March 2nd is

Banana Cream Pie Day

Dr. Seuss Day and
NEA’s Read Across America Day *

National Speech & Debate Education Day *

Old Stuff Day

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MORE! Metta Fuller, Inez Irwin and Frances Spence, click

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WORLD FESTIVALS AND NATIONAL HOLIDAYS

Anguilla – James R. Webster’s Birthday
(revolutionary leader, ‘Father of the Nation’)

Ethiopia – Adwa Victory Day *

Iran – Hazrat Fatemeh Martyrdom

Mexico – Catemaco: Noche de Brujas
(Night of the Shamans)

Myanmar – Peasants’ Day

North Korea – Cheong Daeboreum
(Korean Folk Festival/Full Moon)

Puerto Rico – Día de la Ciudadania Americana
(American Citizenship Day)

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On This Day in HISTORY

537 – The Ostrogoth army under King Vitiges begins their first siege of the city of Rome; Belisarius, the Byzantine general leading the forces of Eastern Roman Emperor Justinian I, conducts a delaying action outside the Flaminian Gate; he and a detachment of his bucellarii are almost cut off

1545 – Thomas Bodley born, English diplomat and scholar; founder of the Bodleian Library at University of Oxford, now one of the oldest and largest reference libraries in Europe

1769 – DeWitt Clinton born, American politician and naturalist, U.S. Senator and Governor for New York; member of the Erie Canal Commission and driving force during the building of the canal

1791 – Long-distance communication speeds up with the unveiling of a semaphore machine in Paris

1793 – Sam Houston born, American soldier and politician, first in Tennessee, then first & third President of the Republic of Texas, U.S Senator and seventh Governor of the state of Texas

1797 – The Bank of England issues the first one-pound  and two-pound banknotes

1799 – Congress passed the first U.S. weights and measures law, which does not set standards, but requires the surveyor of each port to test and correct the instruments and weights used to calculate duties on imports.

1807 –  The U.S. Congress passes “An Act to prohibit the importation of slaves into any port or place within the jurisdiction of the United States  and after the first day of January, in the year of our Lord, One Thousand Eight Hundred and Eight” “from any foreign kingdom, place, or country any negro, mulatto, or person of colour, with intent to hold, sell, or dispose of such negro, mulatto, or person of colour, as a slave, or to be held to service or labour.” Continued trade was still allowed of slaves who were descendants of those currently in the U.S., and smugglers still brought in at least 10,000 more slaves from Africa in spite of the ban

1824 – Bedřich Smetana born, Bohemian composer; ‘father of Czech music’

1831 – Metta Victoria Fuller born, American author; pioneer of the “dime novel”

1836 – Texas declares independence from Mexico and an ad interim government forms

1859 – Solomon Rabinovich born, pen name Sholem Aleichem, leading Yiddish author and playwright; the musical Fiddler on the Roof is based on some of his stories

1860 – Susanna M. Salter born, first American woman elected as a mayor, of Argonia Kansas; active in the Woman’s Christian Temperance Union

1861 – The U.S. Congress creates the Territory of Nevada

1866 – Excelsior Needle Company begins making sewing machine needles

1867 – U.S. Congress enacts a charter to establish Howard University, named for its founder, Civil War General Oliver Otis Howard, with colleges of liberal arts and medicine

1873 – Inez Haynes Irwin born, American author and feminist, president of the Author’s Guild

1877 – Rutherford B. Hayes is declared the winner of the 1876 presidential election by the U.S. Congress, even though his opponent, Samuel J. Tilden, won the popular vote

1877 – Harry E. Soref born, American inventor; patents the laminated steel padlock; founds the Master Lock Company in 1921, which becomes well known in 1928 when it ships 147,600 padlocks to federal prohibition agents in NY to lock up the speakeasies they raid

1882 – An assassination attempt is made on Queen Victoria

1896 – Adwa Victory Day * – battle fought between the Ethiopian Empire and the Kingdom of Italy near the town of Adwa, Ethiopia, a decisive win for Ethiopia which secures the nation’s sovereignty

1897 – U.S. President Cleveland vetoes legislation that would require a literacy test for immigrants entering the country

1899 – Mount Rainier National Park in the state of Washington is established by the U.S. Congress

1899 – U.S. President McKinley signs a measure creating the rank of Admiral in the U.S. Navy; George Dewey becomes the first U.S. Admiral

1900 – Kurt Weill born, German composer, works with Bertolt Brecht on plays with music, including The Threepenny Opera

1901 – The first telegraph company in Hawaii opens

1901 – U.S. Congress passes the Platt amendment, limiting Cuban autonomy as a condition for withdrawal of U.S. troops

1903 – The Martha Washington Hotel opens for business in New York City with 416 rooms; the first hotel exclusively for women

1904 –  Dr. Seuss (Theodor Seuss Geisel) born, American writer and cartoonist, beloved children’s book author; Green Eggs and Ham, The Cat in the Hat – celebrated as Dr. Seuss Day *

1905 –Marc Blitzstein born, American composer

1908 – In Paris, Gabriel Lippmann introduces three-dimensional color photography at the Academy of Sciences.

