December 6th is

Microwave Oven Day *

National Miners’ Day *

Mitten Tree Day *

National Gazpacho Day

Pawnbroker’s Day

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MORE! Ira Gershwin, Ève Curie and Cole Porter, click

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WORLD FESTIVALS AND NATIONAL HOLIDAYS

Christianity – Feast Day of Saint Nicholas (patron saint of pawnbrokers)

Åland – Independence Day

Ecuador – Quito: Founding Day

Finland – Independence Day

Spain – Día de la Constitución Española (Constitution Day)

United States – Washington DC
Capitol Tree Lighting Ceremony

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On This Day in HISTORY

1060 – Bella I overthrows his brother Andrew, and becomes King of Hungary; introduces monetary reform and subdues the last attempt to restore paganism in Hungary; he is fatally injured when his throne collapses under him in 1063

1478 – Baldassare Castiglione, count of Casatico, born, Italian courtier, diplomat and author of The Book of the Courtier, a discussion of the ideal Renaissance gentleman

1534 – Sebastián de Belalcázar’s band of settlers founds the city of Quito in Ecuador

1586 – Niccolò Zucchi born, Italian Jesuit, astronomer and physicist, known as one of the first to see the belts on the planet Jupiter, and for using a curved mirror instead of a lens in a telescope, a very early reflecting telescope

1731 – Sophie von La Roche born in Bavaria, author of the first German novel written by a woman, Geschichte des Fräuleins von Sternheim (History of Lady Sophia Sternheim)

1768 – The first edition of the Encyclopædia Britannica is published

1774 – Austria became the first nation to introduce a state education system

1790 – The U.S. Congress moves from New York to Philadelphia

1805 – Jean-Eugène Robert-Houdin born, French magician, a famous illusionist, considered the father of modern conjuring

1823 – F. Max Müller born in Germany, Orientalist and philologist who worked most of his life in Britain, specializing in Sanskrit and the religions of India; pioneering translator into English of 51 volumes of ancient sacred texts from Sanskrit, and the series Sacred Book of the Buddhists

1846 – The Hector Berlioz opera La Damnation de Faust debuts in Paris

1865 – The U.S. Constitution’s 13^th Amendment ratified, abolishing slavery in the U.S.

1875 – Evelyn Underhill born, English Catholic writer and pacifist; her best-known work, Mysticism, published in 1911, was very widely read at the time

1876 – Fred Duesenberg born, German-American businessman, co-founded the Duesenberg Automobile & Motors Company

1877 – The first edition of  The Washington Post is published

1884 – The construction of the Washington Monument was completed by Army engineers, 34 years after construction started

Postcard of the Washington Monument, circa 1885

1884 – Cornelia Meigs born, American author, playwright, and academic; won the 1915 Drama League prize for The Steadfast Princess, and the 1933 Newbery Medal for Invincible Louisa, a biography of Louisa May Alcott

1886 – Joyce Kilmer born, American writer and poet, chiefly remembered for his poem “Trees,” and for being killed during the WWI Second Battle of the Marne in July, 1918, at the age of 31

1887 – Joseph Lamb born, American ragtime music composer

1892 – Sir Osbert Sitwell, 5^th Baronet, born, English writer, critic and poet, brother of Edith Sitwell

1893 – Sylvia Townsend Warner born, English novelist and poet; noted for Summer Will Show, an early lesbian love story set in Paris during the 1848 revolution

1896 – Ira Gershwin born, American lyricist who collaborated with his brother, George Gershwin, in creating some of the most memorable songs of the 20th century, many for Broadway and Hollywood

1897 – London becomes the world’s first city with licensed taxicabs

1898 – Winifred Lenihan born, American actress, writer, and director;  played Joan of Arc in the original 1923 American production of Saint Joan; directed radio plays; in 1925, became the first director of the Theater Guild’s School of Acting; co-author of the play Blind Mice

Vanity Fair 1924 – Winifred Lenihan as Saint Joan by Edward Steichen 

1898 – Alfred Eisenstaedt born in Germany, American pioneer in photojournalism, notable for his images in LIFE magazine

Alfred Eisenstaedt – ‘Ode to Joy’

1904 – Theodore Roosevelt articulates his “Corollary” to the Monroe Doctrine, stating that the U.S. would intervene in the Western Hemisphere should Latin American governments prove unstable

1904 – Ève Curie born, French-American journalist and pianist; her biography of her mother, Madame Curie, won the 1938 National Book Award for Non-Fiction; worked on behalf of UNICEF(1965-1979)

1907 – Miners’ Day * – The worst mining disaster in American history kills 362 men and boys in Monongah WV; Miners’ Day, sponsored by the Miners’ Day Memorial Association of West Virginia, is recognized by Congress on December 6, 2009

1917 – Finland proclaims its independence from Russia

1920 – Dave Brubeck born, American pianist and composer

1921 – Piero Piccioni born, Italian film score composer (Swept Away)

1922 – The Irish Free State, a self-governing dominion of Britain, is inaugurated one year to the day after the Anglo-Irish treaty is signed

1923 – U.S. President Calvin Coolidge gives the first presidential address, to a joint session of Congress, which is broadcast on the radio

1926 – In Italy, Benito Mussolini introduces a tax on bachelors

1928 – The Colombian government troops put down a month-long strike by United Fruit Company workers, resulting in an unknown number of deaths

1933 – U.S. federal judge John M. Woolsey rules that James Joyce’s Ulysses is not obscene

1939 – Cole Porter’s musical Du Barry Was a Lady opens on Broadway

1945 – Microwave Oven Day * – Percy Spenser, while working on a magnetron, notices its effect on food, and begins experiments that lead to his invention of the microwave oven, which he patents on December 6

1947 – Everglades National Park in Florida is dedicated by U.S. President Truman

1953 – Vladimir Nabokov completes his controversial novel Lolita

1957 – The AFL-CIO expelled the International Brotherhood of Teamsters after disclosures of corruption, and increasing influence of organized crime

1957 – America’s first attempt to put a satellite into orbit blows up on the launch pad at Cape Canaveral FL

1967 – Adrian Kantrowitz performs the first U.S. human heart transplant

1968 – The James Taylor Album is released in Britain

1969 – The Rolling Stones release their album Beggar’s Banquet, on the day four people are killed during their concert at Altamont Speedway

1973 – Gerald R. Ford is sworn in as U.S. vice-president after Spiro Agnew resigns because of income tax evasion and bribery charges to which he pleads no contest

1974 – George Harrison releases “Ding Dong, Ding Dong”

1985 – Tandy Corporation introduces a hand-held cellular phone that weighs 11 pounds and sells for $1.199.00

1991 – The movie Star Trek VI – Undiscovered Country premieres

1992 – Thousands of Hindu extremists destroy a 16^th century mosque in Ayodhya, India, setting off two months of Hindu-Muslim riots that claim at least 2,000 lives

1994 – Orange County, CA, files for bankruptcy protection after investment losses of about $2 billion. The county is one of the richest in the U.S. and the largest municipality to file for bankruptcy

2006 – The bipartisan Iraq Study Group concludes that President George W. Bush’s war policies have failed in almost every regard, and that the situation in Iraq is “grave and deteriorating”

2006 – NASA reveals Mars Global Surveyor photographs suggesting the presence of liquid water on Mars

2009 – The Mitten Tree, by Candace Chirtiansen, is published, which inspires Mitten Tree Day* to remind us warm clothing donations are needed for the less fortunate now

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