March 12th is
Baked Scallops Day
Check Your Batteries Day *
Fanny Pack Day *
Girl Scout Day *
Milky Way Bar Day *
Plant a Flower Day *
Spring Forward –
Daylight Savings
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MORE! Charles Boycott, Jane Delano and Mahatma Gandhi, click
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WORLD FESTIVALS AND NATIONAL HOLIDAYS
Judaism – Purim: festival commemorating the defeat of the evil Persian Haman’s plot to massacre the Jews by Queen Esther and Mordecai – celebrated with a reading of the story in the Book of Esther; also giving and consuming celebratory food and drink
Hinduism – Holi: Springtime ‘festival of colors’ celebrating the victory of good over evil, the end of winter, thanksgiving for a good harvest
Australia – Canberra ACT:
Canberra Day *
China and Taiwan– Arbor Day
Gabon – Renovation Day
(Democratic Party anniversary)
Mauritius – Independence Day
Myanmar – Dha Paung Full Moon
Sweden – Crown Princess Victoria’s Nameday
Zambia – Youth Day
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On This Day in HISTORY
538 – Ostrogoth King Vitiges ends his siege of Rome, retreating to Ravenna, giving the victory to Byzantine general Flavius Belisarius, sent by Emperor Justinian I to reclaim as much as possible of the Western Roman Empire
1496 – Jews are expelled from Syria
1613 – Andre Le Notre born, French landscape architect; designs gardens at Versailles
1664 – New Jersey becomes a British colony when King Charles II grants the land in the New World to his brother James, Duke of York
1755 – In North Arlington NJ, the steam engine is used for the first time
1789 – The U.S. Post Office is established
1809 – Britain signs a treaty with Persia, forcing the French to leave the country
1831 – Clement Studebaker born, American wagon and carriage manufacturer; co-founder with brother Henry of the H & C Studebaker Company, precursor of the Studebaker Corporation, building Pennsylvania-German Conestoga wagons and carriages during his lifetime, and automobiles after his death
1832 – Captain Charles Boycott born, English land agent for Lord Erne, he is so detested by the local Irish community that his name has become the term ‘boycott‘ in the English language. When the locals withdraw their labor because of threatened evictions, demanding fair rent, fixity of tenure and free sale, it becomes an anti-Irish cause célèbre in the British press, and the British government sends troops guard 1,000 men of the Irish constabulary brought in to save the harvest, costing ₤10,000 for crops worth ₤500
1841 – Englishman Orlando Jones receives U.S. patent for process to make cornstarch
1857 – Simon Boccanegra by Verdi debuts in Venice
1862 – Jane A. Delano born, American nurse and educator, who insists on the use of mosquito netting in Florida in 1887 to prevent the spread of yellow fever before doctors know mosquitos are carriers; serving as chair of the Red Cross national committee on nursing service and superintendent of the Army Nurse Corps (1909-12), she institutes the Red Cross Nursing Service as a reserve for the Army corps, so 8,000 nurses are ready for overseas duty when the U.S. enters WWI – she oversees mobilization of 20,000 nurses, plus nurses’ aides and other workers. In 1918, she becomes director of the wartime Department of Nursing, supplying nurses to the army, navy and Red Cross. The influenza epidemic that swept Europe and America in 1918-19 greatly increased demands on Delano and the Red Cross – exhausted, she fell ill and died in France on a European inspection tour in 1919 – in her spare time, Delano had served three terms as president of the American Nurses Association (1900–12) and one as president of the Board of Directors of the American Journal of Nursing (1908–11), and co-authored with Isabel McIsaac, the American Red Cross Textbook on Elementary Hygiene and Home Care of the Sick (1913)
1863 – Gabriele D’Annunzio born, Italian novelist,dramatist and political leader
1864 – Alice Tegnér born, Swedish, music educator, poet and composer, especially of children’s songs
1868 – Henry J. O’Farrell is the first person to attempt a political assassination in Australia when he shoots HRH Prince Alfred, Queen Victoria’s son, in the back during the Royal’s good-will tour. The Prince is hospitalized for 2 weeks, nursed by women trained by Florence Nightingale, while incidents of anti-Irish protests and threats sweep Australia. When Prince Alfred learns of O’Farrell’s history of mental illness, he tries to intercede to get his death sentence commuted, but O’Farrell is hanged on April 21, 1868. A public subscription raises the funds to build the Royal Prince Alfred Hospital in thanksgiving for the Prince’s recovery – still an important hospital in New South Wales
1877 – Annette Abbott Adams born, American lawyer and judge, first woman to serve as Assistant U.S. Attorney General
1884 – Mississippi authorizes the first state-supported college for women, Mississippi Industrial Institute and College
1889 – Vaslav Nijinsky born, Russian ballet dancer and choreographer, often cited as the greatest dancer of the 20th century
1894 – Coca-Cola is sold in bottles for the first time, in Vicksburg, Mississippi
1903 – Der Wald, a one-act opera by Dame Ethel Smyth, debuts at the NY Metropolitan Opera, the only opera written by a woman ever performed at the Met
1907 – Dorrit Hoffleit born, American senior research astronomer at Yale University, works on variable stars, astrometry, spectroscopy, meteors, and especially the Bright Star Catalog; mentors generations of young women and men in astronomy
1912 – Juliette Gordon Low founds the Girl Scouts * of the USA in Savannah, Georgia
1913 – Canberra Day * –Australia’s future capital is officially named Canberra (the temporary capital remains at Melbourne until 1927 while construction is underway)
1922 – Jack Kerouac born, American Beat poet, novelist; On the Road
1923 –Frank Mars creates the Milky Way * bar, first mass-produced chocolate bar with a filling; named for a milkshake not a galaxy – no caramel in the European version
1928 – Edward Albee born, American playwright; Who’s Afraid of Virginia Woolf?
