July 26 is

Americans With Disabilities Day *

All or Nothing Day

Aunt and Uncle Day

Bagelfest Day

One Voice Day *

Coffee Milkshake Day

_________________________________________

MORE! Justin Holland, Helen Mirren and Harry Truman, click

_________________________________________

WORLD FESTIVALS AND NATIONAL HOLIDAYS

Barbados – Day of National Significance
(Labour Rebellion of 1937)

Cuba – Día de la Rebeldía

India – Kargil Vijay Diwas
(Kargil War Victory 1999)

Liberia – Independence Day

Maldives – Independence Day

Zambia – Election Day Holiday

_________________________________________

On This Day in HISTORY

657 – Battle of Siffin, First Fitna (Muslim civil war): Caliph Ali ibn Abi Talib’s army meets the army of Caliph Muawiyah I on the banks of the Euphrates River in what is now Syria, with heavy losses on both sides, but no conclusive winner

1581 – Plakkaat van Verlatinghe (Act of Abjuration): The northern Low Countries declare their independence from Spanish King Philip II

1711 – Lorenz Christoph Mizler born, German polymath, physician, mathematician, musician, composer, publisher, science writer and historian

1745 – A report in The Reading Mercury is the first record of a women’s cricket match, at Gosden Common, near Guildford England, played between “maids” from Bramley and Hambledon

1775 – U.S. postal system established with Benjamin Franklin as Postmaster General

1782 – John Field born, Irish pianist and composer

1791 – Franz Xaver Wolfgang Mozart born, Austrian composer and conductor, Mozart’s youngest child

1796 – George Catlin born, American painter, author, and traveler

1819 – Justin Holland born, African American classical guitarist, musical arranger, teacher who wrote music method books; abolitionist and civil rights activist, working with the Underground Railroad; attended Oberlin College, and learned Spanish, French, Italian and German to further his musical education

1847 – Liberia declares its independence

1856 – George Bernard Shaw born, Irish playwright, Nobel Prize laureate

1865 – Rajanikanta Sen born, Indian poet and composer

1869 – Donaldina Cameron born in New Zealand, American social justice advocate and rescuer of human trafficking victims; became superintendent of the Presbyterian Mission House in San Francisco’s Chinatown at age 23; for decades she fought to end the illegal kidnapping and smuggling of Chinese girls and young women by the Tongs to be used as slave labor or prostitutes, rescuing over 3,000 Chinese girls and women held by the traffickers; called Fahn Gwai, “white devil” by her adversaries

Donaldina Cameron biography, Cameron with Hope Chow (Up R),
whom she rescued, and sketch of Cameron as a young woman 

1875 – Carl Jung, pioneer in analytical psychology, is born

1891 – France annexes Tahiti

1894 – Aldous Huxley born, English novelist and philosopher

1897 – Paul Gallico born, author and journalist

1900 – Sarah Kafrit born in the Russian Empire, Israeli teacher and politician; member for Mapai of the Knesset (Israeli legislature) between 1951 and 1959; a founding member in 1927 of the moshav (farmers’ collective) Kfar Yehoshua; member of the secretariat of Women’s Councils

1903 – Estes Kefauver born, American Democratic politician; U.S. Senator (Tennessee 1949-1963); U.S. House of Representatives (1939-1949); as a Congressman, he was a staunch supporter of the New Deal and the Tennessee Valley Authority, but he is best remembered for his investigation of organized crime in the 1950s, and his fights to pass anti-trust legislation and curb the growing power of  corporations as Chair of the Senate Antitrust and Monopoly Subcommittee from 1957 until his death in 1963

1904 – Edwin A. Link born, American industrialist and inventor; pioneer in underwater archaeology, submersibles, and aviation; inventor of the flight simulator

1908 – U.S. Attorney General Charles J. Bonaparte issues an order that initiates the Office of the Chief Examiner, which evolves into the Federal Bureau of Investigation (FBI), as it is renamed in 1935

1914 – Erskine Hawkins born, American trumpeter and bandleader

1921 – Jean Shepherd born, American author, screenwriter and radio host; known for his humorous tales of life in the American Midwest;  A Christmas Story

