan, debuts at London’s St. James Theatre; the character of Lord Darlington delivers the play’s famous line: “We are all in the gutter, but some of us are looking at the stars.”

1892 – Edna St. Vincent Millay born, American poet and playwright; 1923 Pulitzer Poetry Prize for The Ballad of the Harp-Weaver and Other Poems

1898 – Thillaiaadi Valliammai born, South African Tamil activist, worked with Gandhi during protests in South Africa; she fell ill soon after being sentenced to three months hard labor and refused early release, then died soon after serving her term

1900 – Luis Buñuel born, influential surrealist Spanish filmmaker, Ese oscuro objeto del deseo (That Obscure Object of Desire)

1900 – Seán Ó Faoláin born, Irish short story writer, Arts Council of Ireland director (1956- 1959), co-founder, first editor of the literary periodical The Bell (1940-1946)

1920 – The first dog race track to use an imitation rabbit opened in Emeryville CA

1923 – The first chinchilla farm in the U.S. opens in Los Angeles CA

1924 – U.S. President Calvin Coolidge delivers first presidential radio broadcast from the White House

1926 – World Thinking Day * is launched by the Girl Guides and Girl Scouts, now 10 million strong, as a day of international friendship, speaking out on issues affecting girls and young women, and fundraising projects

1935 – It became illegal for airplanes to fly over the White House

1936 – Edward M. “Ted” Kennedy born, U.S. Senator (D-MA) from 1962 to 2009

1937 – Joanna Russ born, American sci-fi/fantasy author, feminist essayist; Picnic on Paradise, The Female Man

1945 – The Arab League is formed in Cairo

1965 – Filming begins in the Bahamas for the Beatle’s second movie, Help!

1967 – Playwright Barbara Garson’s satire MacBird premieres in NYC

1968 – Genesis releases its first single, “The Silent Sun”

1969 – Barbara Jo Rubin is the first woman jockey to win a U.S. thoroughbred horse race, riding Cohesian in the 9^th race at the Charles Town Race Track in West Virginia

1973 – Communist China and the U.S. agree to establish liaison offices

1977 – The Eagles release their single, “Hotel California”

1984 – U.S. Census Bureau statistics show that Alaska is the fastest growing state of the decade with an increase in population of 19.2 percent

1994 – U.S. Justice Department charges Aldrich Ames and his wife with selling national secrets to the Soviet Union; Ames is convicted  and sentence to life in prison and his wife to a 5-year prison term

1997 – Scottish scientist Ian Wilmut and his colleagues announce the first successful cloning of an adult mammal, a sheep named Dolly, which had been born in 1996

2001 – A U.N. war crimes tribunal convicted 3 Bosnian Serbs charged with rape and torture in the first wartime sexual enslavement case to go before an international court

2006 – Insurgents destroy the golden dome of Iraq’s holy Shiite shrine, the Askariya mosque in Samarra, setting off a spasm of sectarian violence

2010 – A copy of Action Comics #1, introducing Superman, auctions for $1 million

2016 – Inconvenience Yourself Day * is founded, a reminder that our actions have an impact on the people around us, and the feeling people are losing their civility in our fast-paced modern lives – not holding a door for another person, or not saying ‘thank you’ when someone does it for you; not using turn signals while driving; small things that make life less pleasant or less safe – kindness is contagious

2016 – Orphan’s Fund Pink Shirt Day * is founded, a second anti-bullying day, this one  raises money to help disadvantaged children, such as those in foster care who are often the victims of bullying

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Visuals

• Margarita
• World Thinking Day
• International flags
• Robert II coin
• Galileo’s Dialogue Concerning the Two Chief World Systems is published
• George Washington painted by Rembrandt Peale
• Arthur Schopenhauer, truth quote
• James Russell Lowell, freedom quote
• Isabella Beecher Hooker, women’s human rights quote
• Edna St. Vincent Millay, ignore advice
• Thillaiaadi Valliammai, postage stamp
• Seán Ó Faoláin, pessimists quote
• Joanna Russ, hate quote
• Action Comics #1 cover
• Orphan’s Fund Pink Shirt

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