February 24th is
Girl Scout Cookie Weekend
Tortilla Chip Day
World Bartender Day
Forget Me Not Day *
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MORE! Winslow Homer, Ettie Annie Rout and George Harrison, click
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WORLD FESTIVALS AND NATIONAL HOLIDAYS
Hinduism – Maha Shivaratri/Maha Shivaratree/Mahashivarathri – (Lord Shiva celebration) – public holiday in Mauritius, Nepal, Sri Lanka and much of India
Australia – Orangeville NSW
Secret Garden Music Festival
Cuba – Baire Proclamation *
Estonia – Iseseisvuspäev
(Independence Day)
Mexico – Día del la Bandera
(Flag Day)
South Africa – Cape Town:
Ultra South Africa Music Festival
United Kingdom – Nottingham NTS:
The Rum Festival
United States – Richmond VA:
Tucker-Boatwright Festival of Literature
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On This Day in HISTORY
303 – Roman Emperor Galerius, an advocate for the old gods and traditional ways of Roman worship, issues an edict repressing Christianity, but rescinds it in 311 during his final illness
1463 – Giovanni Pico della Mirandola born, Italian philosopher
1582 – Pope Gregory’s papal bull Inter gravissimas reforms the Julian calendar, regarded as a new calendar, the Gregorian calendar, now used by most countries
1607 – L’Orfeo by Claudio Monteverdi, one of the first works recognized as an opera, receives its première performance
1619 – Charles Le Brun born, French painter
1711 – The London première of Rinaldo by George Frideric Handel, the first Italian opera written for the London stage
1786 – Wilhelm Grimm born, one of the Brothers Grimm of Grimm’s Fairy Tales
1803 – The U.S. Supreme Court, in the landmark Marbury v Madison case, applies the principle of Judicial Review. In the 1800 election, Thomas Jefferson’s Democratic-Republican party defeated the Federalist party of John Adams, causing political panic among the lame duck Federalists. In Adams’ last days as president, he appointed a large number of justices of peace for the District of Columbia, which were duly approved by the Senate, signed by the president, and affixed with the official seal of the government, but not delivered to the appointees. When Jefferson assumed office March 5, 1801, he ordered James Madison, his Secretary of State, not to deliver them. William Marbury, one of the appointees, then petitioned the Supreme Court for a writ of mandamus, a legal order, to compel Madison to show cause why he should not receive his commission. Chief Justice John Marshall wrote the decision: 1) Marbury had been properly appointed in accordance with procedures established by law, and that he therefore had a right to the writ; 2) Since Marbury had a legal right to his commission, the law must afford him a remedy, and that it was the particular responsibility of the courts to protect the rights of individuals — even against the president of the United States; 3) However, the Court could not grant the writ because Section 13 of the Judiciary Act of 1789, which granted it the right to do so, was unconstitutional insofar as it extended to cases of Original Jurisdiction – the power to bring cases directly to the Supreme Court – was the only jurisdictional matter dealt with by the Constitution itself. According to Article III, it applied only to cases “affecting ambassadors, other public ministers and consuls” and to cases “in which the state shall be party.” By extending the Court’s original jurisdiction to include cases like Marbury’s, Congress had exceeded it authority. And when an act of Congress is in conflict with the Constitution, it is the obligation of the Court to uphold the Constitution because, by Article VI, it is the “supreme law of the land. The Original Jurisdiction ruling resulted in Marbury being denied his commission. While the ruling does not say outright that the Supreme Court will be the final arbiter of what is Constitutional, or say how the court could enforce its decisions, the principle of Judicial Review is established, and Marbury v Madison is still cited whenever the Supreme Court asserts it legitimacy
1821 – Mexico declares its independence from Spain
1835 – Siwinowe Kesibwi (The Shawnee Sun) becomes the first Indian language monthly publication in the U.S.
1836 – Winslow Homer born, highly regarded American artist and illustrator
1839 – William S. Otis receives a patent for the steam shovel
1857 – The Los Angeles Vinyard Society is organized
1857 – The U.S. Government receives its first shipment of perforated postage stamps
1863 – Arizona is organized as a territory
1866 – In Washington, DC, an American flag made entirely of American bunting is displayed for the first time
1868 – The U.S. House of Representatives impeaches President Andrew Johnson for his attempt to dismiss Secretary of War Edwin M. Stanton, but the U.S. Senate acquits him
1877 – Ettie Annie Rout born in Tasmania, New Zealand reformer who founded the WWI New Zealand Volunteer Sisterhood to nurse the wounded, launching campaigns in Cairo and Paris to prevent sexually transmitted diseases, including inspecting brothels and warning newly-arriving soldiers; by 1917, the New Zealand Army made distribution of her safe sex kit compulsory; ironically, this made her persona non grata in New Zealand, where she was such a scandalous figure that publishing her name became subject to a ₤100 fine; has been criticized for promoting eugenics like Margaret Sanger
1895 – Baire Proclamation *- A small band of the Cuban Revolutionary Party declares an insurrection against Spanish rule at Baire, a village on the eastern tip of Cuba – though it fails to spark an immediate response in other parts of Cuba, when exiled veterans of the Cuban Ten Years War (1868-1878) read newspaper reports about Baire, they begin heading back to Cuba, and the call of Cuba libre spreads, leading to the 1898 Spanish American War
1900 – NYC Mayor Van Wyck signs the construction contract for New York’s first rapid transit tunnel, which will link Manhattan and Brooklyn.
