April 10th is

ASPCA Day *

National Equal Pay Day *

Golfer’s Day *

National Sibling Day *

Encourage a Young Writer Day *

National Farm Animals Day *

International Safety Pin Day *

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MORE! William Hazlett, Dolores Huerta and Isaac Hayes, click

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WORLD FESTIVALS AND NATIONAL HOLIDAYS

Austria – Mayrhofen: Snowbombing Festival
(through April 14)

Italy – Rome:
Cinema Roma Film Festival

Singapore – World Gourmet Summit
(through April 29)

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On This Day in HISTORY

837 – Halley’s Comet makes its closest approach to Earth: 3.2 million miles, or 5.1 million kilometres

1515 – Venice, Italy, adds restrictions to Jewish rights and residency, prior to creating the first Jewish ghetto in 1516

Detail of panorama of Venice in the 1500s

1525 – Albrecht von Preussen, Grand Master of the Teutonic Knights, assumes the title Duke of Prussia, marking its beginnings as a Protestant state

1766 – Sir John Leslie born, Scottish physicist and mathematician, first to artificially create ice, using an air pump apparatus

1788 – William Hazlett born, English author and philosopher

1827 – Lew Wallace born, American author; Ben Hur: A Tale of the Christ

1847 – Joseph Pulitzer born, American publisher, endows fund for annual writing prizes

1849 – International Safety Pin Day * – Walter Hunt patents the safety pin (not first with the idea, but first to patent)

1858 – In London, the original ‘Great Bell’ aka ‘Big Ben’ of the Westminster Clock Tower, first cast in 1856, is melted down and recast after badly cracking; the new bell also cracks, but it was a small crack, so eventually it is put back up an eighth of a turn away from its original position so the hammer would fall on an uncracked section, and it has been in service ever since

1864 – The first female surgeon of the Union Army, unpaid volunteer Dr. Mary Edwards Walker is captured by Confederate troops after crossing enemy lines to treat the wounded and arrested as a spy. She was working with a Confederate doctor performing an amputation at the time. Sent to the notorious Castle Thunder Prison for political prisoners and spies, the feminist and ardent adherent to rational dress for women, refused to wear the clothes provided as “more becoming of her sex” instead of her work clothes, made over from a man’s shirt and trousers (She often replied to criticism, “I don’t wear men’s clothes, I wear my own clothes.”) Walker was released in a prisoner r exchange for a Confederate doctor in August, 1864. After the war, Walker was awarded a disability pension for partial muscular atrophy suffered while she was imprisoned by the enemy, and Generals William Tecumseh Sherman and George Henry Thomas recommended her for the Medal of Honor, which originally was not strictly a military honor. On November 11, 1865, President Andrew Johnson signed the bill awarding her the medal, the only woman ever to receive the Medal of Honor. It was stricken from the rolls in 1917, and she was ordered to surrender it, but she wore it until her death in 1919, and President Jimmy Carter restored her medal posthumously in 1977

1866 – ASPCA Day * – American Society for the Prevention of Cruelty to Animals
founded in NYC by diplomat and philanthropist Henry Bergh; horrified by seeing horses beaten by their drivers while serving as acting vice-consul at the American legation at St. Petersburg; returning home, he begins to lobby on behalf of “these mute servants of mankind “and convinces the New York State Legislature to charter incorporation of the ASPCA, and 9 days later, to pass the first effective anti-cruelty law in the U.S., allowing the ASPCA to investigate complaints of animal cruelty and make arrests

1870 – Vladimir Lenin born, Russian Communist, leader of the Bolshevik Revolution; head of state under various titles (1917-1924) as Russia evolved into the Soviet Union, a one-party socialist state under the Communist Party

1872 – The first Arbor Day, held in Nebraska – an estimated one million trees are planted, becomes an official state day in 1874 – observed on varying dates in other states and nationally – National Arbor Day will be April 28 this year see Arbor Day Foundation: https://www.arborday.org/

1880 – Frances Perkins born, first woman appointed to U.S. cabinet, by FDR, as Secretary of Labor

1894 – G.W. Murray patents a Furrow Opener/Stalk Knocker, and a Cultivator/Marker

1903 – Clare Boothe Luce born, American politician, U.S. Ambassador to Italy and Brazil; U.S. Congresswoman (R-CT 1943-47); 1983 Presidential Medal of Freedom

1903 – Clare Turlay Newberry, American children’s book author and illustrator; four of her books were named Caldecott Honor Books; Barkis, Marshmallow,  April’s Kittens and T-Bone the Babysitter

1910 – Margaret Clapp born, American author and scholar, president of Wellesley College; won the 1948 Pulitzer Prize for Biography for Forgotten First Citizen: John Bigelow 

