July 8^th is:

Bodypainting Day *

Carver Day *

Chocolate with Almonds Day

National Blueberry Day *
(Blue & Silver Bells Margarita)

Video Game Day

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MORE! Matthew Perry, Käthe Kollwitz and Hirao Kishio, click

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WORLD FESTIVALS AND NATIONAL HOLIDAYS

Argentina – Día de la Independencia

Belgium – Antwerpen:
Antwerp Metal Festival

Germany – Düsseldorf:
Open Source Festival

Italy – Lucca:
Summer Music Festival

Laos, Malaysia – Boun Khao Phansa
(Buddhist ‘Lent’ begins)

Malaysia – Penang Governor’s Birthday

Sri Lanka – Esala Full Moon Poya

Thailand – Asanha Bucha
(Buddha’s first sermon)

Ukraine – Family Day

United States – Taos NM:
Taos Pueblo Pow Wow

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On This Day in HISTORY

1099 – Some 15,000 starving Crusaders begin the siege of Jerusalem by marching in a religious procession around the city walls as its Muslim defenders watch. The Crusaders will seize Jerusalem from the Fatimid Caliphate and lay the foundations for the Kingdom of Jerusalem

1497 – Vasco da Gama embarks on the first direct European voyage to India

1592 – Imjin War: The Korean Navy decisively beats the Japanese Navy at the Battle of Hansan Island, South Gyeonsang Province, Korea, now a UNESCO World Heritage Site

1593 – Artemisia Gentileschi born, Italian painter, one of the most accomplished painters of her generation, noted for painting strong and suffering women from myth

Artemisia Gentileschi self-portrait

1663 – Charles II of England grants John Clarke Royal charter to Rhode Island

1776 – John Nixon, an American Militia lieutenant-colonel, delivers the first public reading of the Declaration of Independence of the United States, in Philadelphia

1821 – Maria White Lowell, American poet and abolitionist, advocate for temperance and women’s rights

1822 – English poet Percy Bysshe Shelley drowns

1839 – John D. Rockefeller born, future world’s richest oil tycoon

1844 – Mary Bailey Lincoln born, American pioneer in domestic science, author of Mrs. Lincoln’s Boston Cook Book: What to Do and What Not to Do in Cooking 

1853 – Commodore Matthew Perry resorts to “gunboat diplomacy,” arriving in Edo Bay with four armed vessels, and firing off blank shots from their 73 cannons, to intimidate the Japanese into opening up trade with the U.S.

1862 – Ella Reeve “Mother” Bloor born, labor organizer and activist in American socialist and communist movements

1867 – Käthe Kollwitz born, German painter, printmaker and sculptor, often depicting the tragedy of war, poverty, and hunger

Käthe Kollwitz, self-portrait

1874 – An initial force of North-West Mounted Police depart from Fort Dufferin in Manitoba on the March West, heading to Fort Whoop-up, a notorious American whisky-trading post located at the junction of the St. Mary River and Oldman Rivers, but the Americans are warned they are coming, and the Mounties find no whisky

1882 – Percy Grainger born, Australian composer, arranger and pianist

1889 – The first issue of the Wall Street Journal is published

1896 – William Jennings Bryan “Cross of Gold” speech at Democratic Convention

1907 – Hirao Kishio born, Japanese composer

1908 – Louis Jordan born, African American musician, “King of the Jukebox”

1911 – “Two Gun” Nan Aspinwall arrives in New York City, after riding across the U.S. on horseback, departing from San Francisco CA on September 1, 1910

1926 – Elisabeth Kübler-Ross born, Swiss psychiatrist and author; theory of five stages of grief; author of  On Death and Dying; inducted into the American National Women’s Hall of Fame in 2007

1929 – Shirley Ann Grau born, American author; 1965 Pulitzer Prize for Fiction for The Keepers of the House

1932 – The Dow Jones Industrial Average reaches its lowest level of the Great Depression, closing at 41.22.

1933 – Harold Ickles is chosen by President Franklin Roosevelt to head the new Public Works Administration (PWA), created by the National Industrial Recovery Act, to distribute and oversee loans and grants to state and local governments so they can contract private companies to build public works projects, 34,000 over the next ten years, including New York’s Triborough Bridge, Grand Coulee Dam, the San Francisco Mint, Washington National Airport, and Key West’s Overseas Highway. During 1939, shifted to preparations of war funding the construction of the aircraft carriers Yorktown and Enterprise, cruisers, destroyers, submarines and aircraft

1934 – Raquel Correa, Chilean journalist, mostly worked for newspaper El Mercurio de Santiago, awarded Chile’s National Journalism Award in 1991

1943 – Carver Day * is established to honor George Washington Carver; ceremonies and events are planned by the National Park Service at the George Washington Carver National Monument near Diamond, Missouri

1948 – The U.S. Air Force’s recruits first women into its W.A.F. program, and the U.S. Navy accepts its first peace-time female recruits after the Women’s Armed Service Integration Act allows women to serve when the nation is not at war

1958 – The soundtrack for Oklahoma! is awarded the first gold record album

1960 – U2 Incident: USSR charges US pilot Francis Gary Powers with espionage

1966 – The Beatles release “Nowhere Man”

1972 – The Who release “Join Together” in the U.S.

1975 – Israeli premier Yitzhak Rabin begins his historic visit to West Germany, the first by an Israeli head of government, beginning by laying a memorial wreath at the Nazi death camp at Belsen

1981 – U.S. Senate confirms Sandra Day O’Connor to Supreme Court (99-0)

1996 – The Spice Girls release their debut single “Wannabe” in the UK

2011 – NASA launches the space shuttle Atlantis in its final mission

2014 – Bodypainting Day * is founded by Andy Golub in New York City; now also observed in Amsterdam, San Francisco and Berlin

2016 – The first National Blueberry Day * is launched by Holiday Insights to honor blueberries during their season of ripening – if you’d rather drink your blueberries, mix up a Blue & Silver Bells variation on a margarita: 2 ounces Silver Tequila, ¾ ounce Blueberry Lavender Syrup, ½ ounce fresh Lemon Juice, Lemon Twist as garnish – build in rocks glass over ice, stir, garnish

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