February 10th is

‘All the News That’s Fit to Print’ Day *

Cream Cheese Brownie Day

Plimsoll Day *

Umbrella Day *

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MORE! Roberta Flack, Andrew Brimer and Ron Brown, click

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WORLD FESTIVALS AND NATIONAL HOLIDAYS

Eritrea – Fenkil Day *
(1990 Battle of Massawa)

Iraqi Kurdistan –
Kurdish Authors Union Day

Italy – Giorno del ricordo
(Memorial Day of Exiles and Foibe Victims)

Malta – Feast of St. Paul’s Shipwreck
(Malta’s patron saint shipwrecked there 60 AD)

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On This Day in HISTORY

1258 – Baghdad falls to Mongols led by Hulagu Khan; a Mongol taboo forbids spilling a royal ruler’s blood, so ten days later Caliph Al-Musta’sim is wrapped in a carpet and trampled to death by horses; the rest of his family are executed, except his youngest son who is sent to Mongolia, and a daughter who became a slave in Hulagu’s harem

1306 – Robert the Bruce and his men murder John ‘Red’ Comyn, a rival for the throne of Scotland who betrayed Bruce’s plotting against English rule to Edward I, before the high altar of Greyfriar’s Church in Dumfries

The Killing of Comyn in Greyfriars Church in Dumfries, by Felix Philippoteaux

1355 – The St. Scholastica Day riot in Oxford, England, begins with a dispute between two students and the taverner of Swindlestock Tavern over the quality of drinks that escalates into a fight, then armed clashes between locals and students in a riot lasting two days which left 63 scholars and 30 locals dead. A special charter is created which forces the mayor and town councilors to march bareheaded through the streets every February 10^thand pay the University a fine of one penny for each scholar killed, a total of 5s, 3d, which continues for 470 years until the mayor in 1825 refuses to take part. On February 10, 1955, an act of conciliation awards the Mayor an honorary degree and the Vice-Chancellor is made  an Honorary Freeman

1499 – Thomas Platter the Elder born, Swiss scholar, linguist, teacher, author and printer; noted for his autobiography, which chronicles his youthful studies and travels

1567 – Lord Darnley, second husband of Mary, Queen of Scots, is found strangled following an explosion at the Kirk o’ Field house in Edinburgh, Scotland

1609 – Sir John Suckling born, Cavalier poet, inventor of the game Cribbage

1696 – Johann Melchior Molter born, German violinist and composer

1763 – The 1763 Treaty of Paris ends the French and Indian War; France cedes Quebec to Great Britain

1775 – Charles Lamb born, English poet-essayist; co-author of Tales from Shakespeare

1824 – Plimsoll Day * Samuel Plimsoll born, English MP for Derby, social reformer; author of Our Seamen, which led to amending the Merchant Shipping Act, requiring ship hulls to be marked with a load line, dubbed the Plimsoll line, showing the maximum amount of the ship’s hull allowed to be underwater, so there’s enough freebroad (the part of the hull above water) to prevent overloading the vessel; as honorary president of the National Sailors’ and Firemen’s Union, he also campaigned to stop overcrowding on cattle-ships; Plimsoll shoes are named after the Plimsoll lines on ships because of the line of rubber that marries the rubber sole to the canvas upper

1842 – Agnes Mary Clerke born, Irish astronomer and author; her treatise, A Popular History of Astronomy in the Nineteenth Century, was recognized as authoritative, and remains her best-known work. Clerke also wrote biographies of famous scientists for the 9^th edition of the Encyclopaedia Britannica

1847 – Nabinchandra Sen born, Bengali poet, noted for his epic trilogy based on the New Mahabharata: Raivatak, Kurukkhetra and Provash; his works are in cluded in the Bengali Literary curriculum of schools in Bangladesh

1870 – The Young Women’s Christian Association (YWCA) initiates typewriter and sewing machine instruction for women, and the first employment bureau for women

1881 – Pauline Brunius born, Swedish actress, stage and film director, and screenwriter; managing director of the Royal Dramatic Theatre (1938-1948)

