September 4th is

Eat an Extra Dessert Day

Macadamia Nut Day

Newspaper Carrier Day *

National Wildlife Day *

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MORE! Mary Renault, Richard Wright and Marita Ulvskog, click

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WORLD FESTIVALS AND NATIONAL HOLIDAYS

Argentina – Immigrants Day

Denmark – Aarhus: Aarhus Festival
(Danish cultural festival)

Ecuador – Otavalo: Yamor Festival
(Intercultural brew-dance-music fest)

Finland – Helsinki:
Helsinki Photo Festival

Romania – Bucharest:
International Dance Film Festival

Morocco – Marrakesh: World Salsa
Congress (dance fest, ends Sept-10-2019)

South Africa – Secunda:
Umuzi Week of Festivals

Spain – Sant Antoni de Portmany:
Urbanización Music Festival

United Kingdom – London:
World Aviation Festival

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On This Day in HISTORY

522 BC – Pindar born, Greek poet

476 – Romulus Augustulus, last emperor of the Western Roman Empire, is deposed when Odoacer proclaims himself “King of Italy”, regarded as the end of the Western Roman Empire

626 – Li Shimin assumes the throne of the Tang dynasty in China; he will posthumously be called Emperor Taizong; his era, the “Reign of Zhenguan” is considered a golden age, when China flourishes economically, and enjoys some periods of peace; one of his first acts on assuming the throne was to release a number of ladies in waiting from the palace, returning them to their homes so they could be married

973 – Al-Bīrūnī born in the Khwarezm region, under the suzerainty of the Arab Umayyads; Persian scholar, polymath, mathematician, scientist, historian and linguist; he was versed in astronomy, chemistry and most other natural sciences, and philosophy; well-read in Persian, Arabic, Greek and Hebrew

1557 – Sophie of Mecklenburg-Güstrow born, married at 14 to 38-year-old Frederick II of Denmark; Frederick was known for his heavy drinking, eating and infidelities, so she sent the three oldest of their seven children to live with her parents during their early years. She was interested in science and visited astronomer Tycho Brahe, and also interested in folklore and music.  She had no political power during her husband’s reign, but after his death in 1588, she began going against the wishes of the regency council, making a match between her daughter, Anne of Denmark, and James VI of Scotland in 1589, and arranging her own allowance and dowries for her daughters. She was excluded from the council, but served as regent of the duchy of Schleswig-Holstein (1590-1594), for her son Christian. She was engaged in a power struggle with the Council of State in 1593, when they declared 16-year-old Christian was of age, although he wasn’t crowned until 1596. She was exiled in 1554 to the island of Falster, where she spent her time studying chemistry, astronomy and other sciences. As the Dowager Queen, Sophie managed her estates in Lolland-Falster so well that her son borrowed money from her on several occasions for his wars. She also engaged in large-scale trade and in money-lending.  She was involved in an inheritance dispute with her uncle from 1608 until his death in 1610. In 1628, she used her influence to help prevent Christian from having her grandson’s lover, Ann Lykke, accused of witchcraft, after he had her abducted and sent to the Bohus Fortress. Instead, Ann was put under house arrest on her estate. Sophie died at age 74 as the richest woman in Northern Europe

1666 – The most destructive day of the Great Fire of London, as flames leaped the River Fleet on the westside in the early morning, then broke through a firebreak in the north and destroyed Cheapside. Wooden scaffolding put up to make repairs to St. Paul’s Cathedral caught fire, then burned so hot the lead roof melted. The fire, which began on September 2, didn’t burn out until September 6

Great Fire of London – St. Paul’s Cathedral (artist unknown)

1768 – Francois Auguste Rene Vicomte de born, French author and diplomat. His chef, Montmireil, creates the dish Chateaubriand, and names it for his boss

1781 – “El Pueblo de Nuestra Senora La Reina de Los Angeles de Porciuncula” (Town of the Queen of the Angels) is founded, now Los Angeles CA

Los Angeles Mission Church in 1870 – Los Angeles, California

1824 – Anton Bruckner born, Austrian composer, organist and teacher

1825 – NY Governor Dewitt Clinton empties a barrel of Lake Erie water into the Atlantic Ocean in “Marriage of the Waters” ceremony for the new Erie Canal

1825 – Dadahai Naoroji born in British India, Liberal Party Member of Parliament for Finsbury Central in the United Kingdom House of Commons (1892-1895), the first Indian to serve in the British Parliament (elected by a 5-vote margin); Parsi intellectual, educator and cotton trader; author of Poverty and Un-British Rule in India; co-founder of the Indian National Congress in 1895, and its president in 1906

