February 5th is

Adlai Stevenson Day *

Shower With a Friend Day *

Western Monarch Day *

World Nutella Day *

World Animal Reiki Day *

____________________________________________

MORE! John Morrow,  Carson McCullers and CliftonWharton, click

____________________________________________

WORLD FESTIVALS AND NATIONAL HOLIDAYS

Burundi – Unity Day

Italy – Viareggio: Carnevale
di Viareggio, Masked Parade

Mexico – Día de la Constitución

Pakistan – Kashmir Solidarity Day

San Marino – Saint Agatha’s Day/
Liberation from Alberoni Occupation

____________________________________________

On This Day in HISTORY

1576 – Henri of Navarre, later King Henry IV of France, publically abjures Catholicism at Tours during the French Wars of Religion; but in 1593, faced with opposition to his coronation as king by the Catholic-controlled city of Paris, he famously says, “Paris vaut une messe.” (“Paris is worth a mass”) and converts to Catholicism

Henry III, on his deathbed, designates Henri de Navarre as his successor

1626 – Marie de Rabutin-Chantal born, marquise de Sévigné, noted for her wit and vivid descriptions in her voluminous correspondence,  especially with her daughter; an orphan from the age of seven, she received a good education from her uncle, Christophe de Coulanges, abbé of Livry, who was instrumental in making terms for her marriage which kept most of her fortune separate from her philandering and expensive husband, Henri, marquis de Sévigné, who was killed in a duel over his mistress when Marie was 24 years old; she never remarried, and wrote about 1500 letters to her daughter about Parisian society and the events of the day

1745 – John Jeffries born, American physician-scientist-military surgeon; testified at the Boston Massacre trial concerning the deathbed account of one of its victims, his patient Patrick Carr; flew over the English Channel in a balloon with Jean-Pierre Blanchard in 1785

1778 – South Carolina becomes the second state to ratify the Articles of Confederation

1783 – Sweden recognizes the independence of the United States

1788 – Robert Peel born, British statesman, Prime Minister (1834-35 and 1841-46); established London’s Metropolitan Police Force at Scotland Yard in 1829, beginning the  modern era in British policing – constables are nicknamed ‘Bobbies’  and ‘Peelers’  in tribute to Sir Robert, whose ‘Peelian Principles’ of policing by consent still define an ethical police force

1818 – Jean-Baptiste Bernadotte, former Marshal of France, ascends to the thrones of Sweden and Norway as Charles XIV John

1840 – John Boyd Dunlop is born in Scotland but lives most of his life in Ireland, veterinarian who develops pneumatic tyres, which revolutionize the bicycle industry

1846 – The Oregon Spectator, of Oregon City, is the first U.S. Pacific Coast newspaper

1849 – University of Wisconsin–Madison’s first class meets at Madison Female Academy

1852 – The New Hermitage Museum in Saint Petersburg, Russia, now one of the largest and oldest museums in the world, opens to the public

1859 – Wallachia and Moldavia are united under Alexandru Ioan Cuza as the United Principalities, an autonomous region within the Ottoman Empire, which ushered the birth of the modern Romanian state

1866 – Congressman Thaddeus Stevens offered an amendment to Freedmen’s Bureau Bill authorizing the distribution of public land and confiscated land to freedmen and loyal refugees in 40-acre lots

1869 – The largest alluvial gold nugget in history, called the “Welcome Stranger”, is found in Moliagul, Victoria, Australia

1872 – Lafayette Benedict Mendel born, American biochemist; his work on vitamins and proteins shaped modern concepts about nutrition

1878 – André-Gustave Citroën born, French engineer-industrialist; introduced Henry Ford’s mass production methods to Europe’s automotive industry; when WWI ended, converted his arms factory to produce the first small, inexpensive Citroën car in 1919

Citroen Type A Torpedo, 1919

1884 – Willis Johnson patents an egg beater

1885 – King Leopold II of Belgium establishes the Congo as his personal possession; under the guise of a “benevolent protectorship” as a civilizing influence on savages, Leopold’s personal mercenary army, the Force Publique, extracts a fortune in ivory and rubber using Congolese enforced labor, under such brutal conditions that estimates put the death toll between 1885 and 1909 at over 8 million people, roughly half the population of the Congo

Starving laborers in Leopold’s Belgium Congo

1887 – Verdi’s opera Otello premieres at La Scala

1900 – Adlai Stevenson II * born, American progressive Democratic politician-diplomat; Governor of Illinois (1949-1953); candidate for U.S. President in 1952 and 1956, lost party’s nomination to JFK in 1960; U.S. Ambassador to the U.N. (1961-1965) – (see also 2008 entry)

Black History Month highlight:
1900 – John Howard Morrow born, African-American scholar and diplomat;  studied Latin, spoke French and Spanish, and had a reading knowledge of German and Portuguese; appointed by President Eisenhower as the very first U.S. Ambassador to the newly independent African country of Guinea  (1959-1961); President Kennedy appointed him as the first U.S. Permanent Representative to UNESCO (1961-1963); Chair of the Foreign Service Institute’s Foreign Service Officers University Studies Program (1963-1964)

June 22 1959: John H Morrow takes oath
(Secretary of State Christian Herter in light suit)