1916 – Golfer’s Day * – In January, Department store magnate Rodman Wanamaker invites golf professionals and leading amateurs to a luncheon at the Taplow club in NY City’s Martinique Hotel to discuss forming a golf association; an organizing committee is chosen, and on April 10, the Professional Golfers Association (PGA) of America is founded with 35 charter members

1917 – Robert Burns Woodward born, American Chemist; 1965 Nobel Prize for Chemistry

1925 – The Great Gatsby by F. Scott Fitzgerald is published

1927 – George Antheil presents a scaled-down version of his “Ballet Mécanique” at NYC’s Carnegie Hall, the first symphonic work using an airplane propeller and other mechanical devices not normally associated with ballet

1930 – Dolores Huerta born, American labor, civil rights and women’s rights activist, co-founder of the United Farm Workers with César Chávez; Eleanor Roosevelt Award for Human Rights and Presidential Medal of Freedom

1933 – Helen McElhone born, Scottish politician, Member of Parliament for Glasgow’s Queen’s Park; Vice-Chair of Finance Committee for Strathclyde Regional Council; on Scottish Labour Party Candidate Vetting Panel

1934 – David Halberstam born, American journalist and historian; 1964 Pulitzer for International Reporting; The Best and the Brightest

1937 – Bella Akhmadulina born, Russian poet, author and translator; 1994 Pushkin Prize; Casket and Key, Izbrannoye (Selected Verse)

1941 – Paul Theroux born, American travel writer and novelist; The Mosquito Coast

1944 – Synthetic quinine was made for the first time at Harvard University

1954 – Anne Lamott born, American novelist, non-fiction writer and progressive political activist/public speaker; Hard Laughter, her first novel was written for her father, writer Kenneth Lamott, after his diagnosis of brain cancer; her non-fiction book, Bird by Bird: Some Instructions on Writing and Life, inspired the title of Freida Lee Mock’s documentary Bird by Bird with Annie: A Film Portrait of Writer Anne Lamott

1956 – Nat King Cole is attacked by a four white Klansmen who jump on the stage during his performance for an all-white audience in Birmingham Alabama; his back is injured, so he is unable to finish the show, or to sing at the second performance scheduled for an all-black audience in the segregated city, although he appeared briefly to apologize to the audience. The white audience at the first show called out against the attackers while the British Ted Heath Band gamely played “God Save the Queen” to try to settle things down.  The attackers are arrested at the scene and convicted of assault and battery. Nat King Cole was born in Alabama

1956 – Dame Carol V. Robinson born, British chemist, noted for research in chemical biology; since 2009, Royal Society Research Professor at the Physical and Theoretical Chemistry Laboratory at Oxford; from 2001 to 2009, Professor of Mass Spectrometry at the Department of Chemistry of Cambridge; has worked on protein folding, the three-dimensional  structure of proteins, ribosomes, molecular chaperones and membrane proteins; in 2004, honored with both a Royal Society Fellowship and the Rosalind Franklin Award; in 2010, received the Davy Medal “for her ground-breaking and novel use of mass spectrometry for the characterisation of large protein complexes”

1957 – Rosemary Hill born, British historian, author and biographer; best-known for God’s Architect, a biography of Augustus Pugin, which won multiple awards, including the Wolfson History Prize, and the James Tait Black Memorial Prize; Stonehenge, and Unicorn: The Poetry of Angela Carter, co-author with Angela Carter

1958 – Bobby Darin records “Splish Splash”

1967 – Frank and Nancy Sinatra become the first father-daughter duo to hit #1 on Billboard’s pop chart with “Somethin’ Stupid”

1971 – John Denver makes his first appearance on the charts with “Take Me Home Country Roads”

1972 – Isaac Hayes wins an Oscar for Best Original Song for “Shaft”

1982 – Saturday Night Live asks viewers to vote: boil ‘Larry the Lobster’ or set him free; audience votes to free him

1995 – New York ban on smoking in restaurants with more than 35 seats goes into effect

1996 – The National Committee on Pay Equity launches National Equal Pay Day * which is set on the day in the year when an American woman’s pay would finally catch up with a man’s wages from the previous year – in other words, she has to work almost 15 ½ months to earn what he does in 12 months. For a woman of color, the gap is even wider; it will take her until August to earn what a man does

1997 – National Sibling Day * is founded by Claudia Evart in honor of her brother and sister, who both died young, and to celebrate the special bond between siblings; her Siblings Foundation becomes a non-profit organization in 1999

1998 – Negotiators in Northern Ireland reach a landmark settlement that calls for Protestants and Catholics to share power; referendum vote scheduled for May

2001 – The Netherlands legalize mercy killings and assisted suicide for patients with unbearable, terminal illness

2005 – National Farm Animals Day * is launched by Animal Expert and vegetarian Colleen Paige, to raise awareness of the mistreatment of animals raised for slaughter

2012 (year uncertain) – Encourage a Young Writer Day * is part of National Library Week, sponsored by the American Library Association (ALA)

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