1883 – Edith Clarke born; orphaned at 12, she uses her inheritance to study mathematics and astronomy at Vassar College, graduating in 1908. After a teaching job, and working as a “computer” for George Campbell at AT&T, in 1918 she goes to the Massachusetts Institute of Technology, and the following year she becomes the first woman to earn an M.S. in electrical engineering from MIT. Unable to find work as an engineer because no one would hire a woman, she  returns to “computing” but as a supervisor, and in her spare time, invents the Clarke Calculator which solves line equations involving hyperbolic functions ten times faster than previous methods –  patents it in 1925. First woman to: deliver a paper at the American Institute of Electrical Engineers; win the AIEE Best National Paper Prize (1941); write an influential textbook in the field of power engineering, Circuit Analysis of A-C Power Systems; first woman professor of electrical engineering in the U.S.(1947), at University of Texas at Austin; first female Fellow of the American Institute of Electrical Engineers – She certainly persisted.

1890 – Fanya Kaplan born in what is now Ukraine; at 16 is arrested for taking part in a Socialist Revolutionaries’ bomb plot and sentenced to life at the katorga (hard-labor prison camps); in Siberia, she is stripped naked and severely caned,  loses her sight (partially restored later); released when after the February Revolution in 1917, but suffering from continuous headaches and bouts of blindness; becomes disillusioned with Lenin, considers him “a traitor to the Revolution” and attempts to assassinate him on August 30, 1918, wounding but not killing him; his health is impaired, leading to the series of strokes which eventually killed him in 1924. Her only statement: “My name is Fanya Kaplan. Today I shot Lenin. I did it on my own. I will not say from whom I obtained my revolver. I will give no details. I had resolved to kill Lenin long ago. I consider him a traitor to the Revolution. I was exiled to Akatui for participating in an assassination attempt against a Tsarist official in Kiev. I spent 11 years at hard labour. After the Revolution, I was freed. I favoured the Constituent Assembly and am still for it.” She is executed on September 3, 1918

1890 – Boris Pasternak born, major Russian poet-novelist, Nobel Laureate (1958) primarily for Doctor Zhivago, which was rejected for publication in the USSR, but is smuggled to Milan, Italy and published in 1957; the Soviet government forced Pasternak to decline the Nobel Prize, but his descendants were able to accept in his name in 1988

1897 – John Franklin Enders born, American virologist, Nobel Prize laureate (1954)

1897 – ‘All the News That’s Fit to Print’ Day * – The motto of the New York Times moves from the Editorial Page to the Front Page

1898 – Bertolt Brecht born, German playwright, theatre director and poet; developed ‘Epic Theatre’ a modernist form of theatre as a forum for political ideas; noted for The Threepenny Opera, Mother Courage and Her Children, The Good Woman of Szechwan, and The Caucasian Chalk Circle

1899 – Umbrella Day * John Warren files a patent for an improved folding umbrella

1905 – Chick Webb born, American drummer and bandleader; gave Ella Fitzgerald her first gig, as a vocalist with his band

1906 – King Edward VII christens HMS Dreadnought, first of a new class of battleships

1909 – Min Thu Wun born in British Burma, Burmese poet, writer, scholar and political activist; prominent figure in the Burmese new age literary movement, Kit-San (Testing the Times). He created the Burmese version of Braille for the blind, and also helped compile Mon and Pali –Burmese  dictionaries. As a member of the National League for Democracy political party (NLD), he was elected to the Myanmar Parliament in 1990, but was pressured by the military regime into resigning in 1998. His work had already been banned from publication – the popular publication Sapei Gya-ne (Literary Journal) was blocked from dedicating its June 1995 issue to Min Thu Wun 

1910 – Dominique Pire born, Belgian Dominican friar who helps smuggle downed Allied pilot out of his country during WWII; works with Displaced Person after the war, founding Aide aux Personnes Déplacées which establishes sponsorships for refugee familes, and builds villages in Austria and Germany to help house them; wins the 1958 Nobel Peace Prize; founds L’Université de Paix, specializing in conflict prevention; Islands of Peace, a non-profit organization that has long-term projects in a dozen countries to aid people in being self-sufficient and the prime decision-makers in improving their lives

1920 – Lt. General Józef Haller von Hallenburg, after seizing Danzig during the Polish-Soviet War, performs the symbolic wedding of Poland to the sea, celebrating restitution of Polish access to open sea