1905 – In Mexico, the General Hospital of Mexico is inaugurated, started with four basic specialties

1909 – Belgian chemist Leo Baekeland announces the creation of Bakelite, the world’s first synthetic plastic

1909 – Grażyna Bacewicz born, Polish composer-violinist; won gold medal at 1965 International Competition for Composers in Brussels for Violin Concerto No. 7

1913 – Greek military aviators, Michael Moutoussis and Aristeidis Moraitinis perform the first naval air mission in history, with a Farman MF.7 hydroplane

1914 – William Burroughs born, American novelist; Naked Lunch

1917 – The Congress of the United States passes the Immigration Act of 1917 to curtail immigration, over President Woodrow Wilson’s veto

1918 – Stephen W. Thompson shoots down a German airplane, the first aerial victory by the U.S. military

1919 – Charlie Chaplin, Mary Pickford, Douglas Fairbanks, and D. W. Griffith launch United Artists

1924 – The Royal Greenwich Observatory begins broadcasting its ‘pips’ – hourly time signals known as the Greenwich Time Signal

1934 – Hank Aaron born, African-American baseball great who played in the Major Leagues from 1954 to 1976

1939 – Generalísimo Francisco Franco becomes the 68th “Caudillo de España”, or Leader of Spain

1939 – Jane Bryant Quinn born, American financial journalist and author; Making the Most of Your Money; advisor on the development of Quicken Financial Planner

1940 – Glenn Miller and his orchestra record “Tuxedo Junction”

1947 – Mary L. Cleave born, American engineer and NASA astronaut; Associate Administrator of NASA’s Science Mission Directorate (2004-2007)

1952 – Eleven-year-old Herbie Hancock plays the first movement of Mozart’s Piano Concerto No.26 in D Major, K. 537 (Coronation) with the Chicago Symphony Orchestra

1953 – Walt Disney’s animated film Peter Pan opens at NYC’s Roxy Theater

1958 – Gamal Abdel Nasser nominated to be first president of the United Arab Republic

1958 – Clifton R. Wharton Sr., a career U.S. diplomat, is confirmed as minister to Rumania, the first black person to head a U.S. embassy in Europe

1959 – Jennifer M. Granholm born in Canada, American Democratic politician; Attorney General of Michigan (1999-2003) and Governor of Michigan (2003-2011)

1959 –After champagne and an elegant lunch, Carson McCullers invites Marilyn Monroe and Isak Dinesen to dance with her on the marble-topped dining room table; Arthur Miller got to watch

1961 – The Sunday Telegraph publishes its first issue

1962 – French President Charles de Gaulle calls for Algeria to be granted independence

1962 – A suit seeking to bar Englewood, N.J., from maintaining “racial segregated” elementary schools is filed in U.S. District Court

1963 – The European Court of Justice’s ruling in Van Gend en Loos v Nederlandse Administratie der Belastingen, one of the most important decisions in the development of European Union law; establishes the principle of direct effect, that Union law may confer rights on individuals which the courts of member states are bound to recognize and enforce, particularly in regard to regulations

1967 – The Smothers Brothers Comedy Hour premieres in television

1971 – Astronauts land on the moon in the Apollo 14 mission

1982 – Great Britain imposes economic sanctions against Poland and Russia to protest martial law in Poland

1985 – Ugo Vetere, mayor of Rome, and Chedli Klibi, mayor of Carthage, meet in Tunis to sign a treaty of friendship, officially ending the Third Punic War after 2,131 years

1986 – Prince releases the song “Kiss”

1988 – Manuel Noriega is indicted on drug smuggling, bribery and money laundering charges

1988 – The Arizona House of Representatives moves to impeach Governor Evan Mecham; he is later convicted by the state Senate and removed from office

1992 – World Animal Reiki Day * Kathleen Prasad rescues Dakota from an animal shelter, who becomes her beloved canine companion for over 16 years, and convinces her of the benefits Reiki massage therapy for animals as well as people

1994 – Byron De La Beckwith is convicted of the 1963 murder of civil rights leader Medgar Evers

1995 – Trayvon Martin born; in 2012, fatally shot by George Zimmerman for being black while wearing a hoodie

1997 – The so-called Big Three banks in Switzerland announce the creation of a $71 million fund to aid Holocaust survivors and their families

1997 – Investment bank Morgan Stanley announces its merger with Dean Witter

2003 – U.S. Secretary of State Colin Powell presents evidence to the U.N. concerning Iraq’s material breach of U.N. Resolution 1441; he later called this speech, laying out the Bush administration’s rationale for war in Iraq, a “blot” on his record; subsequent intelligence showed the Iraqi “breach” never existed

2004 – The California state legislature establishes California Western Monarch Day * to celebrate these beautiful butterflies and their annual migration to spend winters on the central coast of California; now of national interest as they are an at-risk species

2007 – World Nutella Day * is started by Sara Rosso, an American blogger in Italy, now sponsored by Ferrero, the makers of Nutella

2008 – U.S. House of Representatives approves the measure to name February 5^th as Adlai Stevenson Day * (see also 1900 entry)

2014 – Shower with a Friend Day * is launched by New Wave Enviro to promote their shower head filters which remove chlorine and other irritants, but I am posting it to promote saving our dwindling supply of clean water, with a bit of humor

____________________________________________