September 11th is

National Day of Service and Remembrance *

Hot Cross Bun Day

Libraries Remember Day *

Make Your Bed Day

No News is Good News Day

U.S. 911 Emergency Number Day *

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MORE! Joanna Baillie, O. Henry and Samina Raja, click

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WORLD FESTIVALS AND NATIONAL HOLIDAYS

Rastafarian Enkutatash and Coptic Nayrouz (New Year’s Day) – holiday in Eritrea and Ethiopia 

Argentina – Teachers’ Day

Brazil – Goiânia: Festival
Experimental de Arte

Canada – Ottawa: CityFolk
(Music and dance festival)

Germany – Berlin: Berlin Art Week &
Internationales Literaturfestival Berlin

Micronesia – Pohnpei Liberation Day

Nigeria – Kaduna: Kabafest &
Kaduna Books and Art Festival

Pakistan – Quaid-e-Azam Jinnah  

Spain – Catalonia: Day of Catalonia
(1714 siege of Barcelona ends)

Turkey – Selçuk: Ephesus Festival of
Culture and Art (ends Aug-15-2019)

Venezuela – Our Lady of Coromoto Day

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On This Day in HISTORY

AD 600 – Mayan ruler Yuknoom Ch’een II born, also called Yuknoom the Great, his reign over the Kaan kingdom lasted from 636-686, during his rule, Tikal was defeated in war, and became a vassal state to Yuknoom

1297 – William Wallace’s Scottish forces defeat the English at Battle of Stirling Bridge

1390 – Lithuanian Civil War (1389–1392): the Teutonic Knights lay siege to Vilnius

1476 – Louise of Savoy born, French Duchess of Nemours, Angoulême and Anjou; as the mother of King Francis I, she serves as Regent of France in 1515, 1525-1526 and in 1529 during the times when he goes to war, and while he is held prisoner in Spain; Louise is the principal French negotiator for the Treaty of Cambrai with the Holy Roman Empire, called “the Ladies’ Peace” because it is signed by Louis of Savoy and the Empire’s negotiator, Margaret of Austria

1541 – Much of Santiago, Chile, is destroyed by indigenous warriors, led by Michimalonco, but Inés de Suárez rallies a counter-attack, drives the attackers off, then decapitates one of the caciques (leaders) herself

1609 – Henry Hudson’s fourth expedition, sponsored by the Dutch East India Company,  lands at Manhattan Island, then explores the river which is now named for him

1649 – The Siege of Drogheda comes to a bloody end when Oliver Cromwell’s English Parliamentarian troops take the town and execute the entire garrison

1697 – Battle of Zenta: in a surprise attack, Habsburg Imperial Forces rout the Ottoman army as its troops are in the midst of crossing the Tisa River; one of the most decisive defeats ever suffered by the Ottoman Empire, it leads to the end of its control over large parts of Central Europe

1711 – William Boyce born, English Baroque composer and organist, who became a music compiler and editor when increasing deafness forces his retirement from playing

1762 – Joanna Baillie born, Scottish poet and dramatist known for Plays on the Passions (in three volumes) and Fugitive Verses. Baillie did not learn to read until age 10 when she was sent to boarding school, and the only theatrical presentation she was as a child was a puppet show. When her father died in 1778, the family’s financial situation suffered. Her aunt, Anna Home Hunter, was a poet, held a salon in her home, and was a leading Bluestocking (an educated, intellectual woman, originally a member of the Blue Stockings Society from 1720-1800, and used to describe both women and men, but came to be used only for women, and often meant to be derogatory. ‘Bas bleu’ has the same meaning in French). Baillie was introduced by her aunt to Hunter’s circle of friends, including Fanny Burney, Elizabeth Carter, Elizabeth Montagu and Sir Walter Scott. Baillie studied playwrights and poets, then began writing her own while she ran her older brother’s household, until he married in 1791. She then lived with her mother and sister, often having to move, and exchanged letters with Walter Scott and others. She went through period of ill health in her 70s but recovered, then continued writing and corresponding until her death, at age 89, in 1851

1786 – The Annapolis Convention to revise the U.S. Articles of Confederation opens

1789 – U.S. President George Washington appoints Alexander Hamilton as first Secretary of the Treasury

