October 27^th is

American Beer Day *

Black Cat Day *

Cranky Co-Workers Day

Navy Day *

Sylvia Plath Day *

U.N. World Day for Audiovisual Heritage *

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MORE! Niccoló Paganini, Lee Krasner  and Dylan Thomas, click

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WORLD FESTIVALS AND NATIONAL HOLIDAYS

Chile – Día de las Iglesisas

Italy – Rome:
Roma Glocal Light Fest

St. Vincent & the Grenadines –
Independence Day

Turkmenistan – Independence Day

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On This Day in HISTORY

710 – The Saracens from North Africa increase their harassment of the southern coastal cities of Sardinia, causing several long-inhabited towns to be abandoned for greater safety, the people either moving inland or to the northern part of the island

939 – Æthelstan, England’s first king, dies; succeeded by his half-brother, Edmund I

1275 – Traditional date of the founding of the city of Amsterdam in the Low Countries – it was granted city rights, including the right to build defensive walls, to hold markets, and receive the income from them, the right to charge tolls, to mint coins, to levy taxes, and to create an official weighing system for cargo, farm products and trade goods. City citizens were not subject to a liege lord or restricted in travel – an old Dutch saying: “Stadslucht maakt vrij” which translates ‘City air makes free’ reflects these rights

Map of Amsterdam circa 1700

1553 – Spanish polymath (physician, scientist, mathematician, theologian and cartographer among many avocations) Michael Servetus is tried in Geneva and burnt at the stake with his books for heresy on 40 different charges, but primarily because he denied the Trinity and was against infant baptism. Although Servetus was condemned by the Geneva Council of 25, the main evidence against him was provided by John Calvin and his followers.

1561 – Mary Sidney born, English writer, patroness and translator, one of the few Englishwomen prior to the 19th century whose work achieved a major reputation; sister
of Philip Sidney

1632 (? – exact date unconfirmed) – First North American commercial brewery is opened by the West India Company on a street that was re-named Brouwers (Brewers) Street in New Amsterdam

1659 – William Robinson and Marmaduke Stevenson became the first Quakers to be executed in America

1682 – Philadelphia, PA is founded by William Penn, under royal charter granted by Charles II of England, after the land had by turns been claimed the Dutch, Swedes and Finns, and the English – Penn did make a treaty, which included some payment for the land,  with the Lenape at Shackamaxon, under an elm tree

1703 – Johann Gottlieb Graun born, German violinist and composer

1744 – Mary Moser born, English painter and academic; she and Angelica Kauffman are only female founding members of the Royal Academy; noted for flower paintings

Vase of Flowers by Mary Moser

1765 – Nancy Storace born, English operatic soprano, the role of Susanna in Mozart’s Le nozze di Figaro was written for and first performed by her

1782 – Niccoló Paganini born, celebrated Italian violin virtuoso and composer

1787 – The first Federalist Papers are published in the New York Independent. The series of 85 essays, written by Alexander Hamilton, James Madison and John Jay, were published under the pen name “Publius”

1795 – The U.S. and Spain sign the Treaty of  Madrid, establishing boundaries between Spanish colonies and the U.S.

1806 – Juan Seguín born, served as an officer in the Texian Army during the Texas Revolution, which was sparked by Santa Anna’s repeal of the Mexican Constitution of 1824; Republic of Texas senator (1837-1840); mayor of San Antonio 1841-1842; Bexar County Justice of the Peace (1852-1869); Wilson County Judge (1869)

1810 – U.S. annexes the former Spanish colony of West Florida

1811 – Isaac Singer born, founder of the Singer Sewing Machine Company

1827 – Vincenzi Bellini’s opera, Il pirata, is premieres at Teatro alla Scala di Milano

1838 – In the aftermath of the Battle of Crooked River in the “Missouri Mormon War” in NW Missouri, Missouri governor Lilburn Boggs issues Extermination Order 44, which orders all Mormons to leave the state or be exterminated. Joseph Smith’s followers moved to Missouri because their prophet had told them: “If ye are faithful, ye shall assemble yourselves together to rejoice upon the land of Missouri, which is the land of your inheritance, which is now the land of your enemies.”

1858 – Theodore Roosevelt born, 26^th U.S. President, outdoorsman, hunting-mad slaughterer of animals but wilderness conservationist; author; reformer and trustbuster; an expansionist and warmonger who won the 1906 Nobel Peace Prize for the peace treaties he negotiated

1904 – First underground New York City Subway line opens; the system becomes the biggest in United States

1908 – Lee Krasner born, American abstract expressionist painter; although overshadowed by her husband, Jackson Pollack, she is one of only four women artists to have a retrospective show at the Museum of Modern Art

Right Bird Left, by Lee Krasner – 1965

1910 – Margaret Hutchinson Rousseau born, American chemical engineer; designer of the first commercial penicillin production plant; first woman member of the American Institute of Chemical Engineers

1913 – Joe Medicine Crow, American anthropologist, historian, and author; authority of the Battle of the Little Big Horn; recipient of the Presidential Medal of Freedom in 2009

1914 – Dylan Thomas born, notable Welsh poet and playwright

1922 – The Navy League of the United States organizes the first Navy Day *  – October 27 was chosen because it is the birthday of President Theodore Roosevelt, who had been an Assistant Secretary of the Navy and supported a strong Navy. It’s also the anniversary of a 1775 report issued by a Continental Congress special committee favoring the purchase of merchant ships as the foundation of an American Navy

