October 6^th is

American Libraries Day *

Mad Hatter Day *

National Badger Day

National Diversity Day *

National Noodle Day

Physician Assistant Day

National Depression Screening Day *

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MORE! Benjamin Franklin, Charlotte Bronte and Le Corbusier, click

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WORLD FESTIVALS AND NATIONAL HOLIDAYS

Australia – Melbourne:
‘Voyage of Time’

Britain – London: Frieze Art Fair

Egypt – Armed Forces Day

Northern Ireland – Belfast:
International Arts Festival

Laos – Vientiane: Boat Racing

Syria – Tishreen:
October Revolution Day

Turkmenistan –
Earthquake Remembrance Day

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On This Day in HISTORY

105 BC – Battle of Arausio: Migratory tribes of Cimbri (possibly a Celtic people but origin uncertain) led by Boiorix and Teutoni win a decisive victory against two Roman armies outside Arausio (now Orange in southeastern France) near the Rhone River. The two inexperienced Roman commanders – proconsul Quintus Servilius Caepio, a noble, refuses to serve under the higher-ranked consul Gnaeus Mallius Maximus because he is a ‘new man’ – are so much at odds that Caepio launches an inept assault on the Cimbrian camp while Maximus is negotiating with Boiorix – causing virtually all the Romans and large numbers of their allied troops, servants and camp followers to be lost, one of the worst defeats in Roman history. Because of this debacle, Gaius Marius takes over as commander-in-chief of the entire Roman Army and radically reforms the organization and recruitment of Roman legions; the Senate sets aside term limits to allow Marius to be elected as senior consul an unprecedented five times in a row

1539 – Hernando de Soto’s conquistadors enter Anhaica, Apalachee capital (present-day Tallahassee FL), by force

1565 – Marie de Gournay born, French protofeminist writer; The Equality of Men and Women (1622) and The Ladies’ Grievance (Les femmes et Grief des dames, 1626); advocate for women’s education

1591 – Settimia Caccini born, Italian singer and composer, whose compositions were not published during her lifetime

1600 – The earliest surviving opera, from the beginning of the Baroque period, Jacapo Peri’s Euridice, premieres at the Palazzo Pitti in Florence

1683 – German Mennonites, the first group of the major German immigration to the U.S. arrive in America, to found Germantown in the Pennsylvania colony

1723 – Benjamin Franklin, at age 17, arrives in Philadelphia, and begins working in the printing trade

1744 – James McGill born, Scottish-Canadian businessman and philanthropist, founded McGill University

1767 – Henri Christophe born a slave, one of the leaders of the Haitian Revolution; elected President of Haiti in 1807, but created a Kingdom on the Northern part of the island in 1811 and was proclaimed King Henri I; instituted major building projects, including a fortress, palace, roads and schools by using forced labor, which led to threats against his regime and assassination plots; he committed suicide in 1820

1789 – Louis XVI returns to Paris after the Women’s March on Versailles, when hundreds of market women, joined by many sympathizers, came to complain about the scarcity and high price of bread which was brought on by deregulation of the grain market, and they demand the return of the king, his family and the French Assembly

Louis XVI by Antoine-François Callet – 1786

1847 – Charlotte Bronte’s Jane Eyre is published in London

1857 – The American Chess Congress holds its first national tournament in New York

1876 – American Libraries Day * – The American Library Association is founded, the oldest and largest library association in the world

1884 – The U.S. Naval War College is founded in Newport RI

1887 – Charles-Édouard Jeanneret born in Switzerland, known as Le Corbusier, French architect, a pioneer of modern architecture

Notre Dame du Haut, Ronchamp, France, 1954

1897 – Florence B. Seibert born, biochemist, developed the standard Tuberculosis skin reaction test

1889 – The Moulin Rouge opens its doors to the public in Paris

1898 – Ossian Everett Mills founds Phi Mu Alpha Sinphonia, the largest U.S. music fraternity, at the New England Conservatory of Music

1905 – Helen Wills Moody born, dominated American women’s tennis in the 1920s and 30s with 8 Wimbledon titles and 7 U.S. singles titles

1910 – Barbara Castle born, English politician, Member of Parliament for Blackburn (1945-79) the longest-serving female MP in the House of Commons

1914 – Mary Louise Smith born, Republican Party committeewoman and chair (1974-77), supporter of ERA and pro-choice

1914 – Joan Littlewood born, English theatre director, known for work in developing the Theatre Workshop group, called “Mother of Modern Theatre” — notable for 1963 production of “Oh, What a Lovely War!”

1917 – Fannie Lou Hamer born, civil rights leader and voting rights crusader, helped organize the Mississippi Freedom Summer (1964)

1925 – Shana Alexander born, journalist; first female staff writer for LIFE magazine

1927 – The Jazz Singer, first feature-length ‘talking’ picture, premieres in New York

https://youtu.be/UYOY8dkhTpU

1931 – Al Capone goes on trial for income tax evasion

1931 – Riccardo Giacconi born, Italian astrophysicist, pioneer in Ex-ray astronomy; 2002 Nobel Prize in Physics

1948 – Summer and Smoke by Tennessee Williams opens on Broadway, starring Margaret Phillips and Tod Andrews

Playbill for Summer and Smoke, 1948

1952 – Agatha Christie’s play The Mousetrap opens in London, beginning the longest-run of a theatrical production in British history

1961 – JFK advises American families to build bomb shelters for protection from radioactive fallout should there be a nuclear exchange U.S. and the Soviet Union

1969 – The Beatles release “Something” as a single

https://youtu.be/cX0G_r9kcyM

1973 – Egypt and Syria’s coordinated attack on Israel leads to the Yom Kippur War

1976 – In a debate with Democratic candidate Jimmy Carter, President Gerald R. Ford asserted there is “no Soviet domination of eastern Europe.” Ford later concedes that he had misspoken

1978 – Liu Yang born, astronaut, first Chinese woman in space

1981 – While reviewing a military parade, Egyptian President Anwar Sadat is assassinated by Muslim extremists enraged by the Sinai Treaty with Israel

1986 – Folks in Boulder CO celebrate the first Mad Hatter Day * choosing the date 10-6 because of the ‘10/6’ (10-shillings-and-6-pence) price tag tucked in the band of the Mad Hatter’s  hat in the original John Tenniel drawing for Alice in Wonderland

1987 – The Senate Judiciary Committee votes 9-5 against the nomination of Robert H. Bork to the Supreme Court

1990 – Dr. Donald Jacobs, founder and Medical Director of Screening for Mental Health, heads the first depression screening event, now and expanded program, National Depression Screening Day * and outreach programs throughout the year

1995 – Swiss astronomers announce the discovery of an exoplanet orbiting 51 Pegasi

2004 – Charles Duelfer, the top U.S. arms inspector in Iraq, reports finding no evidence Saddam Hussein’s regime had produced weapons of mass destruction after 1991

2005 – First ‘National Diversity Day’ * now held annually on the first Friday in October

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