October 4th is
World Animal Day *
Golf Lover’s Day *
Improve Your Office Day
Ship in a Bottle Day *
National Taco Day
National Vodka Day
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MORE! Damon Runyon, Ann Rice and Leonard Bernstein, click
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WORLD FESTIVALS AND NATIONAL HOLIDAYS
Judaism – Sukkot begins at sundown, and lasts through October 11 – Festival of Booths or Tabernacles, which has roots in a water-drawing festival, but now is a time spent in ceremonies and feasting in temporary structures called Sukkahs, which symbolize the shelters built during the Exodus from Egypt, and also to celebrates the grape harvest
China – Zhongqui Jie
(Mid-Autumn Festival)
Italy – Bologna: St. Petronius Day
Lesotho – Independence Day
Mozambique – Peace and Reconciliation Day
North Korea – Han’gawi (Harvest festival)
South Korea – Chusok
(Harvest moon festival)
Sweden – Kanelbullens Dag
(National Cinnamon Bun Day)
Taiwan – Moon/Mid-Autumn Festival
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On This Day in HISTORY
AD 23 – Lulin agrarian rebellion: during a time of great famine and political corruption, peasant rebels capture and sack the Chinese capital Chang’an. They will kill the Xin dynasty emperor, Wang Mang, two days later
1302 – A peace treaty ends the Byzantine-Venetian War (1296-1302)
1515 – Lucas Cranach the Younger born, German Renaissance painter
Samson and Delilah by Lucas Cranach the Younger
1535 – The Cloverdale Bible, first complete English-language version, is printed, with translations by William Tyndale and Myles Cloverdale
1562 – Christen Sørensen Longomontanus born, Danish astronomer and author; Tycho Brahe’s assistant at Uraniborg, completed work on the Tychonic lunar theory; later professor, then chair of mathematics at the University of Copenhagen (1607-1647)
1582 – Pope Gregory XIII implements the Gregorian calendar – in Italy, Poland, Portugal and Spain, October 4 is followed directly by October 15
1625 – Jacqueline Pascal born, French nun, poet and composer; sister of Blaise Pascal
1795 – Napoleon Bonaparte uses cannon to suppress armed counter-revolutionaries threatening the French National Convention, this “Whiff of Grapeshot” brings him to national attention, and leads to his promotion to commander of the Army of Italy
Attack by Napoleon’s cannons the next day, at Saint Roch Church, 13 Vendemiaire – October 5, 1795
1814 – Jean Francois Millet born, French painter, co-founder of the Barbizon school
Peasant Spreading Manure by Jean-François Millet, circa 1854
1824 – Mexico becomes a federal republic, adopting a new constitution
1830 – Kingdom of Belgium created by separation from the Netherlands
1835 – Jenny Twitchell Kempton born, American contralto opera soloist whose career spanned almost five decades; supporter of women’s suffrage who gave numerous benefit concerts for the cause between 1890 and 1910
Jenny Twitchell Kempton – 1860s
1836 – Juliette Lambert Adam born, French author and feminist; founded the Nouvelle Revue in 1879, also its editor for the first eight years; involved in the Avant-Courrière (Forerunner) association which advocated for the right of women to have control over the product of their labor and to be witnesses
1861 – Frederic Remington born, American artist, famed for his western themes
1862 – Edward L. Stratemeyer born, American publisher-author of popular juvenile fiction; developed several series, including The Rover Boys, and pioneered book-packaging – using freelance writers to maintain a long-running series under a pen name
1864 – Eliza Kellas born, American educator; principal (1911-1916) of the Emma Willard School, the first U.S. women’s higher education institution (founded in 1814 as the Troy Female Seminary); co-founder of Russell Sage College, originally part of the Emma Willard School, which mainly through the efforts of Kellas, secured a separate charter in 1917, stressing science education for women
1876 – The Agricultural and Mechanical College of Texas becomes the first institution of higher education in Texas – later becomes Texas A & M University
1876 – Florence Eliza Allen born, American mathematician and suffrage activist; second woman to receive a Ph.D. in mathematics at the University of Wisconsin-Madison, where she became an instructor and assistant professor; published papers on transcendental curves and the rational plane cubic
1883 – The Orient Express makes its first run from Paris to Giurgiu, Romania, where passengers had to catch a ferry, another train, and a second ferry in order to complete their journey to Constantinople (now Istanbul)
