April 13^th is

Make Lunch Count Day *

Peach Cobbler Day

Scrabble Day *

Thomas Jefferson Day*

Celebrate Teen Literature Day *
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MORE! Miyamoto Musashi, Eudora Welty and Garry Kasparov, click

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WORLD FESTIVALS AND NATIONAL HOLIDAYS

Christianity – Holy or Maundy Thursday: Maundy is taken from Latin for “command,” now used for the ritual washing of the feet of the Apostles by Christ, an example of Christian humility 

Brazil – São Paulo: Festivalma

India – Vaisakhi/Baisakhi
(Sikh new year festival/Khalsa warriors)

Laos – Lao New Year

Myanmar – Eve of Thingyan
(eve of New Year Water Festival)

Sri Lanka – Sinhala – Tamil New Year’s Eve

Thailand – Songkram
(Thai New Year celebration)
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On This Day in HISTORY

April 1598 – Édit De Nantes is signed by French King Henry IV, granting a measure of religious liberty to the Huguenots, the French Calvinist Protestants; one of the earliest decrees of religious tolerance in Europe, allowing freedom of conscience and limited rights to public worship, civil rights, and a special court, Chambre de l’Édit, comprised of both Catholics and Protestants, to adjudicate disputes arising from the edict; it also restored Catholicism in all areas where its practice had been interrupted, and made any extension of Protestant worship in France legally impossible. Cardinal Richelieu annulled much of the edict in the peace of Alès treaty in 1629, and in 1685, Louis XIV formally revoked the Edict of Nantes, stripping the French Protestants of all religious and civil liberties, causing over 400,000 persecuted Huguenots to emigrate, depriving France of its most hard-working commercial class

1612 – Miyamoto Musashi defeats Sasaki Kojirō at Funajima Island; Musashi is a legendary Japanese swordsman, founder of Hyōhō Niten Ichi-ryū (“two heavens as one”), a school of swordsmanship using two swords, the katana and the waskizashi; Mushashi holds a record of 60 victories in 60 duels

1613 – Samuel Argall, English adventurer and naval officer, kidnaps Pocahontas, holding her captive to force her father, Algonquian chief Powhatan, to release English captives; she is converted to Christianity during her captivity, and remains with the English, marrying tobacco planter John Rolfe

1668 – John Dryden is appointed as the first English Poet Laureate by Charles II

1699 – Guru Gobind Singh, the Tenth Sikh Guru, creates the Sikh warrior community of Khalsa on this day at Anandpur Sahib, Punjab, and introduces the Five Ks, five symbols of faith that Khalsa Sikhs wear at all times: Kesh (uncut hair), Kangha (a wooden hair brush), Kara (metal bracelet), Kachera (special undergarment) and Kirpan (a dagger)

1742 – George Frideric Handel’s “Messiah” first performed publicly in Dublin, Ireland

1743 – Thomas Jefferson Day* – Thomas Jefferson born, American Founding Father and 3^rd U.S. president

1775 – In response to a growing trade boycott in America, British Prime Minister Lord North extends the New England Restraining Act, prohibiting colonial trade with any countries other than England and Ireland (the British West Indies were also allowed), to South Carolina, Virginia, Pennsylvania, New Jersey and Maryland; New York, Delaware, North Carolina and Georgia would be added a few months later as resistance stiffens throughout the American colonies

1796 – The first known elephant arrives in America aboard the sailing vessel America, returning from Calcutta, India

1816 – William Sterndale Bennett born, British composer, pianist and conductor

1829 – British Parliament passes the Emancipation Act, repealing the Penal Laws and allowing Catholics to seek public office

1854 – Lucy Craft Laney born, American educator, founder and principal of Haines Normal and Industrial School, the first school for black children in Augusta, GA, beginning with 6 students, but expanding to 234 students by the end of the school’s second year – Laney named the school for Francine Haines, who donated $10,000 for its expansion

1886 – Ethel Leginska born, British pianist, composer and conductor

1899 – Scrabble Day *- Alfred Butts born, American architect, and inventor of the board game Scrabble

1902 – Marguerite Henry born, American author of children’s books about animals, recipient of the Newbery Medal

1906 – Bud Freeman born, American Jazz musician, bandleader and composer

1906 – Samuel Beckett born, influential Irish avant-garde author, ‘Theatre of the Absurd’ playwright and director, poet: awarded 1969 Nobel Prize for Literature; Waiting for Godot, Endgame, Krapp’s Last Tape

1909 – Eudora Welty born, American author; short stories and novels about the American South, awarded the Pulitzer Prize and Presidential Medal of Freedom

1919 – Madalyn Murray O’Hair born, American activist, author, founder and president of American Atheists; Why I Am an Atheist

1928 – Teddy Charles born, American musician, composer and arranger

1937 – Lanford Wilson, American playwright, pioneer in Off-Off-Broadway and regional theatre movements; 1980 Pulitzer Prize for Drama for Talley’s Folly

1939 – Seamus Heaney born, prolific and influential Irish poet, playwright and translator; Wintering Out, Human Chain, Beowolf (translation)

1942 – Bill Conti, American composer

1943 – President Franklin Roosevelt dedicates Jefferson Memorial in Washington DC

1946 – Al Green, American singer-songwriter

1958 – Van Cliburn of Kilgore TX wins the USSR’s inaugural Tchaikovsky International Piano Contest in Moscow, which had been designed to showcase Soviet cultural superiority during the Cold War

1963 – Garry Kasparov born, Soviet-Russian World Chess Champion (1985-2000)

1965 – The Beatles record “Help”

1965 – Lawrence Bradford Jr is appointed by Senator Jacob Javits (NY-R ) as the first black Senate page

1970 – Greek composer and liberal activist Mikis Theodorakis is allowed to go into exile after an international campaign headed by Dmitri Shostakovich, Arthur Miller, Leonard Bernstein, and Harry Belafonte pressures the Greek military junta into releasing him from the Oropos concentration camp; when he arrives in Paris, he is hospitalized for treatment of tuberculosis

1970 – The crew of Apollo 13, headed for the Moon, reports “Houston, We’ve got a problem” when their oxygen tanks rupture, beginning an all-out-effort by NASA and the crew to return them safely to Earth

1976 – U.S. Federal Reserve begins issuing $2 bicentennial notes

1985 – “We are the World” becomes the #1 hit in the U.S.

1998 –Dolly, the world’s first cloned sheep, gives natural birth to a healthy lamb

1999 – Dr. Jack Kervorkian is sentenced to 10 to 25 years in prison for second-degree murder for assisting in a suicide

2007 – Celebrate Teen Literature Day * is started by YALSA (Young Adult Library Services Association), a division of the American Library Association – always on the Thursday of National Library Week

2016 – Make Lunch Count Day *is launched by TGI Fridays because too many Americans are eating lunch while continuing to work instead of taking a break and coming back refreshed

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Visuals

• Celebrate Teen Literature header
• International flags
• Miyamoto Musashi – enemy quote
• John Dryden – patient man quote
• Thomas Jefferson – books quote
• Marguerite Henry – legends quote
• Samuel Beckett – words quote
• Eudora Welty – integrity quote
• Seamus Heaney – poetry quote
• Thomas Jefferson – tyranny quote
• Garry Kasparov – success quote
• Sharing lunch in a San Francisco park – photo Sarah Curtiss

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