August 13th is
International Lefthander’s Day *
Filet Mignon Day
Prosecco wine Day
National Spirit of ’45 Day *
________________________________________________________________
MORE! George Grove, Annie Oakley and Lionel Richie, click
________________________________________________________________
WORLD FESTIVALS AND NATIONAL HOLIDAYS
Central African Republic – Independence Day
Germany – Hildesheim: M’era Luna Festival
Netherlands – Rotterdam: Delfshaven Ketels
aan de Kade (historic marina food fest)
Turkmenistan – Melon Day
(muskmelon holiday)
Tunisia – Women’s Day
United Kingdom – London:
Club Soda Mindful Drinking Festival
________________________________________________________________
On This Day in HISTORY
900 – Count Reginar I Longneck of Hainault (land now straddles Belgium-France border) rises against Zwentibold of Lotharingia (medieval kingdom which included Holland, Belgium, much of Germany and Lorriane) and slays him near present-day Susteren in the Netherlands
1521 – Spanish conquistador Hernando Cortez captures Tenochtitlan from the Aztecs
1625 – Erasmus Bartholin born, Danish physician, mathematician and physicist; discovered double refraction, which he could not explain but knew it contradicted Newton’s optical theories
1752 – Maria Carolina of Austria born, Queen consort of Naples and Sicily, the wife of King Ferdinand IV & III and sister of Marie Antoinette; de facto ruler of her husband’s kingdoms, she oversaw many reforms, including revocation of a ban on Freemasonry, enlargement of the navy, and expulsion of Spanish influence; a believer in enlightened absolutism until the French Revolution, during which she made Naples a police state
1792 –French Royal family imprisoned, King Louis XVI declared enemy of the people
1792 – Adelaide of Saxe-Meiningen born, Queen consort of English King William IV, Adelaide, South Australia, is named for her
1818 – Lucy Stone born, abolitionist, women’s rights pioneer and author; co-organizer of the first National Women’s Convention; co-founder of the American Woman Suffrage Association; and founder of the Woman’s Journal
1820 – Sir George Grove born, English writer and editor; notable for multivolume Dictionary of Music and Musicians
1829 – Martha J. Lamb born, American author, editor, historian and reformer; owner-editor of The Magazine of American History; co-founder of the Home for the Friendless and the Half-Orphan Asylum; secretary of the United States Sanitary Commission
1831 – Salomon Jadassohn born, German composer and pianist
1849 – Leonora Kearney Barry born in Ireland, American labor reformer and women’s rights activist, only woman to hold national office in the Knights of Labor
1851 – Felix Adler born in Germany, American professor of political and social studies; social reformer/founder of the NY Society for Ethical Culture, based on belief in “deed rather than creed”; founded tuition-free school for children of working-class parents, and a doctor and nurse home visit program for invalids in poor districts
1860 – Annie Oakley born, stage name of Phoebe Ann Moses Butler, American target and exhibition shooter, star of Buffalo Bill’s Wild West show
1866 – Giovanni Agnelli born, cofounder, then chairman of Fabbrica Italiana di Automobili Torino, which became Fiat
1867 – George Luks born, American ‘Ashcan’ school painter
Self Portrait – 1907 by George Luks
1876 – First day of premiere of Wagner’s Ring Cycle at Bayreuth Festspielhaus
1879 – John Ireland born, British composer and pianist
1890 – Ellen Osiier born, Danish 1924 Olympic champion; winner of the gold medal in the first women’s fencing event in the Olympics, the Women’s Individual Foil competition; her teammate, Grete Heckscher, won the Bronze
1898 – Carl Gustav Witt discovers first near-Earth asteroid, 433 Eros
1889 – William Gray patents a coin-operated telephone
1899 – Alfred Hitchcock born, UK film director AFI Life Achievement honoree and 5-time Oscar nominee for suspense films like Rebecca, Rear Window, and Psycho
1902 – Felix Wankel born, German engineer, inventor of the rotary engine
1907 – The first taxicab begins operating in NYC
1912 – Salvador Luria born in Italy, American microbiologist; co-winner of 1969 Nobel Prize in Physiology for discoveries in replication mechanism and viral genetic structures
1918 – BMW established as a public company in Germany
1918 – Opha May Johnson is the first woman of 305 to enlist in the U.S. Marine Corps
WWI Marine Recruiting Poster with photo of Opha May Johnson
1920 – The Battle of Warsaw begins in which the Poles will defeat the Soviet Red Army
1931 – The first U.S. community hospital is dedicated in Elk City OK
1933 – Joycelyn Elders born, American physician and research scientist, public health administrator as vice admiral in the Public Health Service Commissioned Corps, first African American and second woman appointed as U.S. Surgeon General
1934 – Al Capp’s comic strip “L’il Abner” makes its newspaper debut
1937 – The Battle of Shanghai between the Republic of China and the invading Imperial Japanese Army, the first major engagement in the Second Sino-Japanese War
1942 – Disney’s Bambi premieres at Radio City Music Hall NYC
1954 – Radio Pakistan broadcasts “Qaumī Tarāna”, the national anthem of Pakistan for the first time
1960 – The Central African Republic declares independence from France
1960 – The first two-way phone conversation by satellite takes place using Echo 1, NASA’s first telecommunications balloon satellite, launched the day before
1961 – Berlin divided by barbed wire to stop refugee flight, precursor to the Berlin Wall
1965 – Jefferson Airplane debuts at San Francisco’s Matrix Club
1967 – U.S. premiere of Bonnie and Clyde, with Warren Beatty and Faye Dunaway
1973 – Nixon institutes Economic Stabilization Program wage and price controls
1976 – International Left Hander’s Day * is launched by Left Handers International
1981 – President Reagan signs into law the Omnibus Budget Reconciliation Act, which cut corporate taxes, increased military spending, and slashed domestic programs. The Federal Deficit doubled from $20 trillion to $40 trillion. An Orrin Hatch-sponsored rider, the Adolescent Family Life Act, enabled federal money to be used for promotion of abstinence, and for religious instruction on sex in public school sex education classes. In 1987, the Supreme Court partially upheld an ACLU court challenge to AFLA, stopping the religious instruction on sex in public schools
1986 – Lionel Richie releases his album Dancing on the Ceiling
1993 – U.S. Court of Appeals rules that Congress must save all e-mails
1996 – Microsoft releases Internet Explorer 3.0
1998 – A monument to the 255 people killed trying to cross the Berlin Wall is dedicated
2003 – Libya agrees to a $2.7 billion compensation fund for the families of the 270 people killed in the 1988 Pan Am bombing
2004 – The 28th summer modern Olympic games open in Athens
2008 – American Olympic swimmer Michael Phelps wins his 10th and 11th career gold medals, becoming the gold medal record-holder
2010 – National Spirit of ‘45 Day * is official – U.S. Congress passes a joint resolution on the 65th anniversary of the end of WWII , the fruition of a project begun in 1996 by Warren Hegg and the Spirit of ’45 Organization (always second Sunday in August)
2012 – Taylor Swift releases single “We Are Never Ever Getting Back Together” in U.S.
2014 – Maryam Mirzakhani wins the Fields Medal for Outstanding Discoveries in Mathematics, becoming the first woman and first Iranian to win the award
________________________________________________________________