September 22^nd is

American Business Women’s Day *

Elephant Appreciation Day *

Ice Cream Cone Day *

White Chocolate Day

World Car-Free Day *

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MORE! Alma Thomas, Andrea Bocelli and Beth Catlin, click

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WORLD FESTIVALS AND NATIONAL HOLIDAYS

Northern Hemisphere: Autumnal Equinox
Southern Hemisphere: Vernal Equinox

Bulgaria – Independence Day

China – Mid-Autumn Festival

Germany – Munich:  Oktoberfest

Mali – Independence Day

Norway – Princess Martha Louise Birthday

Spain – Barcelona: Festes de la Mercé
(festival of the patron saint of the city)

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On This Day in HISTORY

480 BC – Battle of Salamis, the Greek fleet of Themistocles defeats Xerxes I and his Persian fleet

904 – Chinese warlord Zhu Quanzhong kills Tang dynasty Emperor Zhaozong and seizes control of the imperial government

1236 – Pagan Samogitians defeat the Livonian Brothers of the Sword in the Battle of Saule, the first large-scale defeat of the Brothers of the Sword, a Catholic order

1515 – Anne of Cleves born, briefly fourth wife of Henry VIII, their marriage is annulled after six months, but she manages to keep her head on her shoulders, receives a generous settlement and remains in England; she and Catherine Parr are Henry VIII’s only wives who outlive him

Anne of Cleves, painted by H.Holbein -1539 (Louvre)

1598 – English playwright Ben Johnson kills actor Gabriel Spenser in a duel, is tried for the killing, but pleads “benefit of clergy” – a legal fiction that gave judges discretion in sentencing first-time offenders if they were clergy or could read the bible aloud (Johnson’s father was a clergyman, but he was raised by his stepfather, a bricklayer.) He avoids the death penalty, but is imprisoned, forfeits all his possessions and is branded on the thumb (to prevent him from using the benefit of clergy defense again)

1692 – The last hangings of those convicted in the Salem witch trials; the remaining condemned prisoners are eventually released

1711 – The Tuscarora War begins as Southern Tuscaroras and their allies fight settlers in North Carolina who enlisted the Yamasee and Cherokee as allies

1762 – Elizabeth Simcoe born in England, English artist and diarist; married John Graves Simcoe, and went with him to colonial Canada, where he was the first Lt. Governor of Upper Canada. She painted over 500 watercolours of the town of York, Upper Canada, and her diary is a valuable record of the life of  early colonists in Ontario

1776 – Nathan Hale is hanged by the British as a spy for the Americans

1789 – U.S. Congress authorizes the office of Postmaster General, but the position had already been held by Benjamin Franklin, appointed by the Second Continental Congress in 1775, followed by Richard Bache in 1776 and Ebebezer Hazard in 1782. The first Postmaster General appointed by Congress is Samuel Osgood, four days after Congress officially approves the department

1791 – Michael Faraday born, English scientist, discoverer of electromagnetic induction

1792 – Primidi Vendémiaire of year one of the French Republican Calendar, as the French First Republic is born

1823 – Joseph Smith claims he was directed by a vision of the Angel Moroni to find a buried book of golden plates inscribed with a Judeo-Christian history of an unknown ancient American civilization, which he then “translates” into English and publishes as the Book of Mormon

1862 – Abraham Lincoln issues the preliminary Emancipation Proclamation, that all slaves held within rebel states would be free as of January 1, 1863

1868 – Louise C. McKinney born, one of Canada’s ‘Famous Five’ in the Persons Case; first woman sworn into the Legislative Assembly of Alberta, first woman elected to a Canadian legislature and in the entire British Empire; fought for women’s property rights, education, temperance, and government ownership of grain elevators and flour mills; the ‘Five’ and the Persons Case have been recognized as being of ‘National Historic Significance’ by the Canadian Government; in 2009, the Canadian Legislature voted to name all of the ‘Famous Five’ as Canada’s first “honorary senators”