1903 – Cuba leases Guantanamo Bay to the U.S. for a naval base
1907 – Marjorie Courtenay-Latimer born, a South African museum official who discovers a modern-day coelacanth in 1938, a fish found in fossils from 200 million years ago, but long considered extinct
1912 – Henrietta Szold founds Hadassah, the largest Jewish organization in American history, focusing on healthcare and education in Israel and U.S.
1925 – A thermit, an incendiary bomb made of aluminium powder and iron oxide, is used for the first time to break up a 250,000-ton ice jam clogging the St. Lawrence River
1926 – The first Forget Me Not Day * – lapel flowers are sold to raise money for the Disabled American Veterans (DAV) organization
1932 – Michel Legrand born, French composer
1934 – Renata Scotto born, Italian bel canto soprano and opera director
1938 – Dupont begins manufacturing the first nylon bristle toothbrushes
1940 – Frances Langford records “When You Wish Upon a Star”
1942 – The U.S. Government stops shipments of all 12-gauge shotguns for sporting use for the wartime effort
1942 – The Voice of America (VOA) airs for the first time
1943 – George Harrison born, British musician, one of The Beatles
1946 – Juan Peron is elected president of Argentina
1956 – The city of Cleveland invokes a 1931 law barring people under the age of 18 from dancing in public without an adult guardian
1965 – The Beach Boys record “Help Me Rhonda”
1975 – Led Zeppelin releases their album “Physical Graffiti”
1979 – The Police release the single “Roxanne” in the U.S.
1983 – A U.S. congressional commission releases a report condemning the internment of Japanese-Americans during World War II
1987 – An exploding supernova is discovered in the Large Magellanic Cloud galaxy
1988 – The U.S. Supreme Court overturns a $200,000 award to Rev. Jerry Falwell was awarded by a lower court in his case against “Hustler” magazine; this ruling expands the legal protections for parody and satire
1989 – Iran’s Ayatollah Ruhollah Khomeini sentences Salman Rushdie to death for his novel The Satanic Verses, and $1 to $3 million bounty is put on Rushidie
1992 –U.S. Postal Service unveils 2 versions of its proposed Elvis stamp for fans to vote on; Young Elvis design wins and is issued on January 8, 1993
1993 – Eric Clapton wins six Grammy Awards for “Tears In Heaven”
1997 – The U.S. The Food and Drug Administration names six brands of birth control as safe and effective “morning-after” pills for preventing pregnancy
2007 – The Virginia General Assembly passes a resolution expressing “profound regret” for the state’s role in slavery
2008 – Cuba’s parliament names Raul Castro as president; his brother Fidel had ruled for nearly 50 years
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Visuals
- Girl Scout cookies
- Forget-Me-Not Day
- International flags
- Giovanni Pico della Mirandola, seeds quote
- Louis XIV & Academy of Science by Charles Le Brun
- Wilhelm Grimm, help quote
- Fishing Boats, by Winslow Homer
- First perforated U.S. postage stamps
- Safe sex pioneer Ettie Rout with the Australian Graves Detachment, July 25, 1919, Villers Bretonneux, France
- Henrietta Szold, dare to dream quote
- Newspaper ad selling slaves, a sailing vessel and a quantity of molasses and rum; the scourged back of Gordon, a slave; Virginia slave auction
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I have bought my share of Girl Scout cookies. They have gone up, up up and the boxes have gotten smaller and smaller.
Talk about judicial activism, Marbury, the case of all cases. Job protection and a deal to be called to order the First Monday in October.
Always loved the song by Eric Clapton. Little did I know that “Tears in Heaven” would affect me personally too.
I am so sorry that you lost a child.
Russell and I are members of a club no one wants to join. I work with a number of law enforcement agencies. After the Celtic Lassie died, a number of sheriffs called me into their offices to talk about kids, confiding they had lost one or more children and wanted to talk about adjusting to the loss. It is rather like combat veterans who won’t tell anyone about their experiences until they meet someone who understands.
Several of those same sheriffs had met Brandi, gave her a tour of their offices and jail, then tried to hire her. She had some good offers, but said she needed to stay closer to home and help take care of me. Her loss impacted them personally.
It’s a club no one wants to voluntary be a member of.