September 17th is

U.S. Citizenship Day

U.S. Constitution Day *

Apple Dumpling Day

Monte Cristo Sandwich Day *

Professional Housecleaners Day

______________________________________

MORE! Mercy Jackson, C.P. Rogers and Shabana Mahmood, click

______________________________________

WORLD FESTIVALS AND NATIONAL HOLIDAYS

Angola – National Heroes’ Day

Australia – Australian Citizenship Day

Brazil – Rio de Janeiro: ArtRio

Czechia – Prague:
Autumn International Music Festival

Honduras – Teachers’ Day

India – Maharashtra:
Marathwada Liberation Day

Japan – Bunkyo City/Tokyo: Cat Festival
at Yushima (ends Sept-20-2019)

Mexico – Cuauhtémoc: UNKLE

Netherlands –
Operation Market Garden Anniversary

Pakistan – Multan: Dunya Edu Est

Spain – Melilla: Fundación de Melilla

Tonga – Crown Prince
Tupouto’a ‘Ulukalala Birthday

______________________________________

On This Day in HISTORY

456 – Remistus, a Visigoth newly appointed as a Roman General under Western Roman Emperor Avitus (a Gaul), having clashed with the Roman Senate during the absence of Avitus from Italy, is captured by the Senate army and put to death. When Avitus returns, disliked for giving foreigners jobs usually filled by Romans, and the poor state of the Italian economy, is soon deposed

1382 – Mary of Anjou, eleven-year-old daughter of Louis the Great, King of Hungary and Poland, crowned as “King” of Hungary, seven days after her father’s death. But having a female on the throne was unpopular with Hungarian noblemen, who wanted her distant cousin, Charles III of Naples, instead. Charles landed Dalmatia in September 1385, while Sigismund of Luxembourg invaded Upper Hungary, and forced Mary’s mother, Dowager Queen Elizabeth, acting as regent, to give Mary in marriage to him in October. But when Charles entered the capital, Buda, Mary had to renounce the throne, and Charles was crowned king at the end of December. However, he was murdered at the instigation of Mary’s mother in February 1386. Mary was restored to the throne, but the murdered king’s supporters captured her and her mother in July. Elizabeth was murdered in January 1387, but Mary was released in June 1387. Mary officially remained the co-ruler with Sigismund, who had meanwhile been crowned king, but her influence on the government was minimal. In 1395, she went into premature labor after her horse threw her while hunting. She died at age 23, along with her new-born son. 

1394 – King Charles VI decrees all Jews are to be from expelled from France

1479 – Celio Calcagnini born, Italian humanist, scholar, scientist and astronomer; acquainted with Copernicus, and Erasmus; had a major impact on the literary and linguistic ideas of Rabelais

1577 – The Treaty of Bergerac, signed on September 14, 1577, between Henry III of France and Huguenot princes, is ratified by the Edict of Poitiers. The treaty restricts the Huguenots to practicing their faith in the suburbs of one town in each judicial district

1630 – The city of Boston, Massachusetts, is founded

1677 – Stephen Hales born, English physiologist and chemist, inventor of Forceps

1683 – Antonie van Leeuwenhoek sends a letter to the Royal Society describing ‘animalcules’ – the first known description of protozoa

1730 – Frederick von Steuben born, Prussian officer, then American major general who served as inspector general, head of training and Washington’s chief of staff; his Regulations for the Order and Discipline of the Troops of the United States, was the standard American drill manual until the Civil War

Friedrich Wilhelm von Steuben, by Charles Willson Peale

1743 – Nicolas de Condorcet, aka Marquis de Condorcet, born, French philosopher, mathematician and early political scientist; advocate for economic liberalism, free and equal public instruction, constitutionalism, and equal rights for women and people of all races; the Condorcet method of voting tally selects the candidate who would beat each of the other candidates in a run-off election

1776 – The Presidio Real de San Francisco is founded at the tip of San Francisco’s peninsula in what was then Alta California in New Spain

The Presidio in 1843, drawing by Swedish traveler G. M. Waseurtz

1778 – First treaty between U.S government and a tribe, the Delaware Nation

1787 – Constitution Day *- The final draft of the U.S. Constitution is adopted and signed by delegates at the Constitutional Convention in Philadelphia