1803 – Battle of Delhi, during the Second Anglo-Maratha War, between British troops under General Lake, and Marathas of Scindia’s army under General Louis Bourquin

1806 – Juliette Magill Kinzie born, history writer, notable for including Native American legends and customs; Wau-Bun: The “Early Day” in the North West (when the ‘North West’ was Chicago); her account of the incident often called a massacre at Fort Dearborn, which she put together from accounts by white people, was the accepted story for decades, but later historians have called its accuracy into question, especially as it varies from the oral history handed down in the Potawatomi tribe

1829 – The Spanish crown’s expedition to retake Mexico ends when General Isidro Barradas surrenders at Tampico, concluding Mexico’s campaign for independence

General Isidro Barradas (pointing), Battle of Pueblo Viejo

1830 – The Anti-Masonic Party holds one of the first American political conventions

1847 – Mary Watson Whitney born, astronomer; Maria Mitchell’s assistant; she became director of the Vassar Observatory (1888-1915) and professor of astronomy upon Mitchell’s retirement; like Mitchell, she was a champion for education and professional careers for women in the sciences. She and her staff published 102 papers in major astronomical journals on their work on comets, asteroids, variable stars, and using photographic plates to study and measure star clusters. By 1906, she was teaching pioneering classes in astrophysics and variable stars to 160 students. Whitney retired in 1910 at age 68 for health reasons

1847 – Steven F. Foster’s “Oh! Susannah” is first performed publicly in Pittsburgh Pennsylvania

1850 – Mary Elizabeth Lease born, American author, lecturer, fiery orator, suffragist and Populist. “Our laws are the output of a system which clothes rascals in robes and honesty in rags. . .”

1850 – Jenny Lind, the “Swedish Nightingale” gives her first U.S. concert in New York

1851 – Escaped slaves stand against their former owner in armed resistance in Christiana, Pennsylvania, creating a rallying cry for the abolitionist movement; Pennsylvania had instituted a gradual abolishment of  slavery in 1780; by the time the Fugitive Slave Law of 1850 was passed by Congress, it was a fully free state. Four slaves of Edward Gorsuch, a wealthy Maryland wheat farmer, flee to Lancaster County in Pennsylvania to the home of William Parker, a multatto free man and member of the Lancaster Black Self-Protection Society. When Gorsuch, accompanied by federal marshals with warrants, catches up with them, he is killed and others are wounded as the slaves and their protectors resist. The case is prosecuted in the Philadelphia U.S District Court; originally 38 people are indicted, but only one, Castner Hanway, is tried; the jury quickly brings in a verdict of Not Guilty

1854 – William Holabird born, American ‘Chicago School’ architect; founding partner in Holabird & Roche, designers of the Marquette Building (1895), a Chicago Landmark

1862 – O. Henry born as William Porter, American short story writer; among his best-known works are “The Gift of the Magi,” “The Last Leaf, “ and “The Ransom of Red Chief.”  The O. Henry Award for outstanding short stories is named in his honor

1875 – “Professor Tidwissel’s Burglar Alarm” appears in the New York Daily Graphic,  the first newspaper comic strip

1877 – Rosika B. Schwimmer born, Hungarian feminist and pacifist; organized the Association of Hungarian Women Clerks (1897), co-founder of Feministák Egyesülete   (Hungarian Feminist Association – 1904), also on the board of the Hungarian Peace Society and later Vice President of the Women’s International League for Peace and Freedom (WILPF); Hungarian ambassador to Switzerland in 1918

1883 – James Cutler patents a mail chute, first used in Elwood Building of Rochester NY

1885 – D.H. Lawrence born, English novelist, poet, playwright and essayist; his novels called pornographic by many in his day, but now regarded as English literary classics; best known novels: Sons and Lovers, Women in Love, and Lady Chatterley’s Lover

1885 – Herbert Stothart born, American songwriter, composer and arranger; nominated for 12 Academy Awards, winning Best Original Score for The Wizard of Oz

1895 – Vinoba Bhave born, Indian social reformer and advocate of nonviolence and human rights; disciple of Mahatma Gandhi; leader of the Bhoodan (land gift) movement, he walked all over India asking landed people to consider him as one of their sons which would entitle him to 1/6 of their land, given in parcels to the landless poor

