July 10^th is

Clerihew Day! *

Nicola Tesla Day *

Teddy Bear Picnic Day

National Piña Colada Day

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MORE!  Eva Ekeblad, Nicola Tesla and Edith Quimby, click

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WORLD FESTIVALS AND NATIONAL HOLIDAYS

Bahá’í – Martyrdom of the Bab

Zoroastrian – Silence Day: Commemorates the day spiritual master Meher Baba begins his 44 year silence

The Bahamas – Independence Day

Kiribati – Senior Citizens’ Day

Mongolia – Political Flag Day

St. Vincent & the Grenadines:
Carnival Tuesday

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On This Day in HISTORY

48 BC – Battle of Dyrrachium: during Julius Caesar’s Civil War, Caesar’ siege of  Pompey’s stronghold at Dyrrachium on the Ionian Sea put both armies in difficult positions. Pompey was running out of fodder for his horses, and his fresh water supply was running out, but Caesar was short of food because Pompey has stripped the surrounding land. But if Caesar held his position until the autumn harvest, he would be able to prolong his siege. Pompey launched an attack, and his legions heavily outnumbered Caesar’s, forcing Caesar to end the siege and retreat. Pompey had won a temporary victory, but the tide would turn at the Battle of Pharsalus in August

645 – Nakatomi no Kamatari, Prince Naka no Ōe and others eliminate the main branch of the Soga clan, beginning with the assassination of Soga no Iruka at a court ceremony in the presence of Empress Kōgyoku, a profanation so shocking she renounces the throne, ceding it to her brother, Prince Karu

988 – The Norse King Glúniairn recognizes Máel Sechnaill mac Domnaill, High King of Ireland, and agrees to pay taxes and accept Brehon Law; considered to be the founding of the city of Dublin

1519 –  Zhu Chenhao declares the Ming dynasty’s Zhengde Emperor a usurper, beginning the Prince of Ning rebellion, and leads his army north in an attempt to capture Nanjing

Nanking map by Joan Blaeu (1599-1673)

1553 – Lady Jane Grey, nominated by dying boy king Edward VI in his will in preference to his Catholic half-sister Mary, begins her nine day reign as Queen of England

1645 – First English Civil War: the Parliamentarian army under the Earl of Essex destroys the last Royalist field army at the Battle of Langford (south of the port of Bristol), giving Parliament control of the West of England

1723 – Sir William Blackstone born, English jurist and author

1724 – Eva Ekeblad born, Swedish countess, salon host, agronomist and scientist; known for discovering a method to make flour and alcohol from potatoes, transforming potatoes from an exotic food grown only in the greenhouses of the aristocracy to a staple food of Sweden, significantly reducing the country’s incidence of famine; first woman to become a member of the Royal Swedish Academy of Sciences in 1748

1746 – Bonnie Prince Charlie flees disguised as a female servant to the Isle of Skye

1789 – In Canada, Scottish explorer Alexander Mackenzie sets out by canoe on the river which will be renamed in his honor, following it to its mouth seeking a Northwest Passage to the Pacific Ocean, but reaches the Arctic Ocean instead

1821 – The U.S. takes possession of Florida after buying it from Spain

1830 – Camille Pissarro born on St. Thomas, French Impressionist painter

Camille Pissarro, self-portrait

1856 – Nicola Tesla Day * – Nikola Tesla, future electrifying inventor, is born

1871 – Marcel Proust born, French novelist and essayist

1875 – Mary McLeod Bethune born, American educator and civil rights leader; Literary and Industrial Training School for Negro Girls founder (which becomes Bethune-Cookman University) adviser to President Franklin Roosevelt

1875 – Clerihew Day! – Edmund Clerihew Bentley born, English novelist and humorist, creator of the Clerihew

1882 – Texas Governor Jim Hogg names his new-born daughter Ima; in spite of this handicap, she becomes a leader of Texas society, well-known and respected as a philanthropist and patron of the arts

1884 –  Harriet Wiseman Elliott born, American educator and public official, Dean of Women at the University of North Carolina at Greensboro; Chair of the Woman’s Division of the U.S. War Finance Committee, Deputy Director of the U.S. Office of Price Administration, and United States delegate to UNESCO

1891 – Edith Hinkley Quimby born, American medical researcher and physicist, pioneer in nuclear medicine; developed diagnostic and therapeutic applications of X-rays, and instituted protections for both the technicians and the patients from overexposure to radioactive materials, assuring the use of the lowest dose possible to achieve results; in 1940, she was the first woman honored with the Janeway Medal by the American Radium Society; awarded the 1941 Gold Medal of the Radiological Society of North America; she was also one of the first members of the American Association of Physicists in Medicine

1896 – Thérèse Casgrain born, Canadian feminist, reformer and politician, Senator in Quebec, leader in the women’s suffrage movement as founder of the Provincial Franchise Committee, hosted the radio show Fémina in the 1930s