Navy Day 1945 poster

1922 –Ruby Dee born, American actress, poet, playwright, and civil rights activist; the first to portray the character of Ruth in A Raisin in the Sun, both on stage and in the 1961 film; Grammy, Emmy, and Obie winner

1924 – Uzbek becomes Soviet Uzbekistan, a republic of the Soviet Union

1925 – The first newsreel featuring sound is released in New York

1931 – Nawal El Saadawi born, Egyptian feminist, physician and author; founder and first president of the Arab Women’s Solidarity Association and co-founder of  Arab Association for Human Rights; her 1972 book, Woman and Sex (المرأة والجنس), which confronted aggression against women, including female circumcision, became a foundational text of second-wave feminism, especially in the Middle East and Africa; imprisoned for her controversial and “dangerous” views in 1981, but was released a month after Anwar Sadat’s assassination

1932 – Sylvia Plath is born in Boston MA, won the Pulitzer Prize posthumously (1982) – Sylvia Plath Day *

1932 – Dolores Moore born, played in the infield for the Grand Rapids Chicks (1953-1954); her team won the All-American Girls Professional Baseball League Championship that year, the last season for the league

1936 – Wallis Simpson files for divorce from her second husband – her affair with Edward VIII and his proposal of marriage to her created a constitutional crisis in Great Britain that ended with his abdication

1936 – Neil Sheehan born, American journalist and author; his articles on the Pentagon Papers in the NY Times set off a political firestorm; his book A Bright Shining Lie won the Pulitzer Prize and the National Book Award

1938 – Du Pont announced “nylon” as the new name for its new synthetic yarn

1939 – John Cleese born, English actor, comedian, screenwriter and producer; co-founder of Monty Python

1939 – Suzy Covey born, scholar and musician who examined the intersections of comics, technology, and sound, working with computers in the early days of the internet

1939 – Maxine Hong Kingston born, American author whose novels and non-fiction works chronicle the experiences of Chinese Americans; noted for The Woman Warrior and China Men, which won the 1981 National Book Award for Nonfiction

1944 – J.A. Jance born, American mystery novelist and poet; she writes three series, which sometimes intersect

1947 – You Bet Your Life, the radio show starring Grouch Marx, premieres on ABC-radio

1950 – Fran Lebowitz born, American author and public speaker, known for her sardonic social commentary

1954 – Jan Duursema born, American comics artist who has worked for DC Comics, on Wonder Woman among other projects, and on publications for the Star Wars franchise

1955 – Deborah Bowen born, politician; California Secretary of State (2007-2015); California State Senator (D-28^th District 1998-2006); campaigned for a transparency bill which makes all of California’s bill information available on the internet; as Secretary of State, commissioned a top-to-bottom review of California’s electronic voting systems, which revealed numerous weaknesses, for which she was awarded the Profile in Courage Award by the JFK Presidential Library

1960 – Ben E. King records his first solo songs, “Spanish Harlem” and “Stand By Me”

1962 – USAF Major Rudolf Anderson dies during the Cuban Missile Crisis when his U-2 is shot down over Cuba by a Soviet-made SA-2 surface-to-air missile

1964 – Ronald Reagan delivers a speech on behalf of Barry Goldwater dubbed “A Time for Choosing” which launches his political career

1967 – Father Philip Berrigan, founder of the Catholic Peace Fellowship, with the other ‘Baltimore Four’ occupy the Selective Service Board office and pour chicken blood mixed with their own blood over records to protest “the pitiful waste of American and Vietnamese blood in Indochina”

Baltimore Four: David Eberhardt, Tom Lewis, Rev Jim Mengel and Father Philip Berrigan

1971 – Three-Z Naming Day * – President Mobutu Sese Seko of the Democratic Republic of the Congo changes the country’s name to Zaire, changes the Congo River to the Zaire River, and the nation’s money from franc congolais to the zaire, but he is such a terrible despot that he is overthrown in 1997, and the country goes back to being the Democratic Republic of the Congo, the money is again the Congolese franc, and the river is the Congo once more

1986 – British ‘Big Bang’ begins when the government suddenly deregulates financial markets, leading to a total restructuring of the way British financial markets operate

1988 – President Reagan orders the new U.S. Embassy in Moscow to be torn down because of Soviet listening devices in the building structure

1992 – U.S. Navy radioman Allen R. Schindler, Jr. is brutally murdered by a shipmate for being gay, precipitating first military, then national, debate about gays in the military resulting in the U.S. military “Don’t ask, don’t tell” policy

1994 – Gliese 229B,  a red dwarf about 19 light years away in the constellation Lepus, has 58% of the mass of our Sun, and is the first Substellar Mass Object to be unquestionably identified

2005 – The first World Day for Audiovisual Heritage * is declared by the U.N. to encourage  preservation of radio and television programmes and motion pictures as a record of our common heritage, in conjunction with the UNESCO programme, Memory of the World

2009 – Justin Smith starts American Beer Day * to commemorate the signing by FDR of the Cullen-Harrison Act, which effectively ended Prohibition. FDR reportedly said after signing:  “I think this would be a good time for a beer.”

2010 – Cats Protection, the U.K. largest feline welfare charity, starts Black Cat Day * to debunk the superstitions surrounding black cats, to protect them from being abused or killed during Halloween week, and to help black cats in shelters find their forever homes

2014 – Britain withdraws from Afghanistan, ending Operation Herrick (codename for all British operations in the War in Afghanistan from 2002 until 2014), part of the NATO-led International Security Force and in support of American-led Operation Enduring Freedom

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