December 6th is

Microwave Oven Day *

National Miners’ Day *

Mitten Tree Day *

National Gazpacho Day

Pawnbroker’s Day

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MORE! Evelyn Underhill, Ira Gershwin and Mall Nukke, click

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WORLD FESTIVALS AND NATIONAL HOLIDAYS

Christianity – Feast Day of Saint Nicholas (patron saint of pawnbrokers)

Åland – Independence Day

Ecuador – Quito: Founding Day

Finland – Independence Day

Spain – Día de la Constitución Española
(Constitution Day)

United States – Washington DC
Capitol Tree Lighting Ceremony

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On This Day in HISTORY

846 – Hasan al-Askari born, the 11^th Imam of 12 Imams of Twelver Shia Islam

1060 – Bella I overthrows his brother Andrew, and becomes King of Hungary; introduces monetary reform and subdues the last attempt to restore paganism in Hungary; he is fatally injured when his throne collapses under him in 1063

1478 – Baldassare Castiglione, count of Casatico, born, Italian courtier, diplomat and author of The Book of the Courtier, a discussion of the ideal Renaissance gentleman

1534 – Sebastián de Belalcázar’s band of settlers founds the city of Quito  in Ecuador

1586 – Niccolò Zucchi born, Italian Jesuit, astronomer and physicist, known as one of the first to see the belts on the planet Jupiter, and for using a curved mirror instead of a lens in a telescope, a very early reflecting telescope

1731 – Sophie von La Roche born in Bavaria, author of the first German novel written by a woman, Geschichte des Fräuleins von Sternheim (History of Lady Sophia Sternheim)

1768 – The first edition of the Encyclopædia Britannica is published

1774 – Austria became the first nation to introduce a state education system

1790 – The U.S. Congress moves from New York to Philadelphia

1805 – Jean-Eugène Robert-Houdin born, French magician, a famous illusionist, considered the father of modern conjuring

1823 – F. Max Müller born in Germany, Orientalist and philologist who worked most of his life in Britain, specializing in Sanskrit and the religions of India; pioneering translator into English of 51 volumes of ancient sacred texts from Sanskrit, and the series Sacred Book of the Buddhists

1846 – The Hector Berlioz opera La Damnation de Faust debuts in Paris

1865 – The U.S. Constitution’s 13^th Amendment is ratified, abolishing slavery in the U.S.

1868 – Paraguayan War: Brazilian Field Marshal Luís Alves de Lima e Silva, Duke of Caxias, leads 13,000 Brazilian and allied troops against a Paraguayan fortified position held at a narrow bridge over a stream by 5,000 troops commanded by Colonel Bernardino Caballero. The Battle of  Ytororó lasted all day, but by nightfall, the bridge was taken by the Brazilian forces

1875 – Evelyn Underhill born, English Catholic writer and pacifist; her best-known work, Mysticism, published in 1911, was very widely read at the time

1876 – Fred Duesenberg born, German-American businessman, co-founded the Duesenberg Automobile & Motors Company

1877 – The first edition of  The Washington Post is published

1884 – The construction of the Washington Monument was completed by Army engineers, 34 years after construction started

Postcard of the Washington Monument, circa 1885

1884 – Cornelia Meigs born, American author, playwright, and academic; won the 1915 Drama League prize for The Steadfast Princess, and the 1933 Newbery Medal for Invincible Louisa, a biography of Louisa May Alcott

1886 – Joyce Kilmer born, American writer and poet, chiefly remembered for his poem “Trees,” and for being killed during the WWI Second Battle of the Marne in July, 1918, at the age of 31

1887 – Joseph Lamb born, American ragtime music composer

1892 – Sir Osbert Sitwell, 5^th Baronet, born, English writer, critic and poet, brother of poet and author Edith Sitwell

1893 – Sylvia Townsend Warner born, English novelist and poet; noted for Summer Will Show, an early lesbian love story set in Paris during the 1848 revolution

1896 – Ira Gershwin born, American lyricist who collaborated with his brother, George Gershwin, in creating some of the most memorable songs of the 20th century, many for Broadway and Hollywood

1897 – London becomes the world’s first city with licensed taxicabs

1898 – Winifred Lenihan born, American actress, writer, and director;  played Joan of Arc in the original 1923 American production of Saint Joan;directed radio plays; in 1925, became the first director of the Theater Guild’s School of Acting; co-author of the play Blind Mice

Vanity Fair 1924 – Winifred Lenihan as Saint Joan by Edward Steichen

1898 – Alfred Eisenstaedt born in Germany, American pioneer in photojournalism, notable for his images in LIFE magazine

Alfred Eisenstaedt – ‘Ode to Joy’

1904 – Theodore Roosevelt articulates his “Corollary” to the Monroe Doctrine, stating that the U.S. would intervene in the Western Hemisphere should Latin American governments prove unstable

1904 – Ève Curie born, French-American journalist and pianist; her biography of her mother, Madame Curie, won the 1938 National Book Award for Non-Fiction; worked on behalf of UNICEF(1965-1979)

1905 – Elizabeth Yates born, American author and journalist; began her career contributing articles, mainly on travel to The Christian Science Monitor and The New York Times; among her many books, written mostly for young readers, she is noted for Mountain Born, a Newbery Honor book in 1944, and Amos Fortune, Free Man, a biographical novel about a real person, which won the 1951 Newbery Medal for Excellence in American children’s literature

