July 22nd is
Casual Pi Day/22-7
Day of the Cowboy *
Hammock Day
Lion’s Share Day
Penuche Candy Day
Spoonerism Day *
Summer Leisure Day
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MORE! William A. Spooner, Emma Lazarus and Alexander Calder, click
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World Festivals and National Holidays
Austria – Salzburg Festival (1st day)
Canada – Surrey BC:
Surrey Fusion Festival
Gambia – Revolution Day
Malaysia – Sarawak: Sarawak Day
Swaziland – King Father’s Birthday
United Kingdom –
London: Alexandra Palace Summer Festival
Whitehaven: Taste Cumbria Food Festival
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On This Day in HISTORY
1099 – Godfrey of Bouillon elected first Defender of the Holy Sepulchre in Jerusalem
1298 – Edward I’s longbowmen defeat William Wallace’s Scottish schiltrons at Falkirk. A schiltron is a compact body of troops forming a shield wall or phalanx – the term is most often associated with Scottish pike formations during the Wars of Scottish Independence in the late 13th and early 14th centuries. The English longbowmen could shoot accurately at a distance of 360 yd (328 m), well out of range of the Scots’ pikes
1499 – The Old Swiss Confederacy decisively defeats the army of Maximilian I, Holy Roman Emperor at the Battle of Dornach, the last armed conflict between the Swiss and the Holy Roman Empire, ending an imperial ban against the Swiss cantons
1651 – Ferdinand Tobias Richter born, Austrian composer
1686 – Albany NY is chartered as a municipality by Colonial Governor Thomas Dongan
1706 – England and Scotland Acts of Union agreed, the beginning of Great Britain
1713 – Jacques-Germain Soufflot born, French Neoclassic architect; designed the Panthéon and the Hôtel Marigny in Paris
Parisian postcard showing the Panthéon, circa 1900
1793 – Scottish explorer Alexander Mackenzie’s expedition becomes the first recorded group of people to complete a transcontinental crossing of North America – He writes a message on a rock on the Dean Channel: “Alex MacKenzie / from Canada / by land / 22d July 1793”
1796 – Cleveland is founded by General Moses Cleaveland, but gets misspelled
1802 – Gia Long conquers Hanoi, unifying Vietnam, and becomes the first Emperor of the Nguyễn Dynasty
1812 – Duke of Wellington’s troops defeat the French at Battle of Salamanca in Spain
1822 – Gregor Mendel born, Austrian botanist and Augustinian friar; his pea plant experiments led to basic rules of heredity, now called Mendelian inheritance
1844 – William Archibald Spooner born, Oxford don who reputedly muddled sentences, i.e. “”You have hissed all my mystery lectures” instead of “You have missed all my history lectures”- Spoonerism is derived from his name – Spoonerism Day *
1849 – Emma Lazarus born, poet famous for “The New Colossus” the poem inscribed on a plaque in the base of the Statue of Liberty
1882 – Edward Hopper born, American painter
Self-Portrait, by Edward Hopper
1891 – Gustav Hertz born, German physicist; studies on the infrared absorption of carbon dioxide in relation to pressure; 1925 Nobel Prize
1894 – Oskar Maria Graf born, German novelist and poet; a socialist in the German labor movement; Nazi Germany banned his books and revoked his citizenship in 1934; emigrated to the U.S. in 1938, and became an American citizen
1894 – First-ever motorcar race held between Paris and Rouen
1898 – Alexander Calder born, American sculptor
Flamingo, by Alexander Calder (Chicago)
1898 – Stephen Vincent Benet born, American poet, novelist and short story writer
1901 – Charles Weidman, American modern dance pioneer and choreographer; partnered early in his dance career with Martha Graham and Doris Humphrey; co-founder of the Humphrey-Weidman Company, when Humphrey retired, he created the Weidman School of Modern Dance and the Charles Weidman Theatre Dance Company
Lynchtown, choreographed by Charles Weidman in 1936
1908 – Amy Vanderbilt, American author and etiquette expert; Amy Vanderbilt’s Complete Book of Etiquette
1913 – Licia Albanese born in Italy, American operatic soprano, noted for roles in Verdi and Puccini; founder of Licia Albanese-Puccini Foundation, sponsor of an International Vocal Competition, and offers study grants and scholarships to young singers
1915 – Shaista Suhrawardy Ikramullah born, Pakistani politician, diplomat and author, Ambassador to Morocco, delegate to the United Nations, wrote works in both Urdu and English including Behind the Veil: Ceremonies, Customs and Colour and From Purdah to Parliament
1924 – Margaret Whiting born, American pop singer, signed to one of Capitol Records first recording contracts
1926 – Babe Ruth catches a baseball dropped from an airplane flying at 250 feet
1933 – Wiley Post makes around-the-world trip in 7 days, 18 hours and 45 minutes
1934 – FBI agents in Chicago mortally wound “Public Enemy #1” John Dillinger
1937 – Hal Kemp and his orchestra record “Got a Date with an Angel”
1940 – Judith Walzer Leavitt born, American historian, professor of history of medicine, history of science and women’s history
1941 – Plans for the Pentagon viewed by the House Subcommittee on Appropriations
1942 – WWII: U.S. begins compulsory civilian gasoline rationing
1947 – Don Henley born, singer-songwriter-drummer with the Eagles, Hotel California
1951 – Dezik (Дезик) and Tsygan (Цыган, “Gypsy”), first dogs to make sub-orbital flight
1958 – Eve Beglarian born, American composer
1963 – The Beach Boys release the single “Surfer Girl”
1977 – Elvis Costello’s debut album My Aim Is True is released in the UK
1983 – After 19 months, Polish Prime Minister Wojciech Jaruzelski lifts martial law which he imposed to silence growing political opposition from Solidarity and other pro-democracy groups; national borders sealed, airline flights curtailed, telephone lines disconnected, school and university classes suspended, mail and all media censored, a six-day work ordered and strict curfew imposed. These harsh restrictions lead to an economic crisis, with rapidly rising prices, rationing of most products and foods, and an exodus of 700,000 Poles to the West
1991 – Jeffrey Daumer is arrested after police find human remains in his apartment
2000 – University of Arizona astronomers announce discovery of 17th Jupiter moon
2005 – Day of the Cowboy * is launched by the NDOC Organization, to be observed annually on the fourth Saturday in July
2006 – Israeli tanks, bulldozers and armored personnel carriers knock down a fence and cross into Lebanon to seize the village of Maroun al-Ras from Hezbollah
2015 – Radiocarbon analysis of two parchment pages of texts from the Qur’an in the University of Birmingham Cadbury Research Library collection dates them between AD568 and AD645. Muhammad is thought to have lived between AD570 and AD632
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