1923 – Jan Berenstain born, with husband Stanley, wrote and illustrated children’s books, how-to guides for parents, and cartoons for magazines

1923 – Bernice Rubens born, Welsh novelist; noted for  Madame Sousatzka, and The Elected Member, which won the 1970 Booker Prize for Fiction

1925 – Ana María Matute born, Spanish author and member of the Real Academia Española; honored with the prestigious Miguel de Cervantes Prize for lifetime achievement Spanish letters in 2010; Fiesta al noroeste (Celebration in the Northwest) won the 1952 Café Gijón Prize

1933 – “Yomo” Toro, Puerto Rican guitarist and composer

1939 – Kay Starr records “Baby Me” with Glenn Miller’s orchestra

1943 – Mick Jagger, Rolling Stones, singer-songwriter, is born

Mick Jagger, photo from Young magazine

1945 – Dame Helen Mirren born, notable English actress, beganher career with the Royal Shakespeare Company in 1967; one of the few actors to achieve acting’s ‘Triple Crown’ – a 2007 Oscar and an Olivier Award for Best Actress as Queen Elizabeth II in The Queen; and a Tony Award for Best Actress in a Play, for playing the same role in the  play The Audience, which inspired the film

1946 – Aloha Airlines begins service from Honolulu International Airport

1947 – President Truman signs the National Security Act,  forming the Department of Defense, the CIA, the National Security Council, and the Joints Chiefs of Staff

1948 – Harry Truman’s executive order desegregates U.S military and federal agencies

1950 – Anne Rafferty born, Lady Justice Rafferty, British justice; Lady Justice of Appeal of England and Wales since 2011, member of the Privy Council; first woman Chair of the Criminal Bar Association of England and Wales; also Chancellor of the University of Sheffield since 2015; High Court Justice 2000-2011; Deputy High Court Justice (1999-2000) Recorder (1991-1999), and Queen’s Council (1990-1991)

1953 – Arizona Governor Pyle orders raid on polygamists in Short Creek AZ

1956 – Egyptian President Gamal Abdel Nasser nationalizes the Suez Canal

1963 – World’s first geosynchronous satellite, Syncom 2, is launched

1964 – Anne Provoost born in Belgium, Flemish author of novels for young adults, and essays; noted for her novels My Aunt is a Pilot Whale, which deals with sexual abuse, and Falling, which examines the allure of Neo-Nazi rhetoric, and won Belgian, Dutch and French literary awards

1969 – Tanni Grey-Thompson born, Baroness Grey-Thompson of Eaglescliff, British politician, and academic; born with spina bifida, she was a successful wheelchair racer (1984-2007), winning many gold and silver medals in the Paralympic Games and World Championships; after a stint as a BBC television presenter, she became Chancellor of Northumbria University (2015 to present); created a Life Peer in 2010, she took her oath of office for the House of Lords in English and Welsh

1971 – Apollo 15 launched from Cape Kennedy FL on a manned moon mission

1977 – Quebec’s National Assembly declares French the province’s official language

1979 – The Clash releases their first U.S. single, “I Fought the Law”

1980 – Jacinda Ardern born, New Zealand politician; Prime Minister of New Zealand, Member of the New Zealand Parliament for Mount Albert, and Leader of the Labour Party since 2017; Member of Parliament for the Labour Party List (2008-2017)

1984 – Prince’s movie Purple Rain premieres in Hollywood

1990 – Americans With Disabilities Day * – The Americans With Disabilities Act (ADA) is signed into law

1997 – One Voice Day * is launched, a global peace initiative, asking people everywhere to take a few moments at 6 PM Universal Time to read aloud the Universal Peace Covenant, created by the faculty and students at the School of Metaphysics – read here: http://som.org/the-universal-peace-covenant/

1999 – The New York branch of Christie’s displays 1,500 of Marilyn Monroe’s personal things for future sale

2002 – Federal judge approves a $1.25 billion settlement between Swiss banks and over 500,000 plaintiffs alleging the banks hoarded money deposited by Holocaust victims

2016 – Hillary Clinton becomes the first woman nominee for U.S. President by a major political party at the Democratic National Convention in Philadelphia

2016 – Solar Impulse 2 becomes the first solar-powered aircraft to circumnavigate the Earth

__________________________________________