July 3rd is:

Chocolate Wafer Day

Disobedience Day

Fried Clam Day

Stay Out of the Sun Day

International Plastic Bag Free Day *

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MORE! Nicolas de Condorcet, Franz Kafka and M.F.K. Fisher, click

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WORLD FESTIVALS AND NATIONAL HOLIDAYS

Festival of Cerridwen, the pagan Welsh Goddess of fertility, magic, divination and transformation

Belarus – Independence Day

Bhutan – Guru Rinpoche Birthday

Cayman Islands – Constitution Day

Guyana – CARICOM Day
(Caribbean Community Day)

India – Jammu & Kasjmir: Hemis Festival
(Buddhist guru Padmasambhava’s birth)

US Virgin Islands – Emancipation Day

Zambia – Heroes’ Day

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On This Day in HISTORY

987 – Hugh Capet is crowned King of France, first of the Capetian dynasty which rules France until the French Revolution in 1792

1608 –Samuel de Champlain’s exploration party arrives at the “point of Quebec” and begins erecting fortifications, the beginning of the city of Quebec

1754 – French and Indian War: Outnumbered and running out of supplies, George Washington surrenders Fort Necessity in Pennsylvania to French forces – his only military surrender

1767 – Pitcairn Island is discovered by Midshipman Robert Pitcairn on an expeditionary voyage commanded by Philip Carteret

1790 – Nicolas de Condorcet publishes “De l’admission des femmes au droit de cité“(For the Admission to the Rights of Citizenship For Women) in which he strongly advocates for women’s suffrage in the new Republic as well as enlargement of basic political and social rights to include women;  Condorcet identifies gender as a social construction based on perceived differences in sex and rejected biological determinism as an explanation of gender relations in society. He denounces patriarchal norms of oppression, present at every institutional level, and continuously subjugating and marginalising women, identifying education as crucial to the emancipation of individuals: ″I believe that all other differences between men and women are simply the result of education.″

1839 – First U.S. state normal school opens in Lexington MA, with three students

1848 – Slaves are freed in the Danish West Indies (now U.S. Virgin Islands)

1852 – Congress authorizes a second U.S. Mint in San Francisco CA

1860 – Charlotte Perkins Gilman born, American author, sociologist, lecturer and feminist, known for subtle terror of her short story The Yellow Wallpaper

1863 – American Civil War: Battle of Gettysburg is a major victory for the Union

1883 – Franz Kafka born, influential Czech German-language author of short stories and novels; “Die Verwandlung” (The Metamorphosis), Der Process (The Trial)

1880 – Science begins publication, principally funded by Thomas Edison

1901 – Ruth Crawford Seeger born, American composer and folk music specialist

1904 – Charles Richard Drew born, African-American doctor, surgeon and medical researcher; developed improved techniques for storing blood and creating large-scale blood banks in WWII, enabling medics to save the lives thousands of Allied soldiers; protested the American Red Cross and U.S. Armed Services practice of racially segregating blood donations

1908 – Mary Frances Kennedy Fisher aka M.F.K. Fisher born, American writer on food and travel, memoir author, founder of the Napa Valley Wine Library, works include Serve it Forth, How to Cook a Wolf, and translation of Brillat-Savarin’s The Physiology of Taste

1913 – Confederate veterans at the Great Reunion of 1913 reenact Pickett’s Charge; upon reaching the farthest point of the Confederates in the battle, they are met by the outstretched hands of friendship from Union survivors

1929 – Dunlop Latex Development Laboratories make foam rubber

1930 – U.S. Veterans Administration is created

1937 – Tomás Straüssler born in Czechoslovakia, British playwright as Tom Stoppard; Rosencrantz and Guildenstern Are Dead, The Real Inspector Hound, Jumpers

1939 – Brigitte Fassbaender born, German mezzo-soprano and opera director at the Staatstheater Braunschweig and the Tiroler Landestheater in Innsbruck

1940 – Fontella Bass born, American singer-songwriter; “Rescue Me”

1941 – Gloria Allred born, American civil rights lawyer; known for high profile and often controversial cases, especially involving women’s rights

1946 – The Cape Passive Resistance Council is formed at a mass meeting in Cape Town, South Africa, attended by 1,500 people

1954 – Food rationing, started during WWII, ends in Great Britain

1962 – Algerian Revolution against French rule ends, Algerian independence is announced on July 5th

1967 – The Doors release “Light My Fire” – Jim Morrison dies on this day in 1971

1976 – Adolfo Suárez becomes premier of Spain after Francisco Franco’s death

1984 – U.S. Supreme Court rules Jaycees may be forced to admit women members

1985 – Back to the Future, starring Michael J. Fox, is released

1996 – The British House of Commons announces the return to Scotland of the Stone of Scone, used in coronations of Scottish and British monarchs, after 600 years

1997 – Four major tobacco companies settle a lawsuit filed against them by the state of
Mississippi over tobacco-related health-care costs, agreeing to pay $3.4 billion in payments spread out over 25 years

2011 – International Plastic Bag Free Day * is sponsored by Zero Waste Europe, founded in 2011, which is a stakeholder of the UNEP Sustainable Consumption and Production 10 Year Programme Framework

2014 – Guardians of the Galaxy premieres, starring Chris Pratt and Zoe Saldana

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