1796 – President George Washington’s Farewell Address read before U.S. Congress

1802 – Mercy Jackson born, American physician, a pioneering woman in the field of medicine, and in advancing women’s acceptance as doctors. She graduated at age 17 from a private school in her hometown of Hardwick, Massachusetts, and accepted a winter teaching position in Plainfield, over fifty miles west of her hometown — a daring decision for a young woman in 1819. She was married in 1823, but her first husband died in 1829, and two of her three children had died of illnesses by 1832. She and her second husband, Daniel Jackson, had eight children, but half of them died in infancy or early childhood. Her husband’s cousin married Ralph Waldo Emerson, and the Jacksons became well acquainted with the Transcendentalists of Concord. She began to study on her own the new system of homeopathic medicine, and then tried treating her family and friends, with good results. Word of her success spread, and patients began to come from the surrounding towns to consult with her. But no treatment worked on her second husband, who died of cancer in 1852.  Mercy Jackson, inspired by Elizabeth Blackwell (the first woman to earn a degree in conventional medicine in 1849), enrolled in Boston’s New England Female Medicine College and graduated in 1860, at the age of 58. She became friends with Harriet K. Hunt when Hunt was refused admission to Harvard because she was a woman, and they were both increasingly involved in the struggle for women’s rights. Jackson’s medical practice also grew, bolstered by her higher success rate, and the many women who preferred to be seen by a woman doctor, especially when pregnant. In 1871, Jackson was the first woman admitted to the American Institute of Homeopathy. She wrote articles on better medical treatments for women in homeopathic journals, and in favor of women’s rights in Lucy Stone’s feminist weekly Woman’s Journal. In 1875,  73-year-old Mercy Jackson traveled from New England to northern Michigan by train, speaking for women’s rights. She died in December 1877 at age 75

1809 – The King of Sweden having been dethroned, the Swedish government accepts Russia’s proposals for a peace conference. In the Treaty of Fredrikshamn, signed on this day, Sweden cedes Finland to Russia, ending the Finnish War 

1819 – Marthinus Wessel Pretorius born, Boer politician and soldier; founder of the city of Pretoria in 1855; President of the Orange Free State (1860-1863) and first President of the reorganized Zuid-Afrikaansche Republiek (ZAR – South African Republic) from 1864 to 1871; Member of the Triumvirate (1881-1883)

1832 – About 2,000 Cape slave owners meet in Cape Town South Africa to protest new slave regulations, including the requirement that a punishment record book be kept by each slave-proprietor, to be submitted twice a year to the inspection of an official charged with the protection of the slaves, which these opponents regarded as an ‘acute torture inflicted upon the slave-holders’

1849 – Harriet Tubman escapes from slavery with her brothers, but they insist on returning because of their families; Tubman soon escapes again, this time on her own. She would become an ‘Underground Railroad conductor’ and make 19 trips back to the South to lead over 300 slaves to freedom

1854 – David Dunbar Buick born in Scotland, American businessman, founder of the Buick Motor Company

1859 – Joshua A. Norton declares himself “Norton I, Emperor of the United States” in San Francisco, where he is tolerantly regarded as a harmless eccentric, and “money” issued in his name is accepted at establishments where he is known

1862 – American Civil War: George B. McClellan’s Union troops halt the northward drive of Robert E. Lee’s Confederate Army in the single-day Battle of Antietam, the bloodiest day in American military history, with 23,100 dead and wounded

1866 – Mary Burnett Talbert born, African-American orator, suffragist and reformer; worked to develop black women leaders and women’s clubs, early advocate of women of all colors working together for women’s rights

1867 – Vera Popova born, one of the first Russian women chemists, and the first Russian woman author of a chemistry textbook; Popova was also the first woman to die in a laboratory explosion in 1896, while attempting to synthesize methylidynephosphane, which was not successfully synthesized until 1961 (it was prone to spontaneous combustion at room temperature)

1872 – Phillip W. Pratt patents a type of sprinkler system

1883 – William Carlos Williams born, American poet, short story writer, and essayist