1833 – Newspaper Carrier Day * – New York Sun editor Benjamin Day runs an ad for “steady men” to vend the paper. When 10-year-old Barney Flaherty applies for the job, he impresses Day, and is hired, becoming the first paperboy. His cry of “Paper! Get your paper, here!” becomes the universal pitch of boys – and some girls – hawking the news

Possible photograph of Barney Flaherty

1846 – Daniel Burnham born, American architect and city planner; the Director of Works for the World’s Columbian Exposition in Chicago

1850 – The Eusébio de Queirós Law, named for the Brazilian Minister of Justice (1848-1852) abolishes the international slave trade in Brazil. Slavery, however, was not abolished until 1888. Between 1525 and 1851, over 4 million Africans were forcibly brought to the country in slave ships

1866 – Simon Lake born, American inventor; builder of the submarine Argonaut

1882 – Thomas Edison flips the switch to the first commercial electrical power plant in history, lighting one square mile of lower Manhattan; often considered the day that begins the electrical age

1885 – The Exchange Buffet opens in NYC, first self-service cafeteria-style restaurant

1886 – Geronimo and his band surrender in Skeleton Canyon to General Nelson Miles, after almost 30 years of fighting

1888 – George Eastman registers trademark “Kodak” and patents his roll-film camera

1892 – Darius Milhaud born, French composer and educator

1901 – William Lyons born, co-founder of Jaguar automobiles

1905 – Mary Renault born in South Africa, English author, noted for novels set in Ancient Greece; The King Must Die, The Bull from the Sea, The Mask of Apollo, The Last of the Wine, and The Praise Singer

1908 – Richard Wright born, black American author of Native Son and Black Boy, exposing American racism and its harsh effects

1908 – Edward Dmytryk born, American film director; one of the “Hollywood Ten”

1917 – WWI: The first deaths of American soldiers in France

1919 – Mustafa Kemal Atatürk, founder of the Republic of Turkey, opens the Congress in Sivas because Constantinople is still under occupation

1921 – First police broadcast made by station WIL in St. Louis MO

1924 – Joan Aiken born, English author of supernatural fiction and books for children; The Wolves of Willoughby Chase, Night Fall, and The Whispering Mountain

1934 – Clive Granger born in Wales, American economist; 2009 Nobel Prize

1935 – Simone de Beauvoir becomes a subscriber to the lending library of the Shakespeare & Company English-language bookstore in Paris, and begins reading books by American authors like John Dos Passos and William Faulkner, which she recommends to friends. This helps establish their reputations in Europe well before they are accepted in America

1937 – Dawn Fraser born, Australian swimmer and politician; she was a freestyle champion, winner of eight Olympic gold medals, and one of only three swimmers to win the same Olympic event three different Olympics (1956, 1960 and 1964) – in her case, for the women’s 100-metre freestyle. She became a swim coach, then was elected as an independent to the New South Wales Legislative Assembly representing Balmain (1988-1991). Fraser was inducted into the International Swimming Hall of Fame in 1965, and made a Member of the Order of the British Empire in 1967. In 1985, she was the first woman to be inducted into the Sport Australia Hall of Fame, and named Australian Female Athlete of the Century. She was a bearer of the Olympic Torch in the stadium at the opening ceremony of the 2000 Summer Olympics in Sydney

1941 – Marilena de Souza Chaui born, Brazilian philosopher, noted for her studies of Baruch Spinoza and Maurice Merleau-Ponty; a founding member of the Worker’s Party, and outspoken critic of the capitalist model

1944 – WWII: The British 11th Armoured Division liberates the Belgian city of Antwerp

1951 – First live, coast-to-coast TV broadcast, of the Japanese Peace Treaty Conference in San Francisco, is seen all the way to New York City

1951 – Marita Ulvskog born, Swedish politician, current member of the European Parliament from Sweden since 2009; member of the European Parliament Inter group on Western Sahara, and of the EP Intergroup on the Welfare and Conservation of Animals; Secretary of the Social Democratic Party (2004-2009); Deputy Prime Minister of Sweden (2003-2004); Minister for Culture and Sports (1996-2004); Member of the Swedish Parliament (1998-2009)

1953 – Janet Biehl born, American political writer, ecofeminist, author of numerous books on social ecology, freelance copy editor and translator. She is a supporter of the Kurdish freedom movement, and in 2012, translated from German to English the book Democratic Autonomy in North Kurdistan by the solidarity group TATORT Kurdistan, about a field study of democratic institutions built by the Kurdish movement in southeastern Turkey to implement democratic confederalism. In 2014 and 2015, she published several articles about her visits to Rojava, the Kurdish region of northern Syria. In 2016, she translated into English Revolution in Rojava: Democratic Autonomy and Women’s Liberation in Northern Syria, written by Michael Knapp, Anja Flach, and Ercan Ayboga. In the spring of 2019, she returned to Rojava to work on a documentary film. She is also the author of Finding Our Way: Rethinking Ecofeminist Politics

