April 2nd is

World Autism Day

National Ferret Day

Peanut Butter & Jelly Day

National Reconciliation Day

International Children’s Book Day

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MORE! Beethoven, Jeannette Rankin and Haile Selassie, click

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WORLD FESTIVALS AND NATIONAL HOLIDAYS

Argentina – Malvinas Day *

Indonesia – Batuan:
BaliSpirit Festival

Iran – Sizdah Bedar
(Nature Day)

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On This Day in HISTORY

742 – Charlemagne born, King of the Franks and Lombards, Carolus Magnus, Karl Der Grosse, Emperor; it’s rumored that knives are first used to eat food, rather than just fingers, at his gatherings

1513 – Explorer Juan Ponce de León claims Florida for Spain as the first known European to reach Florida

1550 – Genoa Italy expels Jews for the second time, many of them families of refugees from the Spanish expulsion in 1492, including Joseph ha-Kohen, physician and historian; his success as a doctor arouses envy among his non- Jewish rivals

1647 – Maria Sibylla Merian born in Germany, naturalist and scientific illustrator who spent years in Amsterdam, and traveled to Surinam in South America to study its flora and fauna; major work, Metamorphosis Insectorum Surinamensium (1705)

1725 – Giovanni Casanova born, Italian writer, womanizer and adventurer

1731 – Catharine Macaulay born, English historian and radical political writer

1739 – George Frideric Handel finishes “The Cuckoo and the Nightingale”

1788 –  Wilhelmine Reichard born, first German woman to solo in a balloon ascension

1792 – The Coinage Act establishes the U.S. Mint, and authorizes the $10 Eagle, $5 half-Eagle and $2.50 quarter-Eagle gold coins, plus silver coins of a dollar, ½ dollar, quarter, dime and half-dime

1800 – Ludwig van Beethoven’s 1st Symphony in C debuts in Vienna

1805 – Hans Christian Andersen born, Danish author best remembered for his fairy tales, like The Emperor’s New Clothes, The Little Mermaid and The Ugly Duckling

1814 – Erastus B. Bigelow born, American industrialist; founder of Massachusetts Institute of Technology (MIT)

1819 – American Farmer, the first successful agricultural journal, begins publication

1827 – Joseph Dixon begins manufacturing ‘lead’ (graphite) pencils

1834 – Frederic Auguste Bartholdi born, French sculptor of Statue of Liberty

1840 – Emile Zola born, French author

1845 – French physicists H.L.Fizeau and Leon Foucault take the first photo of the Sun

1863 – The Richmond Bread Riots: Civil War food shortages in Richmond VA cause hundreds of angry women to march to the governor’s office, and then on to the government commissary, where they break in, taking everything they can carry; shops and even a hospital are also looted; a few arrests are made, but authorities pressure newspapers to downplay the story; official records are destroyed in 1865 when the Confederate government flees, leaving much of Richmond burning in their wake

1865 – Evacuation Sunday: Confederate President Jefferson Davis, his cabinet and the Confederate army defenders abandon Richmond, fleeing south on the last open railroad line; the soldiers, under orders, set fires to bridges, the armory and supply warehouses as they leave, destroying much of the city as fires spread out of control

1872 – George B. Brayton patents a gasoline-powered engine

1877 – The first Easter Egg Roll is held on the White House lawn

1891 – Max Ernst born, German Surrealist painter and sculptor

The Stolen Mirror, painted by Max Ernst

1900 – Het Volk, the Social Democratic Worker’s Party newspaper, begins publication in Amsterdam

1902 – Thomas L. Tally opens Tally’s Electric Theatre in Los Angeles CA, the first U.S. full-time movie theater; he would later start the First National Exhibitors Circuit, the first exhibitor’s organization which gives them more clout and flexibility, with John D. Williams of West Virginia

1905 – Cecil Rhodes’ ambitious Cape-to-Cairo railway opens the section from Cape Town to Victoria Falls, with the completion of the Victoria Falls Bridge; the full project is never finished, but local railways, roads and water transport eventually provide links for passengers

1912 – RMS Titanic undergoes sea trials to test handling characteristics in the Belfast Lough and the open waters of the Irish Sea, reaching speeds up to 21 knots

1916 – In New Zealand, 57 armed police invade the remote Ngāi Tūhoe settlement of Maungapōhatu in the Urewera Ranges to arrest the Māori prophet Rua Kēnana

1917 – Jeannette Rankin (R-Montana) begins the first day of her term as the first woman member of U.S. House of Representatives, on the same day that President Woodrow Wilson asks Congress to declare war on Germany: “The world must be made safe for democracy.” Rankin, an avowed pacifist, will be one of the few to vote against declaring war, which will cost her re-election; later, she is elected again, just in time to cast the only dissenting vote against WWII after Pearl Harbor

1921 – The Autonomous Government of Khorasan, a military government encompassing the modern state of Iran, is established, but collapses by October the same year

1930 – Haile Selassie is proclaimed emperor of Ethiopia

1939 – Marvin Gaye born, singer-songwriter; “I Heard It Through the Grapevine”

1941 – Leon Russell born, singer-songwriter; “Delta Lady”

1942 – Glenn Miller and his orchestra record “American Patrol”

1945 – Linda Hunt born, American actress; won an Academy Award for Best Supporting Actress for her break-through role as Billy Kwan in The Year of Living Dangerously, the first person to win an Oscar for playing a character of the opposite sex

1945 – Anne Waldman born, American poet, performer scholar and cultural/political activist; recipient of the Poetry Society of America’s 1996 Shelley Memorial Award

1947 – Emmylou Harris born, American country singer; six-time Grammy winner

1956 – The soap opera As the World Turns debuts on CBS-TV

1964 – The Beach Boys record “I Get Around”

1968 – The film 2001: A Space Odyssey premieres in Washington DC

1972 – Actor Charlie Chaplin returns to the United States for the first time since being labeled a communist during the Red Scare in the early 1950s

1975 – A three-day National Conference on Indian Water Rights convenes in Washington DC; representatives from almost 200 tribes attend

1977 – Fleetwood Mac’s album Rumours hits #1 on the U.S. charts

1979 – Soviet bio-warfare laboratory at Sverdlovsk accidentally releases airborne anthrax spores, killing 66 people, plus an unknown number of livestock

1980 –  U.S. President Jimmy Carter signs the Crude Oil Windfall Profits Tax Act

1982 – Argentina, which calls them the Malvinas,* seizes the disputed Falkland Islands from Great Britain, setting off the Falklands War

1987 – Prince’s album “Sing O’ the Times”  is released

1991 – Rita Johnson becomes the first female Premier of a Canadian province, British Columbia, when she succeeds William Vander Zalm after his resignation

1992 – Mob boss John Gotti is convicted of murder and racketeering in New York

2002 – Israel seizes control of Bethlehem, after Palestinian gunmen force their way into the Church of the Nativity, traditional birthplace of Jesus, beginning a 39-day standoff

2007 – The Supreme Court rules 5-4 that carbon dioxide and other greenhouse gases are air pollutants under the Clean Air Act

2008 – Leader of the British House of Commons Harriet Harman becomes the first Labour woman to answer the Prime Minister’s questions

2013 – Uruguay passes legislation to legalize same-sex marriage

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