1900 – Lena Frances Edwards born, African American physician; after graduating from Howard University Medical School in 1924, she married fellow medical school graduate Keith Madison, and they moved to Jersey City NJ, where she became speaker on public health and advocate for natural childbirth serving the European immigrant community, until joining the staff of Margaret Hague Hospital in 1931, but  her race and gender prevented her from being admitted to residency in obstetrics and gynecology until 1945. In 1954, she returned to Howard University Medical School to teach obstetrics, and became the medical adviser to the National Association of Colored Women’s Clubs, and chair of the Maternal Welfare Committee of the Washington DC Urban League. Edwards helped found Our Lady of Guadeloupe Maternity Clinic in Hereford Texas in 1960 to serve Mexican migrant worker families. After a heart attack in 1965, she returned to Washington, where she worked for federal agencies until she retired in 1970

1900 – Martha Ostenso born, Norwegian American novelist and screenwriter; her family immigrated from Norway to Canada, then moved to the American Midwest; Ostenso briefly attended the University of Manitoba, then left for New York City. She worked for a time as a social worker, but was involved in literary circles, and her first and best known novel, Wild Geese, was published in 1925, and became a best-seller. In 1931, she became an American citizen. She wrote numerous short stories, moved to Hollywood to write screenplays, and in all published 15 novels

1900 – “Hettie” Hedwig Weitzel Ross born in New Zealand, Australian teacher and political activist; she was a leader of the Australian Militant Woman’s Group, and edited several political publications, including Young Communist. Ross was an advocate for the children of the poor, and argued for the centrality of education in raising them out of poverty

1901 – Francis Chichester born, English pilot and sailor, first person to sail single-handed around the world by the clipper route, and the fastest circumnavigator, in nine months and one day overall in 1966–67

1904 – Frederick Ashton born, English choreographer and director of the Royal Ballet

1907 – Elizabeth Enright born, American children’s book author and illustrator, short story writer for adults and literary critic; her book Thimble Summer won the 1939 Nebery Medal, and Gone-Away Lake was a runner-up for the 1958 Newbery Medal. She was also a multiple O. Henry Award winner for her short stories

1908 – The Wright Flyer flown by Orville Wright, with  Lieutenant Thomas Selfridge as a passenger, crashes, killing Selfridge, who becomes the first airplane fatality

1910 – The exact date, who created it and at which Parisian café are all in dispute, but there’s no disputing that the diet-busting Monte Christo sandwich * is delicious!

1911 – C.P. Rogers takes off from New York on the first transcontinental airplane flight, which takes 82 hours before he lands in Pasadena CA

1916 – Mary Stewart, born Mary Florence Rainbow, British novelist and poet, pioneer in the romantic mystery genre; her Merlin series has elements of both historical and fantasy fiction

1918 – Lea Gottlieb born in Hungary, Israeli fashion designer and co-founder of the Gottex Company; she and her husband emigrated to Israel in 1949, an opened a raincoat factory near Tel Aviv with money borrowed from family and friends. After months and months of no rain in Israel, she sold her wedding ring to buy fabric, and with a borrowed sewing machine started designing and making high-fashion beachwear and bathing suits, founding Gottex in 1956 – the company’s name is a combination of Gottlieb and textile, and it became the leading exporter of fashion swimwear to the U.S.

1922 – Agostinho Neto born, Angola’s preeminent poet as well as leader of the Angolan liberation movement; first President of Angola (1975-1979)

1923 – Hank Williams born, American country western singer-songwriter and guitarist

1930 – Lalgudi Jayaraman, Indian violinist and composer

1931 – RCA Victor demonstrates the long-playing (LP) phonograph record

1939 – Frank Sinatra and the Harry James Orchestra record “All or Nothing at All”

1944 – World War II: Allied Airborne troops parachute into the Netherlands as part of Operation Market Garden, the largest use by the Allies of airborne forces yet in WWII.  Market Garden, a massive and complex operation attempting to encircle the Ruhr, heart of the German war industry, ultimately fails, prolonging the war in Europe

1944 – Jean Ellen Taylor born, American mathematician, currently professor emeriti at Rutgers University. After undergraduate studies at Mount Holyoke College, she earned a M.Sc. in Chemistry at the University of California at Berkeley, but then switched to mathematics, transferring to the University of Warwick to earn a second M.Sc. in Mathematics. She completed her doctorate at Princeton in 1972. Taylor is known for her work on the mathematics of soap bubbles and of the growth of crystals. In 1976 she published the first proof of Plateau’s laws, a description of the shapes formed by soap bubble clusters that had been formulated without proof in the 19th century by Joseph Plateau. She is a fellow of the American Academy of Arts and Sciences, the American Association for the Advancement of Science, the Association for Women in Mathematics, and the American Mathematical Society