Janet Biehl in Rojava

1957 – Governor Orval Faubus orders the Arkansas National Guard to keep nine black students from going into Little Rock’s Central High School

1957 – After a year-long advertising campaign for “the car of the future,” the Ford Edsel goes on sale; Ford’s most expensive flop, it cost the company $250 million

1958 – Jacqueline Hewitt born, astrophysicist, discoverer of Einstein rings while appointed to a postdoctoral fellowship at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology (MIT -1986-1988); full-time professor at MIT since 1989, and principal investigator for MIT’s Radio Astronomy Group; since 2002, she had been Director of the MIT Kavli Institute for Astrophysics and Space Research, but stepped down in January, 2019

1959 – Bobby Darin’s version of “Mack the Knife” is banned by a NY radio station WCBS after a teen gang member fatally stabs two other teens

1962 – The Beatles begin their first session at Abbey Road studios, rehearsing “Love Me Do” and “Please Please Me”

1962 – Ulla Pedersen Tørnæs born, Danish Liberal Party politician; Minister for Development Cooperation since 2016. For 9 months in 2016, she was Minister for Science, Technology, Information and Higher Education, during which she implemented Uddannelsesloftet (the education ceiling) a highly controversial program which eliminated most of the government funding for Danish student’s higher education,, affecting almost ¾ of students, in order to cover an expected shortfall in funding for the dagpenge system (an unemployment daily allowance for up to two years for those seeking jobs); was a member of the European Parliament for the ALDE (Alliance of Liberals and Democrats for Europe – 2014-2016), also serving as Vice-Chair of the Committee on Employment and Social Affairs; member of the management committee of the Danish Liberal Democracy Programme (DLDP – 2010-2016); on the World Bank Advisory Council on Women’s Economic Empowerment (2007-2010); Danish Minister for Development Cooperation (2005-2007)

1967 – Sam and Dave single of “Soul Man” and Lulu’s “To Sir With Love” are released

1968 – Rolling Stones’ “Street Fighting Man” banned by several Chicago radio stations because authorities feared public disorder during Democratic National Convention

1969 – The Mexico City Metro, Sistema de Transporte Colectivo (STC), opens its first line, which is 7.9 miles long (12.7 kilometers) and serves 16 stations

1972 – Swimmer Mark Spitz becomes the first person to win seven gold medals at a single Olympic Games when the U.S. team wins the 400-meter relay in Munich

1991 – The government of South Africa signs a memorandum of understanding with the UN High Commissioner for Refugees (UNHCR) on  voluntary repatriation and reintegration of South Africans from exile; the agreement provides for hearings for exiles, represented by UNHCR advocates, whose re-entry is disputed by the government, a comprehensive amnesty, and freedom of movement for returnees within South Africa

1995 – The Fourth World Conference on Women opens in Beijing, with over 4,750 delegates representing 181 countries

1998 – Mexican bankers stop approving personal loans and mortgages

1998 – The International Monetary Fund approves a $257 million loan for the Ukraine

1998 – Google is founded by Larry Page and Sergey Brin; they are both still students at Stanford University

1999 – The U.N. announces East Timor voters overwhelmingly chose independence from Indonesia in August 30 referendum. In Dili, pro-Indonesian militias burn buildings, attack independence supporters, destroy telecommunications and blow up bridges

2005 – National Wildlife Day * is established in memory of conservationist and animal lover Steve Irwin, to bring attention to the global number of endangered species, honor those working to save them, and educate the public about what they can do to help

2007 – Toy maker Mattel Inc. recalls 800,000 lead-tainted, Chinese-made toys worldwide, a third major recall in just over a month

2008 – The very first Fender Strat that Jimi Hendrix set on fire while performing is auctioned at Sotheby’s in London for $500,000

2012 – Pauline Marois becomes the first woman premier of Quebec

2014 – Archaeologists in Denmark discover a Viking Age circular fortress, Vallø Borgring, dating from the 900s. The fortress was possibly built during the reign of legendary Danish King Harald Bluetooth, as its construction is much like the previously discovered fortress at Hobro, widely believed to have been built during his reign

Vallø Borgring – artist’s concept

2016 – Saudi Arabia and Russia, the world’s two biggest oil producers, reach an agreement to jointly attempt stabilizing oil prices. They announced they would set up a working group to monitor the market and develop ways to calm it after months of oversupply and falling prices, but failed to agree on an output cap. Speculators sent crude oil futures soaring by 3%. The two countries announced they will hold meetings in Algeria in October, and in Vienna in November to continue discussing cooperation

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