July 13^th is

World Cup Soccer Day *

National French Fries Day

Embrace Your Geekiness Day

Barbershop Music Appreciation Day

International Rubik’s Cube Day *

Gruntled Workers Day  
(if you’re happy and you know it, clap your hands!)

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MORE! Julius Caesar, Simone Veil and John F. Kennedy, click

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WORLD FESTIVALS AND NATIONAL HOLIDAYS

Australia – Alice Springs: Annual Camel Cup 

Canada – Calgary: Calgary Stampede
(ongoing )

Croatia – Beats, Beer and Boogaloo
(microbrew and music fest – opening day)

France – Paris: World Rubik’s Cube
Championship (opening day)

Montenegro – Statehood Day

Mongolia – Naadam Holiday (day 3)

Spain – Costa del Azahar:
Festival International de Benicàssim

United States – Virginia Beach VA:
Sister Cities International 61^st Annual Conference

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On This Day in HISTORY

589 BC – Nebuchadnezzar II of the Neo-Babylonian Empire invades the Kingdom of Judah, which had stopped paying tribute to him, and lays siege to Jerusalem for over a year, then finally breaks through the city’s walls, plunders Jerusalem, destroys Solomon’s Temple, and razes the city to the ground

100 BC – Julius Caesar born, Roman politician, general, and notable author of Latin prose; played pivotal role in events leading to the end of the Roman Republic and the expansion of the Roman Empire

1249 – Alexander III, aged seven, is crowned King of the Scots at Scone

1527 – John Dee born, Welsh-English astronomer, mathematician and magus; Court Astrologer of Queen Elizabeth I; leading expert in navigation who trained many of the explorers who made England’s voyages of discovery

Monas Hieroglyphica – John Dee

1568 – Alexander Nowell, the Dean of London’s St. Paul’s perfects a way to bottle beer

1579 – Arthur Dee born, physician and chemist – John Dee’s son by his third wife

1643 – Royalist troops defeat the Roundheads in the Battle of Roundway Down

1713 – First performance of George Frideric Handel’s Te Deum and Jubilate, written to celebrate the Treaty of Utrecht, which ended the War of the Spanish Succession

1787 – The Continental Congress enacts the Northwest Ordinance establishing governing rules for the Northwest Territory, which includes Ohio, Indiana, Illinois, Michigan, Wisconsin and Minnesota.  The ordinance also establishes procedures for the admission of new states, sets precedent concerning public domain lands, and limits the expansion of slavery, but allows for “indentured servitude”(slaves could be brought into the territory, but not bought or sold there) and reclaiming fugitive slaves

1793 – Charlotte Corday assassinates Jean-Paul Marat in his bathtub

Death of Marat by David – 1793

1812 – The first pawnbroking ordinance was passed in New York City

1814 – The Carabinieri, the national gendarmerie of Italy, is established

1821 – Nathan Bedford Forrest, Confederate Civil War cavalry general, noted for his ruthless guerilla raids; a contemporary described him as “insensible to fatigue, incapable alike of sympathy or fear . . . a consummate horseman and a dead shot with the pistol . . . His control over his men is absolute . . . with his officers he is often exacting and savage”

1836 – U.S. Patent Office begins numbering patents – John Ruggles receives patent #1

1863 – Rioting against the Civil War military draft erupts in New York City; over three days, at least 1,000 people are killed

1863 – Margaret Alice Murray born, British Egyptologist, anthropologist, folklorist and feminist. First woman to be appointed as a lecturer in archaeology in the UK, at London’s University College (1898-1935) Worked closely with Sir Flinders Petrie in Egyptology as his copyist-illustrator and assistant, discovering the Osireion temple at Abydos. Petrie gave her full credit for her work, but she encountered male prejudice from others, and joined the Women’s Social and Political Union (WSPU), as well as mentoring several promising women students. Wrote books on Egyptology for the general public. In later years, got into academic hot water over her theories about Christian witch hunts and witch cults

1865 – Horace Greeley advises reader to “Go West young man”

1889 – Emma Asson born, Estonian politician, educator and author, one of the first women elected to the Estonian parliament, contributed to the first constitution of Estonia especially in regards to education and gender equality, wrote the first textbook in the Estonian language

1918 – Marcia Brown born, American author and illustrator, recipient of three Caldecott Medals and the American Library Association’s Laura Ingalls Wilder Medal for her contributions to children’s literature

1921 – Ernest Gold born (birthname Ernst Goldner) in Austria, American film score composer; noted for scores for On the Beach (1959), and Exodus (1960 film – Academy Award for Best Music)

1923 – The “Hollywoodland” sign is dedicated (“land” removed during 1949 renovation)

1927 – Simone Veil born, French lawyer and politician, served as the French Minister of Health and championed the 1975 law that legalized abortion in France, the first woman chosen as President of the European Parliament, and as a member of the Constitutional Council of France. A Jewish survivor of Auschwitz-Birkenau and Bergen-Belsen, she lost her parents and a brother in the holocaust

1930 – The first FIFA World Cup football (soccer) semifinal match is held in Montevideo, Uruguay: France beats Mexico 4-1

1930 – Naomi Shemer born, Israeli singer-songwriter, the “first lady of Israeli song and poetry,” known for her song Yerushlayim Shel Zahav (“Jerusalem of Gold”)

1935 – Monique Vézina born, Canadian politician who retired from public service but remained active in the field of international development; a Quebec nationalist, she served as a Progressive Conservative Parliament member, appointed as Minister of External Relations, and Minister responsible for La Francophonie, Minister for Employment and Immigration, and several other offices.

1939 – Frank Sinatra makes his first recording, with the Harry James band – the songs are “Melancholy Mood” and “From the Bottom of My Heart”

1942 – Roger McGuinn born, American singer-guitarist, a lead singer for The Byrds

1944 – International Rubik’s Cube Day * – Erno Rubik, Rubik’s Cube inventor, is born

1953 – Opening Day of the first Shakespeare Festival ar Stratford, Ontario, Canada

Alec Guinness in Richard III, inaugural Stratford Shakespeare Festival

1954 – France, Great Britain and U.S. reach an accord which splits Vietnam in two

1956 – Elvis Presley’s single “Don’t Be Cruel” / “Hound Dog” is released

1959 – The Shirelles release “Dedicated To The One I Love”

1960 – John F. Kennedy becomes the Democrat’s presidential nominee at their convention in Los Angeles CA

1964 – The Supremes make a recording of “Come See About Me”

1977 – New York City Blackout puts 9 million people in the dark for 24 hours

1985 – Live Aid concert in London, seen in Philadelphia, and other cities raises over $70 million for African famine relief

1995 – NASA’s space shuttle Discovery launches, after almost a month’s delay, due to replacement needed after extensive damage by woodpeckers over the Memorial Day weekend to the foam insulation of Discovery’s external tank

2002 – In India, Dr. P.V. Rajiv uses sildenafil citrate (Viagra) to open up constricted blood vessels in the lungs of three “blue” babies

2013 – George Zimmerman is found ‘not guilty’ of killing Trayvon Martin

2016 – Theresa May is elected as UK Prime Minister by Conservative Party MPs; as of today, her recent call for an early special election, which cost her party its Parliamentary majority, has plunged May’s popularity in the polls into negative numbers and angered many Conservative MPs

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