1877 – Victor Shelford born, American zoologist and animal ecologist

1880 – Dame Christabel H. Pankhurst born, English suffragette, co-founder of the Women’s Social and Political Union (WSPU) and director of their militant action from exile in France (1912-1913), but supported Britain during WWI

1885 – Erich von Stroheim born, Austrian film director, writer and actor

1888 – National Geographic magazine’s first issue is published

1891 – Alma Thomas born, African-American Expressionist painter and art educator; part of the the Washington Color School, a visual art movement started in Washington DC; in 1924, she was the first graduate from Howard University’s Fine Arts Department; taught at Shaw Junior High School (1924-1960), where she started a community arts program. In 1934, she earned a Masters in Art Education from Columbia University

1895 – Babette Deutsch born, American poet, critic, translator and novelist

1896 – Queen Victoria surpasses her grandfather King George III as the longest reigning British monarch, until her record is overtaken by Queen Elizabeth II

1900 – William Spratling born, American silver designer and architect

1901 – Charles Huggins born in Canada, American  surgeon and urologist, 1966 Nobel Prize in Medicine

1905 – Ellen Church born, first woman hired as an airline stewardess; a registered pilot and a registered nurse, she is turned down by Boeing Air Transport as a pilot, but hired her in 1930 as head stewardess, recruiting seven others for a three-month trial period. Boeing requirements: must be RNs, under age 25, less than 5’4” tall, and under 115 pounds, also expected to help haul luggage, and with pushing the aircraft into the hangar. The pay for women of that time was good: $125 a month

1905 – Italo Marchiony finally receives his patent for an ice-cream-cone-making machine *, for which he had filed in December, 1903, five months before the St. Louis World’s Fair opened, which popularized the idea of eating ice cream from a cone

1908 – Bulgaria declares its independence from the Ottoman Empire

1910 – The Duke of York’s Picture House opens in Brighton, now the oldest continually operating cinema in Britain

1913 – Lillian Chestney born, American painter and illustrator of children’s books and classic comic books

Classic Comics – Gulliver’s Travels – illustrated by Lillian Chestney

1919 – The steel strike of 1919, led by the Amalgamated Association of Iron and Steel Workers, begins in Pennsylvania and spreads across the United States

1920 – Eric Baker born, English activist, co-founder of Amnesty International

1924 – Rosamunde Pilcher born, British writer of historical romance novels

1931 – Fay Weldon born, English author, essayist, feminist and playwright; best known for her novel The Life and Loves of a She-Devil, and for writing the first episode of Upstairs, Downstairs. While studying psychology and economics at the University of St. Andrews in the early 1950s, she recalls taking classes with moral philosopher Malcolm Knox, who “spoke exclusively to the male students, maintaining that women were incapable of moral judgment or objectivity.”

1937 – Spanish Civil War: Battle of El Mazuco, part of the War in the North, is won by the Nationalists, who overwhelm the Republicans, leading to the fall of the city of Gijón and abandonment of Asturias, last Republican province in NW Spain; firs use of carpet bombing against a military target

1939 – Deborah Lavin born, South African historian and academic, working in the UK for most of her career; lecturer at  Queen’s University Belfast and the University of Witwatersrand; Senior Associate of St Antony’s College, Oxford. Principle of Trevelyan College at Durham University (1979-1995), and co-director of Durham’s Research Institute for the Study of Change (1980-1995); President of the Durham University Howland Trust (1995-1997); co-author of South African Memories: Scraps of History

1942 – Candida Lycett Green born, British author, columnist and co-founder of the satirical magazine, Private Eye; many of her books are about the English countryside, including English Cottages and Unwrecked England