1911 – Maurice Maeterlinck’s The Bluebird opens in Paris

1917 – The Russian Revolution begins; Czar Nicholas II abdicates

1917 – Puerto Ricans are granted U.S. citizenship with the enactment of the Jones Act

1919 – Tamara Toumanova born of Russian parents exiled in Paris, prima ballerina; Paris Opera, Les Ballets Russes de Monte Carlo, and Ballet Theatre NY (now the New York City Ballet)

1922 – Frances Spence born, a pioneer in computer programming; one of the original programmers for the ENIAC, the first digital computer; inducted into the Women in Technology International Hall of Fame in 1997

1925 – State and federal highway officials developed a nationwide route-numbering system and adopted the familiar U.S. shield-shaped, numbered marker.

1929 – The U.S. Congress creates the U.S. Court of Customs & Patent Appeals

1931 – Tom Wolfe born, American non-fiction author, novelist and newspaper reporter

1931 – Mikhail Gorbachev born, Soviet President (1990-1991), Central Committee General Secretary (1985-1991), Chair of the Supreme Soviet (1989-1990)

1932 – Frank E. Petersen Jr. born, the first black Marine Corps aviator and first African American Marine Corps general

1933 – The motion picture King Kong had its world premiere in New York City

1939 – The Massachusetts legislature votes to ratify the Bill of Rights to the U.S. Constitution, which had already been in effect for 147 years

1941 – David Satcher born, African American physician and public health administrator; U.S. Surgeon General (1998-2001)

1946 – Ho Chi Minh is elected President of Vietnam

1949 – The B-50 Superfortress Lucky Lady II lands in Fort Worth TX, completing the first non-stop around-the-world flight

1959 – The first of two recording sessions by Miles Davis for the album Kind of Blue

1961 – Simone M. Young born, Australian conductor; first female conductor at the Vienna State Opera (1993); the Bergen Philharmonic Orchestra in Norway (1998-2002), Opera Australia in Sydney (2001-2003); Hamburg State Opera (2005-2015)

1964 – The Beatles release “Twist and Shout” in the U.S., and begin work on their first film, A Hard Day’s Night

1965 – The movie of Rodgers and Hammerstein’s “The Sound of Music” premieres

1969 – In Toulouse, France, the supersonic transport Concorde makes its first test flight

1974 – U.S. Postage: first class stamps jump from 8 to 10 cents 

1983 – The U.S.S.R. performs an underground nuclear test

1985 – U.S. government approves a screening test for AIDS that detects antibodies to the virus that prevents possibly contaminated blood from tainting the U.S. blood supply.

1986 – Corazon Aquino is sworn into office as president of the Philippines; her first public declaration restores the civil rights of the citizens of her country

1987 – The U.S. government reports that the median price for a new home had gone over $100,000 for the first time

1989 – Representatives from the twelve European Community nations agree to ban all production of CFCs (chlorofluorocarbons) by the end of the 20th century

1995 – Russian anti-corruption journalist Vladislav Listyev is assassinated by a gunman in Moscow

1995 – Nick Leeson is arrested for his role in the collapse of Britain’s Barings Bank

1998 – The first NEA’s Read Across America Day * – a National Education Association initiative held annually on the nearest weekday to the birthday of Dr. Seuss, to encourage and celebrate reading

1998 – The U.N. Security Council endorses U.N. chief Kofi Annan’s deal to open Iraq’s presidential palaces to arms inspectors

1998 – Images from the American spacecraft Galileo show the Jupiter moon Europa has a liquid ocean and interior heat source

2004 – NASA announces that the Mars rover Opportunity has discovered evidence that water existed on Mars in the past

2011 – The Supreme Court rules 8-1 that members of the fundamentalist Westboro Baptist Church have a First Amendment right to picket the funeral of a Marine

2011 – Quincy Jones receives the National Medal of Arts; he already held a record of 79 Grammy nominations, and 27 Grammy wins, including a 1991 Grammy Legend Award

2016 – National Speech & Debate Education Day * sponsored by the National Speech & Debate Association, is first declared by a resolution of the U.S. Senate

2017 – The elements Moscovium, Tennessine, and Oganesson are officially added to the periodic table at a conference in Moscow

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