1922 – Árpád Göncz born, Hungarian liberal politician, novelist, playwright, translator and writer of English prose. He took part in the Hungarian Revolution of 1956 – he was arrested in 1957, and imprisoned from 1958 to 1963, where he learned to read and write English, and began what would become his career as a translator. He was released as part of a mass amnesty of freedom fighters and revolutionaries which the Hungarian government staged to gain recognition by the United Nations. Göncz worked as a writer and translator after his release He was the main translator of J.R.R. Tolkien’s The Lord of the Rings trilogy into Hungarian, first published in 1981 in Hungary, and he also translated many major works by American and British authors. He returned to politics in 1988, and was elected President of Hungary (1990-2000), the first leader in 42 years who was not a Communist or fellow traveler. He fostered new ties for Hungary with the West, advocating for membership in NATO and the European Union

1923 – Texas Tech University is founded as Texas Technological College in Lubbock

1927 – Leontyne Price born, American lirico spinto soprano, one of the first African Americans to become a leading artist at the Metropolitan Opera; Presidential Medal of Freedom (1964); won 19 Grammy Awards

1930 – Vietnamese soldiers at the Yên Bái garrison of the French colonial army, in collaboration with members of the Việt Nam Quốc Dân Đảng (Vietnamese Nationalist Party), mutiny with the aim of starting a wide-spread revolt within the ranks, but it fails when the majority of Vietnamese soldiers in the garrison refuse to join them

1930 – E. L. Konigsburg born as Elaine Lobl, American children’s author and illustrator; won two Newbury Medals (1968 and 1997); also noted for historical novel A Proud Taste for Scarlet and Miniver

1933 –NY Postal Telegraph Co. delivers first singing telegram with a box of chocolates

1937 – Anne Anderson born, Scottish reproductive physiologist, researcher, lecturer and author, noted for her research on the birth process, medical care during labour, and women’s overall health. Anderson was elected as a fellow of the Royal College of Obstetricians and Gynaecologists in 1981. She was co-editor with Ann McPherson of the first edition (1983) of Women’s Problems in General Practice. Anderson was one of the initial editors of a companion volume, Effective Care in Labour and Delivery, but her illness and death in 1983, from breast cancer at age 46, ended her career

1939 – Adrienne Clarkson born in Hong Kong, Canadian journalist and politician; Governor General of Canada (1999-2005)

1939 – Roberta Flack born, American singer-songwriter; holds solo artist record for Grammy Award for Record of the Year wins in consecutive years, 1973 and 1974

1940 – The Soviet Union, as part of their campaign of sovietization, begins mass deportations of Polish citizens who served the pre-war Polish state from Soviet-occupied eastern Poland to Siberia

1942 – The first gold record is presented to Glenn Miller for “Chattanooga Choo Choo”

1944 – Frances Moore Lappe born, vegetarian activist and author; noted for Diet for a Small Planet

1945 – Delma S. Arrigoitia born, Puerto Rican historian, author, biographer and lawyer; first person at the University of Puerto Rico to earn a masters in the field of history; after getting her doctorate at Fordham University, she helped develop UPR’s graduate school for history

1947 – Paris crowds gather at shop windows to see Christian Dior’s ‘New Look’ in fashions: longer skirts, nipped-in waists and padded shoulders

1947 – Louise Arbour born, French Canadian lawyer, prosecutor, and jurist; currently the United Nations Special Representative for International Migration (since 2017); UN High Commissioner for Human Rights (2004-2008); Puisne Justice of the Supreme Court of Canada (1999-2004) – Puisne means a lower-ranking , or regular member of a judicial group, in this case, other than the Chief Justice. She was research officer for the Law Reform Commission of Canada (1972-1973), then Vice-President of the Canadian Civil Liberties Association, as well as working her way from Lecturer to Associate Professor at Osgoode Hall Law School, Yorke University (1974-1987). Appointed to the Supreme Court of Ontario (1987), then to the Court of Appeal for Ontario (1990). President of a Commission of Inquiry (1995), investigating allegations of prisoner abuse at the Prison for Women in Kingston, Ontario. Appointed in 1996 as Chief Prosecutor of the International Criminal Tribunal for Rwanda in Arusha, and of the International Criminal Tribunal for the former Yugoslavia (ICTY) in The Hague. She indicted then-Serbian President Slobodan Milošević for war crimes, the first time a serving head of State was called to account before an international court