1884 – Damon Runyon born, American writer and newspaper reporter who covered news and sports; best-known for his short stories (a “Damon Runyon character” evokes a distinctive social type from Brooklyn or Midtown NY) which became the basis for the Broadway musical Guys and Dolls
1888 – Lucy Tayiah Eads born, aka Cha-me, first female tribal chief of the Kaw tribe (1922-1928) and nurse at the Haskell Indian College; mother of nine children
1892 – Robert Lawson born, American author-illustrator of children’s books; winner Caldecott Medal for They Were Strong and Good, and Newbery Award for Rabbit Hill
Pan, and City Ship, by Robert Lawson
1895 –Buster Keaton born, American comic actor, producer-director, screenwriter and stuntman of silent films; high on the list of greatest actor-directors of all time
1895 – The first U.S. Open golf tournament held at the Newport Country Club, RI (see related entry for 1952)
1896 – Dorothy Lawrence born, English reporter; disguised as a man, she posed as a soldier at the front during WWI for ten days before turning herself in and being interrogated as a suspected spy; after the war, her book, Dorothy Lawrence: The Only English Woman Soldier, was heavily censored by the British War Office
1908 – Eleanor Flexner born, author, historian, pioneer in the field of Women’s Studies; Century of Struggle: The Women’s Rights Movement in the United States, and Mary Wollstonecraft: A Biography
1917 – Violeta Parra born, Chilean singer-songwriter, folklorist, ethnomusicologist and visual artist
1925 – Heinrich Zimmermann, publisher of Mensch und Hund (‘Man and Dog’) magazine, organizes the first Animal Day in Berlin on March 24, but in 1929 it moves to October 4, the feast day of Saint Francis of Assisi. In 1931, the International Animal Protection Congress, adopted a resolution designating this day as World Animal Day * and since 2003, Naturewatch Foundation is its main sponsor
1927 – Gutzon Borglum begins sculpting Mount Rushmore on South Dakota’s Black Hills, which was completed after his death under direction of his son, Lincoln Borglum
1929 – Leroy Van Dyke born, American singer-songwriter
1931 – Chester Gould’s comic strip “Dick Tracy” makes its debut
1932 –Anne Thwaite born, British biographer; AA Milne: His Life is the Whitbread Biography of the Year for 1990
1936 – Anti-Fascists and Fascists clash violently in the “Battle of Cable Street” in London’s East End; When Fascist leader Oswald Mosley announced that he would march with 5000 of his Blackshirts, an exaggerated number, through the working-class, heavily Jewish and Irish immigrant neigborhoods of East London, Labour Unionists and immigrants unite to block the streets shouting “Mosley shall not pass!”
1941 – Ann Rice born, American author; Interview with the Vampire is the first book in her series The Vampire Chronicles
1941 – Norman Rockwell’s ‘Willie Gillis’ debuts on the Saturday Evening Post cover
1952 – The PGA holds its first annual charity event for National Golf Lover’s Day * (see related entry for 1895)
1957 – The Soviet Union launches Sputnik 1, the first artificial Earth satellite
1957 – Leave It to Beaver premieres on CBS-TV
1965 – Pope Paul VI arrives in New York City, becoming the first Pope ever to visit the Western hemisphere
1966 – Grace Slick makes her first appearance with Jefferson Airplane
1976 – Barbara Walters debuts as first woman evening news co-anchor (ABC News)
1985 – Richard Stallman launches the Free Software Foundation, which works on legal and structural issues for the free software movement
1990 – Leonard Bernstein, American music legend, dies at age 72
1990 – German lawmakers hold the first meeting of the reunified country’s parliament in the Reichstag in Berlin
1991 – The Antarctic-Environmental Protocol is concluded in Madrid, and opens for signature, entering into force on January 14, 1998
1993 – Ruth Bader Ginsburg becomes the second woman U.S. Supreme Court Justice
1997 – The soundtrack for Casablanca is released for the first time
2004 – SpaceShipOne, as the first private craft to fly into space, wins the Ansari X Prize
2006 – Julian Assange launches Wikileaks
2010 – U.S. Supreme Court begins a new era, with three women serving together for the first time, as Elena Kagan takes her place at the end of the bench
2012 – The Ship in a Bottle Association of America starts Ship in a Bottle Day * on the birthday (October 4) of the Association’s co-founder and first president Jack Hinkley, to honor his memory
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