October 8^th is

Alvin C. York Day *

Fluffernutter Day

Mind Your Manners Day *

National Salmon Day

Pierogi Day

World Octopus Day of
Cephalopod Awareness Days*

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MORE!  John Hay, Betty Boothroyd and Che Guevara, click

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WORLD FESTIVALS AND NATIONAL HOLIDAYS

American Samoa – White Sunday (Children’s Day
– kids wear white clothes)

Brazil – Belém: Círio de Nazaré
(Our Lady of Nazareth procession)

Canada – Edmonton AB: PURE
(Electronic dance music)

Croatia – Independence Day

Peru – Battle of Angamos/Navy Day

United States – Honolulu HI:
Moloka’i Hoe (outrigger races)

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On This Day in HISTORY

319 BC – Pyrrhus of Epirus born, Greek general and later King of Epirus; a very strong early opponent of Rome, but some victories cost him such heavy losses that the term Pyrrhic victory is coined from his name

314 – Battle of Cibalae – between Roman Emperors Licinus and Constantine I, in what is now Croatia; despite being outnumbered, it is a resounding victory for Constantine

1551 – Giulio Caccini born, Italian Renaissance composer, singer and instrumentalist; father of composer-lutenist Francesca Caccini and singer-composer Settimia Caccini

1585 – Heinrich Schütz born, German organist and noted composer

1645 – Jeanne Mance, French nurse and pioneering settler in Quebec province, establishes its first hospital, the Hôtel-Dieu de Montréal

1807 – Harriet Taylor Mill born, English philosopher and women’s rights advocate; second wife of John Stuart Mill, who influenced his views on the status of women

1820 – Henri Christophe *, the slave who became a leader of the Haitian Revolution, self-declared président et généralissime de l’État d’Haïti, and later King of Haiti’s northern state, commits suicide by shooting himself with a silver bullet rather than risk a coup and assassination; his son, who succeeds him, is assassinated 10 days later

1829 – The Liverpool and Manchester Railway holds the Rainhill Trials; five engines are entered; only the winner, Stephenson’s Rocket, completes the trial, and wins the contract to produce locomotives for the railway

1833 –Edmund Stedman born, American poet and anthology editor

1834 – Walter Kittredge born, American musician-songwriter; best known song is “Tenting on the Old Camp Ground”; abolitionist and temperance supporter

1838 – John Hay born, American statesman, assistant to Abraham Lincoln, U.S. Secretary of State under Presidents William McKinley and Theodore Roosevelt

1845 – Salomon Kalischer born, German-Jewish composer, pianist and lecturer/professor of physics at the Technische Hochschule in Charlottenburg

1847 – Rose Scott born, Australian women’s rights and suffrage activist and speaker in New South Wales; co-founder of the Women’s Literary Society in Sydney, first President of the Women’s Political Education League; successfully worked for the Early Closing Act of 1899, which gave shorter evening hours to shop girls, as well as working for appointment of matrons at police stations and women inspectors in shops and factories, improving conditions for women prisoners, and New South Wales legislation raising the age of consent from 14 to 16

1848 – Pierre De Geyter born, Belgian composer and Socialist; composer of the music for  L’Internationale:

Arise ye workers from your slumbers
Arise ye prisoners of want
For reason in revolt now thunders
And at last ends the age of cant.
Away with all your superstitions
Servile masses arise, arise
We’ll change henceforth the old tradition
And spurn the dust to win the prize.

Refrain: 
So comrades, come rally
And the last fight let us face
The Internationale unites the human race.

1860 – The telegraph line between Los Angeles and San Francisco opens

1871 – The Great Chicago Fire starts, which will destroy over 3 square miles of the city and leave more than 100,000 homeless; fires also burn in Peshtigo WI, Holland MI and Manistee MI, all on the shores of Lake Michigan

1872 – Mary Engle Pennington born, American bacteriological chemist and refrigeration engineer; first head of the Food Research Laboratory of the USDA (1907), developed safety standards for food processing and shipping; founder of the Household Refrigeration Bureau in 1923 to educate consumers on safe practices in domestic refrigeration, publishing pamphlets such as The Care of the Child’s Food in the Home (1925) and Cold is the Absence of Heat (1927)

1879 – The Navy of Chile defeats the Navy of Peru at the Battle of Angamos after Peruvian Admiral Grau is killed

1882 – Harry Kirby McClintock born, American singer-songwriter; “Big Rock Candy Mountains” and “The Old Chisholm Trail”

1883 – Dick Burnett born, American folk musician-songwriter; “Song of the Orphan Boy”and “Man of Constant Sorrow,”  which was used in the film O Brother Where Art Thou (not ‘Though’)

1890 –Eddie Rickenbacker born, American WWI flying ace; head of Eastern Airlines

1892 – Sergei Rachmaninoff premieres Prelude in C-sharp Major in Moscow

1898 – Clarence Williams born, American Jazz pianist, composer and music publisher

1902 – Marina Tsvetaeva born, notable Russian poet who committed suicide in 1941 after her husband was executed by the Soviets on espionage charges

1904 – Edmonton, Alberta, and Prince Albert, Saskatchewan, are incorporated as Canadian cities

1918 – Alvin C. York Day * U.S. Corporal Alvin York captures 132 German soldiers almost single-handedly in the Argonne Forest. He’s promoted to Sergeant, and awarded the Medal of Honor

1929 – Betty Boothroyd born, English academic and politician, Labour MP for West Bromwich (1973-1992), first woman to serve as Speaker of the House of Commons (1992-2000); currently President of NBFA Assisting the Elderly

1930 – Pepper Adams born, American Jazz saxophonist and composer

1938 – Norman Rockwell’s self-portrait is the cover of the Saturday Evening Post

1945 – U.S. President Truman announces the secret of the atomic bomb will be given only to Great Britain and Canada

1950 – United Nations forces cross into North Korea

1952 – Mind Your Manners Day * – Amy Vanderbilt’s The Complete Book of Etiquette is published

1957 – Jerry Lee Lewis records “Great Balls of Fire”

1966 – U.S. government declares LSD is dangerous and illegal

1967 – Guerilla leader Che Guevara and his men are captured in Bolivia

1969 – First day of the ‘Days of Rage’: the Weatherman faction of Students for a Democratic Society stage a series of property-destroying and confrontational anti-Vietnam War actions in Chicago to “bring the war home”

1970 – Soviet author Alexander Solzhenitsyn wins the Nobel Prize for literature

1974 – Franklin National Bank, which had introduced such innovations as drive-up teller windows, and bank-issued credit cards under its previous CEO, collapses due to fraud and mismanagement, the largest bank failure in U.S. history up to that time

1982 – Poland bans Solidarity, whose members constitute a third of the total working-age population of the country, and all other trade unions

1984 – Anne Murray becomes the first woman to win the Country Music Associations Album of the Year Award for A Little Good News

1992 – The U.S. Postal Service issues commemorative stamps for Bill Haley, Elvis Presley, Buddy Holly, Ritchie Valens, Clyde McPhatter, Dinah Washington, and Otis Redding

2001 – U.S. President George W. Bush announces establishment of the Office of Homeland Security, and Tom Ridge is sworn in as its director

2002 – The Bon Jovi album Bounce is released

2007 – The Octopus News magazine forum members establish Cephalopod Awareness Days * in October

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