April 22nd is

Earth Day *

Chemists Celebrate Earth Day *

Girl Scout Leaders Day

Jelly Bean Day

‘In God We Trust’ Day *

NASA’s Earth Day Global Selfie *

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MORE! Henry Fielding, Louise Glück and Denis Hayes, click

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WORLD FESTIVALS AND NATIONAL HOLIDAYS

Spain – Madrid:
Rock’n’Roll Marathon

Switzerland – Samnaun:
Tirol International Spring Snow Fest

United States – Washington DC:
Folger Library Shakespeare Celebration

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On This Day in HISTORY

238 – The Imperial Crisis: the Roman Senate outlaws the “barracks emperor” Maximinus Thrax, who began as a lowborn common soldier and distrusted the nobility, who loathed him in return, for his bloodthirsty proscriptions in Rome; they nominate two Senators, Pupienus and Balbinus, as co-emperors, but the people of Rome refuse to accept them, and they appoint Gordian III, grandson of Emperor Gordian I as Caesar to form a triumvirate

1451 – Queen Isabella of Castile born, with husband Ferdinand II of Aragon, reunified Spain, and she sponsors the 1492 voyage of Christopher Columbus to ‘the Indies’

1500 – Portuguese navigator Pedro Álvares Cabral lands in Brazil

1519 – Spanish conquistador Hernán Cortés starts a settlement at Veracruz, Mexico

1707 – Henry Fielding born, English novelist and playwright; Tom Jones

1724 – Immanuel Kant born, German Enlightenment philosopher

1766 – Germaine de Staël born, French author, essayist, social commentator and political agitator; a passionate supporter of  ‘Liberté, égalité, fraternité’ she quickly became disenchanted with Napoleon, and used her considerable wit to deride him –
He banished her from Paris, and she spent 10 years in exile Switzerland

1830 – Emily Davies born, English feminist, pioneer in securing university education for women; co-founder and early head of Girton College, Cambridge, the first college in England to educate women

1836 – Texas Revolution: A day after the Battle of San Jacinto, General Sam Houston’s Texian troops find Mexican General Antonio López de Santa Anna hiding in the marsh wearing a dragoon private’s uniform

1864 – ‘In God We Trust Day’ Day * – U.S. Congress passes the Coinage Act of 1864 that mandates inscription ‘In God We Trust’ is on all coins minted as U.S. currency

1870 – Vladimir Ilich Lenin born, Russian leader of 1917 Bolshevik Revolution and first head of the Soviet state

1873 – Ellen Glasgow born, American author, portraying the changing South after the Civil War, recipient of the 1942 Pulitzer Prize for her novel In This Our Life

1889 – At noon, thousands rush to claim land in the Land Rush of 1889. Within hours the cities of Oklahoma City and Guthrie are formed with populations of at least 10,000; celebrated as Oklahoma Day *

1891 – Laura Gilpin, American photographer, known for southwestern landscapes and photos of Navajo and Pueblo people

1900 – Nellie Beer born, Lord Mayor of Manchester (1966-1967); first chair of the Manchester Children’s Committee (1948-1952)

1904 – Dorothy Alexander born, American ballet dancer, choreographer; founder of the Atlanta Ballet

1904 – J. Robert Oppenheimer born, American nuclear physicist, head of the WWOO Los Alamos atomic bomb development project

1909 – Rita Levi-Montalcini born, Italian neurologist and member of the Italian Senate, recipient of the 1986 Nobel Prize in Medicine and the National Medal of Science in 1987

1912 – Kathleen Ferrier born, English singer, contralto with an international reputation, repertoire including folksongs, ballads and classical works

1916 – Yehudi Menuhin born, American violin virtuoso

1922 – Charles Mingus born, American jazz performer and composer

1930 – The United Kingdom, Japan and the U.S. sign the London Naval Treaty  regulating submarine warfare and limiting shipbuilding

1943 – Louise Glück, American poet, Poet Laureate Consultant in Poetry to the Library of Congress in 2003-2004, won 2014 National Book Award for Poetry

1947 – Cathy Hughes born, African American entrepreneur and media pioneer; founder and Chair of Radio One

1954 – The Senate Army-McCarthy hearings begin, televised live

1966 – British band the Troggs release their single “Wild Thing” in the U.S.

1970 – Senator Gaylord Nelson (D- WI), after seeing the ravages of the massive 1969 oil spill off the California Coast at Santa Barbara, persuades Pete McClosky (R-CA) to co-sponsor a “national teach-in on the environment,” and recruits Denis Hayes from Harvard as national coordinator, and the first Earth Day * is born

Denis Hayes at the first Earth Day, 1970

1977 – Optical fiber is first used to carry live telephone traffic

1993 – The U.S. Holocaust Memorial Museum is dedicated in Washington, D.C.

2003 – American Chemical Society launches their first Chemists Celebrate Earth Day *

2010 – The Deepwater Horizon oil platform sinks into the Gulf of Mexico two days after a massive explosion that killed 11 workers

2014 – NASA’s Earth Day Global Selfie * – NASA asks on social media “Where are you on Earth right now?” and requests they download a special sign in the language of their choice, fill their location, and take a selfie to send to NASA to become part of  a mosaic picture made to look like Earth from space

2016 – The Paris Agreement under the United Nations Framework Convention on Climate Change (UNFCCC) opened for signature; as of April 1, 2017, 195 countries have signed the treaty, and 143 of them have ratified it, including the United States; but the Trump administration reneges on the deal

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