1930 – Mahatma Gandhi begins his 240 mile ‘walk’ to the sea, to protest British rule of India by breaking the British salt monopoly, gathering thousands of followers as he goes
1932 – Al Jarreau born, American R&B/jazz singer, seven-time Grammy winner
1932 – Andrew Young Jr. born, American Civil Rights leader, Southern Christian Leadership Executive Director (1964-68), first black U.S. Congressman from Georgia (1973-77) since Reconstruction, first African-American Ambassador to the UN (1977-79)
1933 – U.S. President Franklin Roosevelt makes a presidential address to the nation on the radio, the first of his “Fireside Chats”
1935 – Parimutuel betting becomes legal in Nebraska
1938 – The “Anschluss” takes place as German troops enter Austria; Adolf Hitler annexes his homeland the following day
1939 – Artie Shaw and his band recorded “Deep Purple”
1940 – Finland surrenders to Russia, ending the Russo-Finnish War
1947 – U.S. President Harry Truman establishes the “Truman Doctrine” – asks Congress for $400 million in aid to help Greece and Turkey resist Communism
1948 – James Taylor born, American singer-songwriter
1953 – Carl Hiaasen born, American author and newspaper columnist
1957 – The Crickets record “Maybe Baby”
1959 – The U.S. House joins the Senate in approving the statehood of Hawaii
1985 – The U.S. and the USSR begin arms control talks in Geneva
1987 – Les Miserables opens on Broadway
1987 – The first Check Your Batteries Day * on Daylight Savings’ first Sunday
1989 – About 2,500 veterans and supporters march at the Art Institute of Chicago protesting the placement of an American flag on the floor as part of an exhibit
1992 – Mauritius becomes a republic but remains a member of the British Commonwealth
1993 – In the U.S., the Pentagon calls for the closure of 31 major military bases
1994 – A photo by Marmaduke Wetherell of the Loch Ness monster is exposed as hoax, taken of a toy submarine with a head and neck attached
1994 – The Church of England ordains its first women priests.
1999 – Hungary, Poland and the Czech Republic join the North Atlantic Treaty Organization (NATO), all three countries are former members of the Warsaw Pact
2002 – The U.N. Security Council approves a U.S.-sponsored resolution endorsing a Palestinian state for the first time
2003 – The Chinese government orders the Rolling Stones to eliminate four songs from their upcoming performances in Shanghai and Beijing, banning “Brown Sugar,” “Honky Tonk Women,” “Beast of Burden,” and “Let’s Spend the Night Together”
2003 – The U.S. Air Force announces resumption of reconnaissance flights off the coast of North Korea, which stopped on March 2 after an encounter with four armed North Korean jets
2006 (year uncertain) – Plant a Flower Day * is a good day to start your spring gardening, even if you’re just planting seeds in containers indoors because there’s still snow where you live – the National Wildlife Federation encourages all of us to plant flowers that attract pollinators like butterflies, bees or hummingbirds – just garden organically with NO pesticides
2007 – International Fanny Pack Day * is started by Nick Yates, who receives a fanny pack and fruitcake as gag gifts, shoves the cake in the pack, and wears it while he walks toward his bus stop – a homeless man he passes comments, “Nice fanny pack, chief” so Yates takes out the foil-wrapped fruitcake and gives it to him, and the man, after unwrapping it, shouts after him, “A f**king fruitcake?!” Yates decides to start carrying food for the homeless – but no fruitcake – in his pack. His simple idea is now in seven countries. Just don’t call it a ‘fanny pack’ in Britain, where it’s slang for a woman’s private parts.
2009 – Announcement the Sears Tower in Chicago, IL, will be renamed Willis Tower
2011 – The Arab League asks the U.N. Security Council to impose a no-fly zone to protect Libyan rebels
2016 – In Santiago, Chile, Iron Maiden’s plane, Ed Force One, is damaged when a ground tug collides with two of the jet’s engines
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Visuals
- Baked scallops and batteries
- Spring forward time change
- International flags
- Andre Le Notre, Versailles/Chateau de Versailles by Pierre Patel (1668)
- Jane A. Delano
- Dorrit Hoffleit, left, with graduate, hardship quote
- Jack Kerouac, under stars quote
- Edward Albee, interestingly quote
- FDR,kindness and selfish men quotes
- Carl Hiaasen, pay cash quote
- Used-to-Be Sears Tower, Chicago
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FDR was ahead of his times in many ways. He knew the ruthlessness of the Robber Barons. Not only had they fleeced the government of it’s money an land to build the Railroads but the American public. I am not saying the Roosevelt’s are innocent of the same, but there money had dropped by about 75% if I recall correctly, the family money declined during the late 1880’s and the dip in the teens of the 1900s.
I think this was the reason for the Glass-Steigle Act. Albeit he had taken the Presidential Office with the depression looming large.
Hi Russell –
No President is perfect – FDR ignored Eleanor and others, sending thousands of American citizens into camps because they, or their parents or even grandparents, had come from Japan – they lost their homes and businesses and possessions, and our government has still never owned up to the full racist awfulness of that.
But compared to the current billionaire barbarian and his occupying force in the White House, FDR was a saint – he had the guts and brains and qualifications for the job, and did actually do some things to make America Great.
Following maybe!