1897 – Coal workers in Pennsylvania, West Virginia and Ohio end a ten-week strike, after winning and eight-hour workday, semi-monthly paydays, and an end to company store monopolies

1906 – At a mass protest meeting in Johannesburg, South Africa, Mohandas Gandhi called on his fellow Indians to defy the new Asiatic Registration Act requiring registration and a thumb-printed identity card to be carried at all times, aimed at the Indian and Chinese resident alien population, and to suffer punishments for doing so without resisting through violent means. This nonviolent resistance, called satyagraha (loyalty to the truth), became a seven-year struggle in which Gandhi and thousands of other Indians were jailed, and some were beaten or killed, for refusing to register, or burning registration cards, and other forms of non-violent resistance. The government succeeded in repressing Indian protesters, but the ruthless methods employed caused a national and international outcry, finally forcing the South African government under  General Jan Smuts to negotiate a compromise with Gandhi

1910 – The first commercially successful electric bus line opens in Hollywood, California

1917 – Jessica Mitford born in England, British-American author, investigative journalist and civil rights activist;  Hons and Rebels, The American Way of Death

1927 – Christine King Farris born, professor and author; active in the International Reading Association, the NAACP and the SCLC; sister of Martin Luther King Jr.

1933 – Dame Margaret Wood Booth born, British lawyer and judge; third woman to be appointed as a High Court judge, in the Family Division

1936 – FDR dedicates Boulder Dam (now called Hoover Dam) in Nevada by turning on the dam’s first hydroelectric generator

1941 – Charles A. Lindbergh’s speech blaming “the British, the Jewish and the Roosevelt administration” for trying to draw the U.S. into WWII sparks charges of anti-Semitism

1941 – Minnijean Brown-Trickey born, American civil rights activist, one of the ‘Little Rock Nine’ who desegregated Central High School in 1957; she was suspended for six day in December 1957 for dropping her tray in the cafeteria and splashing food on two white boys when other students were harassing her by pushing chairs in front of her in the aisle; in February 1958, two girls threw a purse filled with combination locks at her, and when she called them “white trash” she was immediately expelled. She went to Canada in the 1980s and 1990s to get degrees in social work, and became involved in First Nations activism while there. Presdient Clinton appointed her as Deputy Assistant of the Department of the Interior for Workforce Diversity (1999-2001); among many honors, she was awarded the Congressional Gold Medal, and the Wolf Award

1941 –Groundbreaking ceremony for the Pentagon

1950 – Anne Dell born, Australian biochemist; Professor of Carbohydrate Biochemistry at Imperial College London; noted for her study of glycomics and carbohydrate structures that modify proteins, which opens up possible applications to learning how pathogens such as HIV are able to evade termination by the immune system, and has also led to the development of higher sensitivity mass spectroscopy techniques which have allowed for the better studying of the structure of carbohydrates. Dell was awarded the 1986 Tate and Lyle Medal by the Royal Society of Chemistry, and been appointed Commander of the Order of the British Empire (CBE) in 2009

1952 – Dr. Charles Hufnagel successfully replaces a diseased aorta valve with an artificial valve

1953 – Jani Allan born in London, South African journalist, columnist and broadcaster; noted as one of South Africa’s most widely-read columnists in the 1980’s and 1990’s, working both in South Africa and in London, and had a radio show on Cape Talk Radio (1996-2000); speech writer for Mangosuthu Buthelezi (2000-2001)

1953 – Sarita Francis born, Monserrat civil servant and educator; currently Director of the Monserrat National Trustand the UK Overseas Territories Conservation Trust. She was the first woman appointed as deputy governor of Monserrat (2009-2011) and Acting Governor in March and April of 2011, between when the governor stepped down and his replacement arrived.  Previously, she was the vice principal of the Salem Campus of the Monserrat Secondary School. In 1994, she headed the UN Development Programme in Monserrat, and began her work with the Monserrat National

1955 – Sharon Lamb born, American psychologist and professor in the Department of Counseling and School Psychology at the University of Massachusetts Boston’s, College of Education and Human Development; as a fellow of the American Psychological Association (APA), she was one of the authors of the APA’s report on the sexualization of young girls; co-author with Lyn Mikel of Packaging girlhood: rescuing our daughters from marketers’ schemes, and Packaging boyhood: saving our sons from superheroes, slackers, and other media stereotypes

