December 27th is

Fruitcake Day

Howdy Doody Day *

Visit the Zoo Day

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MORE! Johannes Kepler, Marlene Dietrich and Ray Charles, click

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WORLD FESTIVALS AND NATIONAL HOLIDAYS

Bulgaria – St. Stephen’s Day
(patron saint of Bulgaria)

Niue – Commission Day

North Korea – Constitution Day

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On This Day in HISTORY

537 – The Hagia Sophia (‘holy wisdom’), ordered by Byzantine Emperor Justinian I, is completed in Constantinople – now Istanbul – in Turkey. It was the world’s largest cathedral until the completion of the Seville Cathedral in 1520

1512 – The Spanish Crown issues the Leyes de Burgos (laws of Burgos) which forbid maltreatment of indigenous people in the ‘New World’ while endorsing converting them to Catholicism, and laying out the system of Encomiendas – employing Indians in groups of 40-150 as workers under heads of estates, with a list of regulations for work, pay, provisioning, living quarters, hygiene, and care, including exempting women more than 4 months pregnant from work. The encomenderos (bosses) were prohibited from directly punishing workers – offenders were to be bound over to civil officials instead

1571 – Johannes Kepler born, German mathematician, astronomer, and astrologer

1657 – The Flushing Remonstrance is signed, a petition to Director-General of New Netherland Peter Stuyvesant  by residents of the small settlement at Vlishing requesting an exemption to his ban on Quaker worship (he banned all public religious worship other than the Dutch Reformed Church.)  None of the signers were Quakers. It is considered a precursor to the U.S. Constitution’s provision on freedom of religion in the Bill of Rights

1797 – Mizra Ghalib born, the last great poet of the Mughal Empire; wrote in Urdu and Persian; used Ghalib as his pen name

1821 – Lady Jane Wilde born, Irish poet, essayist, and women’s rights advocate, supporter of the nationalist movement writing under the pseudonym Speranza, known for collections of folktales, mother of Oscar Wilde

1822 – Louis Pasteur born, French chemist and microbiologist, developed Pasteurization process to kill microorganisms responsible for food spoilage and disease transmission, also vaccines for anthrax, cholera and rabies

1831 – Charles Darwin embarks on his five year journey aboard the HMS Beagle from Barn Pool, near Plymouth, England

HMS Beagle

1845 – Ether anesthetic is used for childbirth for the first time by Dr. Crawford Long in Jefferson, Georgia

1845 – Journalist John L. O’Sullivan, writing in his newspaper the New York Morning News, argues that the United States has the right to claim the entire Oregon Country “by the right of our manifest destiny”

1888 –Thea von Harbou born, German screenwriter, novelist and film director; noted for writing the original story and the screenplay for the scifi film classic Metropolis

1901 – Marlene Dietrich born, legendary actor-singer, early opponent of Nazism, financed escape of several Jewish friends before WWII. In 1937, Hitler’s agents offered her an almost blank check to return home to star in movies of her choice – she angrily rejected the offer, and her films were banned in Germany. She became an American citizen in 1939. During World War II, she made anti-Nazi broadcasts in German, sold war-bonds, and tirelessly entertained half a million Allied troops and war prisoners across North Africa and Western Europe

1911 – The national anthem of India, Jana Gana Mana, with lyrics by Rabindranath Tagore, is first sung in the Calcutta Session of the Indian National Congress:

You, the ruler of our minds, our nation
To you our humble salutations!
You, the custodian of so many!
You, the guardian of India’s destiny!
Through Punjab and Sindh, Gujarat and Maratha
Dravida, Orissa and Bengal
Across lofty crests and mellow leas of the Vindhyas and the Himalayas
Your name awakens one and all!

1918 – The Great Poland Uprising against the Germans begins

1922 – Japanese aircraft carrier Hōshō becomes the first purpose built aircraft carrier to be commissioned in the world

1927 – Show Boat, considered the first true American musical, opens at the Ziegfeld Theatre on Broadway

1927 – Anne Armstrong born, American diplomat and politician; first woman Counselor to the President; first woman U.S. Ambassador to the United Kingdom; Presidential Medal of Freedom recipient

1929 – Soviet Secretary Joseph Stalin orders “liquidation of the kulaks as a class”

1930 – Meg Greenfield born, named editorial editor at “Washington Post” in 1979 after winning a Pulitzer Prize, penned commentaries on civil rights, integration, nuclear arms and the military establishment

1932 – Radio City Music Hall “Showplace of the Nation” opens in New York City

1935 – Regina Jonas receives her semicha and is ordained as a rabbi, becoming the first woman to officially serve in that role

1943 – Joan Manuel Serrat born, Spanish singer-songwriter and guitarist

1943 – Cokie Roberts born, American television journalist and syndicated columnist; reporter on National Public Radio; won the Edward Weintal Prize for Diplomatic Reporting in 1988 for coverage of the Iran-Contra Affair; author of Capital Dames: The Civil War and the Women of Washington, 1848-1868

1945 – The International Monetary Fund and the World Bank are created with the signing of an agreement by 28 nations

1946 – Polly Toynbee born, British journalist and author; worked for The Guardian, the BCC and The Independent newspaper; president of the British Humanist Association (2007-2012)

1947 – Howdy Doody Day * – The Howdy Doody Show for children debuts on NBC-TV

1949 – The Netherlands officially recognizes Indonesian independence, which ends the Dutch East Indies after over 300 years

1960 – Ray Charles records “One Mint Julep”

1966 – The Cave of Swallows, the largest known cave shaft in the world, is discovered in Aquismón, San Luis Potosí, Mexico

1968 – Apollo program: Apollo 8 splashes down in the Pacific Ocean, ending the first orbital manned mission to the Moon

1969 – Sarah Vowell born, American author and journalist

1978 – Spain becomes a democracy after 40 years of fascist dictatorship

1989 – The Romanian Revolution concludes, as the last minor street confrontations and stray shootings abruptly end in the country’s capital, Bucharest

1996 – Taliban forces retake the strategic Bagram Airfield which solidifies their buffer zone around Kabul, Afghanistan

2001 – China is granted permanent normal trade relations with the United States

2001 – U.S. officials announce that Taliban and al-Qaida prisoners will be held at the U.S. naval base at Guantanamo Bay, Cuba

2004 – Radiation from an explosion on the magnetar SGR 1806-20 reaches Earth, the brightest extrasolar event recorded on the planet

2007 – Former Pakistani prime minister Benazir Bhutto is assassinated in a shooting incident

2007 – Riots erupt in Mombasa, Kenya, after Mwai Kibaki is declared the winner of the presidential election amid charges of election irregularities, triggering a political, economic, and humanitarian crisis

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