1947 – “Jane Doe” Norma McCorvey born, plaintiff in the landmark Roe v. Wade case in which the U.S. Supreme Court ruled that the banning of abortion by individual states was unconstitutional. In her 1994 autobiography, I Am Roe, she wrote about her sexual orientation and relationship with her long-time partner, Connie Gonzales. After becoming an Evangelical Christian, she expressed regrets for her part in Roe v. Wade, and became an anti-abortion activist

1948 – When USAF pilot Gail Halvorsen starts dropping handkerchief parachutes attached to candy bars for children in Berlin after meeting some of them, the news story garners so much positive publicity that the Air Force makes it an official part of the Berlin Airlift, dubbed Operation Little Vittles, beginning on this day; before it is over, he and other pilots have dropped 23 tons of candy

1949 – The Soviet Union explodes its first atomic bomb

1953 – Ségolène Royal born, French Socialist politician; French Minister of Ecology, Sustainable Development and Energy (2014-2017); President of the Poitou-Charentes Regional Council (2004- 2014); Member of the National Assembly for Deux-Sévres (2002-2007); first woman in France to be nominated by a major party as a presidential candidate in 2007

1955 – British commercial television begins, with only six minutes of ads allowed per hour and no Sunday morning TV permitted

1958 – Andrea Bocelli born, Italian tenor, songwriter and record producer. Born with poor eyesight, he became completely blind in a football (soccer) accident at age 12. Honored with many awards and titles, including a star on Hollywood’s Walk of Fame, 8 World Music Awards and 3 Classical BRITs 

1958 – Beth Catlin born, autistic savant; her hobby is making and sending birthday cards to people she has met. She is able to remember the names, birthdates and addresses of 3,834 people so far; no card has ever been returned for a mistaken address

1961 – John F. Kennedy signs congressional act establishing the Peace Corps

1961 – Diane Lemieux born, French Canadian politician, lawyer and feminist; advocate for women’s rights and sexual assault victims. Member of the Assemblée nationale du Québec (Quebec National Assembly, 1998-2007); president of the Conseil du statut de la femme (Quebec Council for the Status of Women/CSF, 1996-1998); recipient of Québec’s 1991 Prix de la Justice award

1964 – Fiddler on the Roof opens on Broadway, and The Man From U.N.C.L.E. debuts on NBC-TV

1970 – Gladys Berejiklian born to Armenian immigrants, Australian politician, Premier of New South Wales and Leader of the New South Wales Liberal Party since 2017; Liberal Party Deputy Leader  (2014-2017); Member of the New South Wales Parliament for Willoughby (2003-2017)

1971 – Elizabeth Bear born as Sarah Bear Wishnevsky, American speculative fiction author; 2005 John W. Campbell Best  New Writer; 2006 Locus Award for Best First Novel, Hammered/Scardown/Worldwired ; 2008 Hugo Award for Best Short Story, “Tideline”; and 2009 Hugo Award for Best Novelette for Shoggoths in Bloom

1971 – Gloria Borger born, American journalist, columnist and chief political analyst at CNN; previously an anchor at CNBC, and a correspondent for CBS News

1975 – Sara Jane Moore is foiled by the U.S. Secret Service in an attempt to assassinate President Gerald Ford

1980 – Conflict between Iran and Iraq erupts into full-scale war

1985 – First Farm-Aid concert, Champaign IL, raises $10 million for U.S. farm families

1983 – U.S. Congress passes joint resolution acknowledging Business Women’s Day * to honor the founding of the Business Women’s Association on September 22, 1949

1988 – Canadian government apologizes for internment of Japanese-Canadians during World War II, and promises compensation

1992 – U.N. General Assembly expels Yugoslavia for its role in Bosnia-Herzegovina war

1995 – Time Warner strikes a deal to buy Turner Broadcasting for $7.5 billion

1996 – The first Elephant Appreciation Day * in the U.S.

2000 – The first World Car Free Day *

2008 – U.S. Mint unveils the first changes to the penny in 50 years; new designs replace the Lincoln Memorial on the other side from Abraham Lincoln’s head

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