1959 – U.S. Congress passes measure authorizing Food Stamps program

1960 – Annie Gosfield born, American avant-garde composer

1961 – Samina Raja born, Pakistani Urdu poet, writer, editor, translator and broadcaster; published 12 collections of poetry between 1973 and 1995, and has also been a literary magazine editor

1962 – The Beatles record their first single, “Love Me Do” and “P.S. I Love You,” at EMI studios in London

1967 – “All You Need is Love” by The Beatles is certified as a million seller, and The Carol Burnett Show premieres on CBS-TV

1970 – Taraji P. Henson born, American actress, known for her co-starring role as Detective Jocelyn Carter on the CBS drama Person of Interest, and her portrayal of Katherine Johnson in the 2016 film Hidden Figures; a supporter of People for the Ethical Treatment of Animals (PETA) and the NOH8 Campaign, which advocates for the LGBT community, Henson has appeared in print ads for PETA and a Public Service Announcement for NOH8

1977 – The Atari 2600 home video game console, with 9 game cartridges, debuts, retailing for $199

1985 – The NASA-ESA International Cometary Explorer  spacecraft passes through Giacobini-Zinner comet’s tail, first on-the-spot sampling of a comet

1987 – President Reagan proclaims September 11 as Emergency Number Day * – 911 was chosen by the Federal Communications Commission and AT&T in 1968

1996 – David Bowie’s single “Telling Lies” is released on the Internet, the first time a major artist’s new single is releases exclusively on the Internet

1997 – Scotland votes to create its own Parliament, after 290 years under English parliamentary rule

1998 – Congress releases Kenneth Starr’s report on President Bill Clinton’s alleged sexual misconduct and accusations of perjury and obstruction of justice

2001 – al-Queda Suicide hijackers crash two airliners into New York City’s World Trade Center, a third airliner into the Pentagon, while a fourth crashes in a field in Pennsylvania; 2,996 people die, and over 6,000 others are wounded, the deadliest foreign attacks on American soil since Pearl Harbor; many others exposed to deadly toxins by the attacks die in the coming years, including 1,400 rescue workers

The Pentagon, September 11, 2001

2002 – The 9-11 families support group launches National Day of Service and Remembrance *- a charitable service day honoring those who were lost and the responders who saved lives. Some U.S. libraries start Libraries Remember Day * – a tradition of staying open extra hours on September 11 in remembrance of the attacks

2007 – China signs an agreement to prohibit lead paint on toys exported to the U. S.

2012 – A night attack is launched against the U.S. diplomatic compound in Benghazi, Libya, by members of the Islamic militant group Ansar al-Sharia; J. Christopher Stevens, the U.S. Ambassador to Libya, and U.S. Foreign Service Information Management Officer Sean Smith are killed. Followed at 4 a.m. by a mortar attack against a nearby CIA annex, which kills CIA contractors Tyrone S. Woods and Glen Doherty and wounds 10 others

2014 – In a UN report, scientists announce that the Earth’s ozone layer has stopped shrinking, the first sign that 35 years of efforts to phase out harmful man-made cholofluorocarbons (CFCs) are beginning to have a positive effect. In an updated study, “Scientific Assessment of Ozone Depletion: 2018” there have been additional small improvements showing that concentration of ozone-depleting  substances have continued to decline. These improvements are credited to the historic Montreal Protocol, finalized in 1987, in response to the reports on chlorofluorocarbons (CFCs) and other ozone-depleting substances – used in aerosols, cooling and refrigeration systems, and many other items – which were tearing a hole in the ozone layer and allowing dangerous ultraviolet radiation to flood through.  The Protocol is set to be strengthened in 2019 with the ratification of the Kigali Amendment, which calls for the future use of harmful gases in refrigerators, air conditioners and related products to be slashed. These gases are one of the reasons for the escalation of Global Warming, and the Kigali Amendment is expected to play a major role in turning back the dangerous warming trend which is increasing the intensity of weather events, and melting the polar ice caps at an alarming rate

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