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 (1^st 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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