April 23rd is
UN English Language Day *
Impossible Astronaut Day
(Dr. Who) *
National Lost Dog Awareness Day
Movie Theater Day
Talk Like Shakespeare Day
World Book and Copyright Day *
World Book Night *
Volunteer Recognition Day *
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MORE! William Shakespeare, Ethel Smyth and Sergei Prokofiev, click
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WORLD FESTIVALS AND NATIONAL HOLIDAYS
Christianity/Vatican City – Feast of Saint George
Islam – Al Isra Wal Miraj
Australia – Melbourne VIC:
Raw Materials/The Studio Sunday
North Cyprus – Children’s Day
Turkey – National Sovereignty/Children’s Day
United Kingdom/Canada – St. George’s Day
(patron saint of England)
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On This Day in HISTORY
599 – Maya king Uneh Chan of Calakmul attacks rival city-state Palenque in southern Mexico, defeating queen Yohl Ik’nal and sacking the city
1348 – The founding of the Order of the Garter by King Edward III is announced on St. George’s Day
1564 – William Shakespeare born, English playwright and poet, the ‘Bard of Avon, greatest writer in the English language, and world’s greatest dramatist
1635 – The first public school in the U.S., Boston Latin School, is founded in Boston MA
1772 – Claude Joseph Rouget de Lisle writes “La Marseillaise” which becomes the French national anthem
1775 – J.M.W. Turner born, English landscape painter
1789 – President-elect George Washington and his wife move into the first executive mansion, the Franklin House in New York City
1852 – Edwin Markham born, American poet and lecturer
1867 – Johannes Fibiger born, Danish Nobel Prize-winning pathologist
1858 –Dame Ethel Smyth born, British composer, women’s suffrage activist, composed Women’s Social and Political Union’s anthem “The March of the Women“
1858 – Max Planck born, German Nobel Prize winner; quantum theory
1872 – Violet Gordon-Woodhouse born, British pianist and harpsichordist, first to record and broadcast harpsichord music
1879 – Fire burns down the second main building and dome of the University of Notre Dame; it is replaced with the third, and current, Main Building with its golden dome.
1880 – Michel Fokine born, Russian ballet dancer and choreographer
1891 – Sergei Prokofiev born, Russian composer and conductor
1896 – Dame Ngaio Marsh born, New Zealand author and director; mystery novels featuring detective Roderick Alleyn, one of the “Queens of Crime”
1899 – Vladimir Nabokov born in Russia, American novelist and critic
1908 – President Theodore Roosevelt signs act creating the U.S. Army Reserve
1924 – The U.S. Senate passed the Soldiers Bonus Bill, a $4 Billion program giving “adjusted service certificates” to WWI veterans
1955 – Canadian Labour Congress is formed by the merger of the Trades and Labour Congress of Canada and the Canadian Congress of Labour
1967 – Soviet Soyuz 1, a manned spaceflight carrying cosmonaut Colonel Vladimir Komarov, is launched into orbit
1968 – 300 Columbia students barricaded the office of the college dean, charging the university with supporting the Vietnam War and violating Harlem residents’ civil rights
1971 – The Rolling Stones release their album Sticky Fingers
1974 – National Volunteer Recognition * is the first day of National Volunteer Week, now sponsored by Points of Light Foundation, a volunteerism advocacy and civic engagement group
1976 – The Rolling Stones release their album Black and Blue
1993 – Eritreans vote overwhelmingly for independence from Ethiopia in a United Nations-monitored referendum
1995 – World Book and Copyright Day * is launched by UNESCO
2010 – UNESCO sets the traditional date of Shakespeare’s birth, as well as the day of his death, as UN English Language Day * – part of the celebration of the six official working languages of the United Nations
2011 – “The Impossible Astronaut” is the first episode of the sixth series of the British science fiction television series Doctor Who, first broadcast on 23 April 2011 in the UK, Canada and the U.S.
2012 – World Book Night * is moved to this date for the first time – Originally celebrated in March, this is a day to encourage people who can read, but aren’t regular readers, to pick up a book and read it
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Visuals
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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 
The Soldiers Bonus Bill nearly didn’t become law due to the actions of two US Presidents. It took several attempts to finally get a bill that would not only pass, but survive presidential veto.
From Wikipedia at: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/World_War_Adjusted_Compensation_Act
The American Legion was a principal proponent of the legislation on behalf of World War I veterans.
It fought President Warren G. Harding as his position changed from supporting payments if paired with a revenue measure to supporting a future pension system. So strongly did Harding feel about the issue that he visited the Senate to make his case against one version of the bill in 1921, and the Senate voted it down 47-29. Harding vetoed another version of the Adjusted Compensation Act on September 19, 1922, and the House overrode his veto 258-54 but the Senate failed to override by 4 votes on a vote that split both Democrats and Republicans. Harding’s veto of the popular measure particularly alienated the Senate Republicans, who thought the President’s defense of fiscal integrity endangered the party’s electoral prospects.
In preliminary negotiations between Congress and President Calvin Coolidge, it became clear that the President would veto any law that proposed immediate cash payments to veterans and that the Senate would sustain that veto. The legislation, popularly called the Insurance Bill, provided the veteran instead with a variety of future payment scenarios rather than cash in the short term.
On May 15, 1924, President Coolidge vetoed a bill granting bonuses to veterans of World War I saying: “patriotism…bought and paid for is not patriotism.” Congress overrode his veto a few days later.
I had not known that bit of history. Good to know. Thanks.
Thanks Terry –
So did Coolidge give his Presidential paychecks back?!
Ha! You see the parallels too.