1895 – Carl Orff born, German composer and musical innovator

1902 – Kurt Adler born, German chemist, Nobel Laureate (1950)

1905 – Mildred Wirt Benson born, American journalist and author of 23 of the 30 original Nancy Drew mysteries (series written by various authors but all books published under “Carolyn Keene”)

1906 – Jorge Icaza born, Ecuadorian novelist and playwright

1910 – Walter Brookins becomes the “Mile High Man” when he takes a Wright biplane up to an altitude of 6,175 feet (1,882 meters) at Atlantic City NJ, a new record

Walter Brookins in 1910

1913 – Death Valley CA, hits 134° – hottest recorded temperature on Earth

1916 – Judith Jasmin born, Canadian journalist and radio host, founding member of the Mouvement laïque de langue française (“The Francophone Secular Movement”)

1921 – Eunice Kennedy Shriver born, American activist, founder of Camp Shriver which evolved into the Special Olympics, long time advocate for children with disabilities, recipient of many awards and honors including the Presidential Medal of Freedom

1922 – Jean Kerr born, American author and playwright, wrote bestseller Please Don’t Eat the Daisies

1925 – Opening Day of Scopes “Monkey Trial” over teaching evolution

1929 – Winnie Ewing, Scottish lawyer and politician; served as a Member of the UK Parliament, the European Parliament, and the Scottish Parliament

1931 – Alice Munro born, Canadian author, known for her short stories, recipient of many awards and honors including Canada’s Governor General’s Award, the Man Booker International Prize and the 2013 Nobel Prize for Literature

1931 – Julian May born, American scifi, fantasy and children’s author who used several pen names, including Ian Thorne; best known for her two series, Saga of Pliocene Exile and Galactic Milieu

1938 – Howard Hughes sets a new record completing a 91-hour  airplane flight around the world

1940 – WWII: the Vichy government is set up in France

1940 – WWII: the 114-day Battle of Britain begins as the Nazi Luftwaffe attacks southern England by air

1943 –Arthur Ashe born, American tennis professional who won three Grand Slam titles; first African American player on the U.S. Davis Cup team; after he contracted AIDS from a blood transfusion, he publicly announced his illness in 1992, and became an advocate for AIDS research and educating the public; he died from AIDS-related pneumonia at age 49 in 1993

1943 – Inonge Mbikusita-Lewanika born, Zambian politician; Republic of Zambia Ambassador to the U.S. (2003-2008); Zambian special envoy to the African Union (2001-2003); Movement for Multiparty Democracy (MMD) Member of Zambia’ Parliament (1991-2001); UNICEF regional advisor  for Africa (?-1991)

1947 – Muhammad Ali Jinnah is recommended as the first Governor-General of modern Pakistan by the British Prime Minister, Clement Attlee

1951 – Korean War: Armistice negotiations begin at Kaesong

1959 – Ellen Kuras born, American cinematographer and filmmaker; one of the first women members of the American Society of Cinematographers; known for her cinematography work on Eternal Sunshine of the Spotless Mind, and her directorial debut, The Betrayal, which won a Primetime Emmy Award for Non-Fiction Filmmaking, and was nominated for a 2009 Oscar for Best Documentary Feature  

1962 – World’s first communications satellite, Telstar, launched into orbit

1965 – Wilson Pickett’s “In The Midnight Hour” is released

1966 – The Chicago Freedom Movement holds a rally at Soldier’s Field, led by Martin Luther King; 60,000 people participate

1967 –Gillian Tett born, British journalist and finance columnist for the Financial Times, one of the first to warn that a financial crisis was looming in 2007

1973 – The Bahamas become an independent realm within the British Commonwealth of Nations

1985 – Greenpeace’s Rainbow Warrior sunk in Auckland by French agents

1985 – Coca-Cola Co., inundated by irate protests from customers after the introduction of New Coke, said it would resume selling its old formula

1991 – Boris Yeltsin takes office as first elected President of Russia

1992 – A federal judge in Miami sentences former Panamanian leader Manuel Noriega to 40 years in prison on drug and racketeering charges

1999 – U.S. women’s soccer team wins World Cup at Pasadena’s Rose Bowl in California

2002 – Peter Paul Rubens’ Massacre of the Innocents auctions for $76.2 million

2007 – Erden Eruç, a Turkish-born American, begins the first solo human-powered circumnavigation of the world, using assorted small boats, bicycles and walking; it took 5 years, 11 days, 12 hours and 22 minutes to complete his 41,196 mile (66,299 km) trek

2010 – Queen Elizabeth II addresses the United Nations for the first time since 1957

2017 – Iraqi Civil War: Mosul is liberated from the Islamic State of Iraq and
the Levant

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