August 11th is

Ingersoll Day *

Play in the Sand Day

Presidential Joke Day *

Raspberry Bombe Day

Son and Daughter Day

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MORE! Robert G. Ingersoll, Hedy Lamarr and Alex Haley, click

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WORLD FESTIVALS AND NATIONAL HOLIDAYS

Anguilla – Constitution Day

Canada – Salmo BC:
Shambhala Music Festival

Chad – Independence Day

Japan – Mountain Day *

Sweden – Goteborg:
Way Out West Festival

United Kingdom – Hampton:
Boomtown Fair

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On This Day on History

3114 BC – The Mesoamerican Long Count calendar used by the Mayans begins

2492 BC – (legendary) Bel the Titan is defeated by Hayk the Great, progenitor and founder of the Armenian Nation

1332 – Edward Balliol, pretender to the Scottish throne, routs the forces under the Regent of Scotland, Domhnall II, Earl of Mar, who is killed in the battle. King David II is only three years old at the time

1801 –Eduard Devrient born, German playwright-librettist, actor-singer, theatre  director-reformer-historian; noted for his history of German theatre, Geschichte der deutschen Schauspielkunst

1833 – Ingersoll Day * – Robert G. Ingersoll born, “The Great Agnostic,” politician and famous orator, advocate for separation of church and state, free thought, and humanism. Gave the eulogy at his friend Walt Whitman’s funeral. “There are in nature neither rewards nor punishments, there are consequences.”

1860 – First successful American silver mill begins operation in Virginia City NV

1861 – James Bryan Herrick born, American cardiologist; identified sickle-cell anemia

1862 – Carrie Jacobs Bond born, American singer-songwriter of popular music; “I Love You Truly” and “A Perfect Day”

1877 – Asaph Hall discovers two moons of Mars and names them Phobos and Deimos

1892 – Hugh MacDiarmid, born Christopher M. Grieve, Scottish poet, essayist and Scottish Nationalist; developed Lallans, a literary version of  Lowland Scots

1896 – Harvey Hubbell patents electric light bulb socket with a pull-chain

1897 – Louise Bogan born, American poet, U.S. Consultant in Poetry (re-named Poet Laureate in 1986) to the Library of Congress (1945-46), poetry editor of The New Yorker magazine

1909 – U.S. ship Arapahoe is first to use SOS distress signal off  Cape Hatteras NC

1912 – Eva Ahnert-Rohlfs born, German astronomer

1919 – Ginette Neveu born, French classical violinist, child prodigy, won the Henryk Wieniawski Violin Competition at the age of 16; she achieved international fame, but died in a plane crash at age 30

1921 – Alex Haley born, American author; 1977 Special Awards Pulitzer Prize for Roots

1924 – Newsreel pictures are taken of U.S. presidential candidates for first time

1934 – The first civilian prisoners arrive at the Federal prison on Alcatraz Island in San Francisco Bay; it was a military POW detention center, then military prison (1861-1933)

1941 – Alla Kushnir born in Russia, Israeli chess champion, Woman Grandmaster, three time winner of the Women’s Chess Olympiads

1942 – Actress Hedy Lamarr and composer George Antheil receive a patent for a Frequency-hopping spread spectrum communication system that later became the basis for modern technologies in wireless telephones and Wi-Fi.

1952 – Hussein bin Talal is proclaimed King of Jordan

1954 – A formal peace in Indochina ends over seven years of fighting between the French and the Communist Vietminh

1960 – Chad becomes independent from France

1965 – The Beatles movie Help!  has its American premier in NYC

1965 – The Watts Riots begin in Los Angeles CA, still a racially segregated city under restrictive covenants even after the courts ruled them illegal in 1948. A black motorist is arrested on suspicion of drunk driving, and a heated argument turns into a fight, leading to charges of police racism and brutality. 34 people are killed, and there are over $40 million in damages

1972 – Final Days of the Vietnam War: the 3rd Battalion, 21^st Infantry, is the last ground combat unit to leave South Vietnam

1973 – The Edgar Winter Group “Free Ride” is released

1984 – President Reagan jokes, “My fellow Americans, I am pleased to tell you that I just signed legislation that would outlaw Russia forever. We begin bombing in five minutes,” during microphone test, not aware microphone is live, which starts tradition of Presidential Joke Day *

1994 – U.S. federal jury awards commercial fishermen $286.8 million for losses resulting from 1989 Exxon Valdez oil spill

1995 – All U.S. nuclear tests are banned

2003 – NATO takes over command of the peacekeeping force in Afghanistan, marking its first major operation outside Europe in its 54-year-history

2006 – The Transportation Security Administration (TSA) bans all liquids, gels and aerosols from airline passenger cabins one day after a thwarted terrorist attack

2014 – Japan’s parliament passes legislation for a new annual public holiday Mountain Day * beginning in 2016  ________________________________________________________________