1947 – Tessa Jowell born, Baroness Jowell, British Labour politician and feminist; the driving force behind the right to request flexible working hours, architect of Sure Start, the early-years programme to give preschoolers a better start, and pioneered government summits about girls’ body image and the impact of the media;Lord Temporal member of the House of Lords (2015-2018); Minister for the Cabinet Office (2009-2010); Paymaster General (2007-2010); Minister for the Olympics (2005-2010); Minister for Women (2005-2006); Member of Parliament for Dulwich and West Norwood (1992-2015); After being diagnosed with brain cancer, she successfully campaigned for more funds for cancer treatments through the National Health Service. She died at age 70 in May 2018

1947 – James V. Forrestal, the last Cabinet-level U.S. Secretary of the Navy, is sworn in as the first U.S. Secretary of Defense, when the armed services are re-organized

1947 – Gail Carson Levine born, American young adult author, her first published book, Ella Enchanted, was a 1998 Newbery Honor Book; she worked for 27 years for New York state as a welfare administrator, helping people find jobs, but took a class in writing in 1987, and wrote manuscripts that were all rejected until 1996, when Ella Enchanted was accepted for publication. Her next novel, Dave at Night, was inspired by her father, who had grown up in an orphanage

1953 – Tamasin Day-Lewis born, English television chef, food critic, and author of cookbooks and food-related books

1953 – Rita Rudner born, American comedian and humor book author; co-author with her husband of the several screenplays, including the script for the film Peter’s Friends; she holds the record for the longest-running solo comedy show in Las Vegas

1954 – Joël-François Durand born, French pianist and composer

1954 – William Golding’s classic novel Lord of the Flies is published

1965 – The Smothers Brothers Show debuts on CBS

1967 – The Doors appear on The Ed Sullivan Show, performing “Light My Fire” and “People Are Strange”

1968 – Cheryl Strayed born, American novelist, essayist and memorist; noted for her 2012 memoir, Wild: From Lost to Found on the Pacific Crest Trail

1972 – M.A.S.H. premieres on CBS-TV

1976 – NASA unveils its first space shuttle, the Enterprise

1978 – Sheeri Cabral born, American database administrator and architect; a MySQL community contributor, and the first Oracle ACE Director for MySQL. Cabral was the keynote presenter for the 2009 MySQL User Conference & Expo, “How to be a Community Superhero,”  and a three-time winner of the MySQL Community Award

1978 – The Camp David Accords are signed by Israel and Egypt

1980 – After weeks of strikes at the Lenin Shipyard in Gdańsk, Poland, the nationwide independent trade union Solidarity is established

1980 – Shabana Mahmood born in Birmingham, England, of Pakistani heritage; British Labour politician and barrister, a graduate of Lincoln College, Oxford.  She is the current Member of Parliament for Birmingham Ladywood, since 2010, one of the three first women Muslim MPs in Britain. Mahmood was a member of the new House International Trade Select Committee (2016-2019), and is a member of Labour’s National Policy Forum

1988 – The 1988 Summer Olympics open in Seoul, South Korea

1991 – The first version of the Linux kernel (0.01) is released to the Internet

2001 – The New York Stock Exchange reopens for trading after the September 11 attacks, the longest closure since the Great Depression

2011 – ‘Occupy Wall Street’ begins in New York City

2013 – A new report finds that 50 of the world’s top corporations produce 73% of the greenhouse gas emissions that fuel global warming. According to the Global 500 Climate Change Report, Wal-Mart and ExxonMobil are among the top 50 polluters, whose emissions have risen about 1.7% since 2009

2015 – Cuban diplomat Jose Ramon Cabañas Rodriguez presents his credentials to U.S. President Barack Obama, becoming the island’s first ambassador to the United States since 1961

2017 – The Trump administration is considering closing the newly reopened U.S. Embassy in Cuba over the mysterious medical problems faced by 21 American diplomats and their family members in Havana, Secretary of State Rex Tillerson said. “It’s a very serious issue with respect to the harm that certain individuals have suffered,” Tillerson said. “We’ve brought some of those people home. It’s under review.” The victims have suffered hearing loss, in some cases permanent, or concussions, as well as nausea, headaches, and ringing ears. Investigators are looking into whether someone might have targeted Americans in a “sonic attack”

______________________________________