1948 – UN Security Council Resolution 17: the UN commission, established in 1946 to investigate and recommend solutions to the border conflicts along the Greek-Albanian and Bulgarian-Yugoslavian frontiers, is not empowered to request the governments of Greece, Albania, Bulgaria or Yugoslavia to postpone the executions of any of their political prisoners unless a prisoner could give witness that would assist the commission in its task

1949 – UN Security Council Resolution 68 is adopted, resolving that UN General Assembly Resolution 192 on arms reduction be transmitted to the Commission for General Armaments for action

1949 – Arthur Miller’s Death of a Salesman premieres on Broadway

1954 – U.S. President Eisenhower warns against United States intervention in Vietnam

1956 – Little Richard records “Long Tall Sally”

1962 – Captured American U2 spy-plane pilot Gary Powers is exchanged for captured Soviet spy Rudolf Abel

1962 – Roy Lichtenstein’s first solo exhibition opens

Kiss, by Roy Lichtenstein 

1964 – After 12 days of debate and voting on 125 amendments, the U.S. House of Representatives passed the Civil Rights Act of 1964 by a vote of 290-130

1966 – Economist Andrew Brimer becomes the first African American appointed to the Federal Reserve Board

Andrew Brimer being sworn in by William M. Martin, with his wife
and daughter watching, and President Lyndon Johnson

1966 – Natalie L. Bennett born in New South Wales, Australia, British politician and journalist; Leader of the Green Party of England and Wales (2012-2016); worked for regional newspapers in Australia until she moved to Thailand in 1995, where she worked for Australian Volunteers International and the Bangkok Post (1995-1999). She moved to Britain in 1999, becoming a contributor to the Guardian, Independent and Times newspapers. She joined the Green Party in 2006, and served as its internal communications coordinator on the national executive committee (2007-2011), and founded the Green Party’s women’s group. She was a trustee of the Fawcett Society, a women’s rights group, from 2010 to 2014

1967 – The 25th Amendment to the United States Constitution is ratified; requires the appointment of a vice-president when the office is vacant and institutes new measures in the event of presidential disability

1970 – Åsne Seierstad born, Norwegian freelance journalist and writer, noted for her accounts of everyday life in war zones, including Kabul after 2001, Baghdad in 2002, and Grozny, Chechnya, in 2006, and for her 2004 book, The Bookseller of Kabul

1972 – Ras Al Khaimah joins the United Arab Emirates, now making up seven emirates

1973 – Martha Lane Fox born, Baroness Lane-Fox of Soho, British executive, philanthropies and public servant; founder and executive chair of Doteveryone.org.uk, a think tank and charity championing responsible technology. She became the youngest woman member of the House of Lords in 2013, as a crossbencher and Life Peer; appointed as Chancellor  of the Open University in 2014

1989 – Ron Brown is elected chair of the Democratic National Committee, becoming the first African American to lead a major American political party

1990 – South African President F.W. de Klerk announces that black activist Nelson Mandela would be released the next day after 27 years in captivity

1990 – Operation Fenkil * Second Battle of Massawa: The Eritrean People’s Liberation Front wins a decisive victory over the Ethiopian Army

1996 – IBM supercomputer Deep Blue defeats World Chess Champion Garry Kasparov for the first time

1997 – Comet Shoemaker-Holt 2 Closest Approach to Earth (1.9245 AU)

1998 – Voters in Maine repeal a 1997 gay rights law

2003 – France and Belgium break the NATO procedure of silent approval concerning the timing of protective measures for Turkey in case of a possible war with Iraq

2005 – North Korea publicly announces for the first time it has nuclear arms

2007 – At a protest by Vetevendosje, a movement for the right of self-determination, in Pristina, Kosovo, 2 people are killed  by UNMIK Police

2007 – Sen. Barack Obama, (D-IL) kicks off his presidential campaign in a speech at the state house in Springfield

2011 – Egyptian President Hosni Mubarak refuses to step down or leave the country; instead hands his powers to his vice president

2015 – Comedian Jon Stewart announces he will be leaving “The Daily Show”

2016 – Venezuelan government orders more than 100 malls to close early to save electricity, due to drought caused by El Niño

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