1907 – Miners’ Day * – The worst mining disaster in American history kills 362 men and boys in Monongah WV; Miners’ Day, sponsored by the Miners’ Day Memorial Association of West Virginia, is recognized by Congress on December 6, 2009

1908 – Herta Taussig Freitag born in Austria, Austrian-American mathematician; professor of mathematics at Hollins College; known for her work on the Fibonacci numbers; she earned her masters at the University of Vienna in 1934, and was working there until 1938, when her father, editor of Die Neue Freie Presse, came under threat by the Nazis for having editorialized against them, and she emigrated with her family to England, where she had to work as a maid because English immigration laws prevented her from entering the country as a teacher. Her father died in 1943, and she, with her mother and brother. moved to the U.S., where she was able to resume teaching mathematics at the Greer School (1944-1948). She earned a second masters degree (1948) and her PhD (1953) from Columbia University. She joined the faculty at Hollins College in 1948, and later became a full professor and department chair. In 1962, she was the first woman to serve in her section as section president for the Mathematical Association of America; she was a frequent contributor to the Fibonacci Quarterly, which dedicated an issue to her for her 89^th birthday (89 is Fibonacci number)

1916 – Yekaterina Budanova born, a Soviet Air Force fighter pilot during WWII. With five air victories, she was one of the world’s first two women fighter aces, with Lydia Litvyak. She was shot down in 1943 near Novokrasnovka, and was buried there

1917 – Finland proclaims its independence from Russia

1920 – Dave Brubeck born, American pianist and composer

1921 – Piero Piccioni born, Italian film score composer (Swept Away)

1922 – The Irish Free State, a self-governing dominion of Britain, is inaugurated one year to the day after the Anglo-Irish treaty is signed

1923 – U.S. President Calvin Coolidge gives the first presidential address, to a joint session of Congress, which is broadcast on the radio

1926 – In Italy, Benito Mussolini introduces a tax on bachelors; the tax, which was in effect until the fall of Mussolini in 1943, was a race-based pronatalist policy

1928 – The Colombian government troops put down a month-long strike by United Fruit Company workers, resulting in an unknown number of deaths

1933 – U.S. federal judge John M. Woolsey rules that James Joyce’s Ulysses is not obscene

1939 – Cole Porter’s musical Du Barry Was a Lady opens on Broadway

1945 – Microwave Oven Day * – Percy Spenser, while working on a magnetron, notices its effect on food, and begins experiments that lead to his invention of the microwave oven, which he patents on December 6

1947 – Everglades National Park in Florida is dedicated by U.S. President Truman

1949 – Linda Barnes born, America mystery writer; noted for her Carlotta Carlyle series; her story “Lucky Penny” won the Anthony Award for Best Short Story, and A Trouble of Fools, her first Carlotta book, won the Edgar Award for Best Novel

1950 – Helen Liddell born, Baroness Liddell of CoatDyke; British Labour politician; Life Peer in the House of Lords since 2010; British High Commissioner to Australia (2005-2009); Secretary of State for Scotland (2001-2003); Minister for Trade and Industry (1999-2001) Minister for Transport (1999); Member of Parliament, for Airdrie and Shotts (1998-2005), and for Monklands East (1994-1997)

1951 – Wendy Ellis Somes born, worldwide producer of the Sir Frederick Ashton ballets Cinderella and Symphonic Variations since 1994; dancer (1970), soloist and principal ballerina with the Royal Ballet in London; retired from dancing in 1990

1953 – Vladimir Nabokov completes his controversial novel Lolita

1957 – The AFL-CIO expelled the International Brotherhood of Teamsters after disclosures of corruption, and increasing influence of organized crime

1957 – America’s first attempt to put a satellite into orbit blows up on the launch pad at Cape Canaveral FL

1964 – Mall Nukke born, Estonian Artist, painter and printmaker, known for her paintings, collages and installations

Still-life I, by Mall Nukke

1967 – Adrian Kantrowitz performs the first U.S. human heart transplant

1968 – The James Taylor Album is released in Britain

1969 – The Rolling Stones release their album Beggar’s Banquet, on the day four people are killed during their concert at Altamont Speedway

1973 – Gerald R. Ford is sworn in as U.S. vice-president after Spiro Agnew resigns because of income tax evasion and bribery charges to which he pleads no contest

1985 – Tandy Corporation introduces a hand-held cellular phone that weighs 11 pounds and sells for $1.199.00

1991 – The movie Star Trek VI – Undiscovered Country premieres

1992 – Thousands of Hindu extremists destroy a 16^th century mosque in Ayodhya, India, setting off two months of Hindu-Muslim riots that claim at least 2,000 lives

1994 – Orange County, CA, files for bankruptcy protection after investment losses of about $2 billion. The county is one of the richest in America and the largest U.S. municipality to file for bankruptcy

2006 – The bipartisan Iraq Study Group concludes that President George W. Bush’s war policies have failed in almost every regard, and that the situation in Iraq is “grave and deteriorating”

2006 – NASA reveals Mars Global Surveyor photographs suggesting the presence of liquid water on Mars

2009 – The Mitten Tree, by Candace Chirtiansen, is published, which inspires Mitten Tree Day* to remind us warm clothing donations are needed for the less fortunate now

2013 – Nelson Mandela dies at age 95; South Africa’s first black president (1994-1999), his election was a key part of the final and peaceful end of apartheid laws, which had denied the human and civil rights of South Africa’s overwhelmingly black majority

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