October 28^th is

Champagne Day (U.S.)

National Chocolate Day

Plush Animal Lover’s Day

St. Jude’s Day *

International Animation Day *

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MORE! Cleo Laine, Ioannis Metaxas and Sihem Bensedrine, click

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WORLD FESTIVALS AND NATIONAL HOLIDAYS

Brazil –Dia do Servidor Público
(Civil Servants’ Day)

Cyprus and Greece – Ochi Day *
(Greek National Day)

Czech Republic – Den vzniku samostatneho
ceskoslovenskeho statu (Independence Day)

Egypt – Aswan: Timkat Festival
(Cultural festival)

Ghana – Accra: Animation Film Festival

Indonesia – Hari Sumpah Pemuda
(Youth Pledge Day)

Japan – Gifu Prefecture:
Earthquake Disaster Prevention Day

Mexico – Oaxaca: Day of the Dead

Spain – Donostia-San Sabastian:
Horror & Fantasy Film Festival (ends Nov-1-2019)

Taiwan – Taipei: Taipei Rainbow Festival

Uganda – Kampala:
Coffee & Chocolate Festival

Ukraine –
Liberation from the Nazis Anniversary

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On This Day in HISTORY

AD 97 – Roman Emperor Nerva is forced by the Praetorian Guard to adopt Marcus Ulpius Trajanus (Trajan) as his heir and successor

1420 – Beijing is officially designated the capital of the Ming dynasty in the same year that the Forbidden City, the seat of government, is completed

1466 – Desiderius Erasmus born, Dutch Renaissance humanist, priest, scholar, social critic and theologian; has been called “the crowning glory of the Christian humanists”

1538 – First university in the ‘New World’ (present-day Dominican Republic), the Universidad Santo Tomás de Aquino, is established

1636 – New College is established by vote of the Great and General Court of the Massachusetts Bay Colony – it will be renamed Harvard in 1639

1726 – Jonathan Swift’s satirical novel Gulliver’s Travels is published

1793 – Eli Whitney applied for a patent for his cotton gin

1793 – Eliphalet Remington born, American inventor and firearms manufacturer

1794– Robert Liston born, Scottish surgeon who performed the first European operation using ether, and invented see-through isinglass sticking plaster, Bulldogs forceps (a type of locking artery forceps), and a leg splint used to stabilize dislocations and fractures of the femur, still used today

Robert Lister and Bulldogs forcepts

1816 – Malwida von Meysenbug born, German writer noted for Memories of an Idealist, the first volume of which she published anonymously in 1869. She was acquainted with Friedrich Nietzche and Richard Wagner. She broke with her family over her advocacy of the emancipation of women and approval of the German revolutions of 1848-49 which aimed at unifying Germany under a more democratic form of government.  She lived first in a free community in Hamberg, then immigrated to England, making her living as a teacher and translator. She went to Italy in 1862 with a friend, remaining there due to poor health. In 1876, she invited Nietzche to Sorrento, where he began work on Human, All Too Human. In 1901 she was the first woman nominated for the Nobel Prize in Literature after French historian Gabriel Monod submitted her name. In 1903, von Meysenbug died in Rome

1835 – Chiefs of the United Tribes of New Zealand, a confederation of Māori tribes on the North Island, sign He Wakaputanga o te Rangatiratanga o Nu Tireni, The Declaration of the Independence of New Zealand

1846 – Georges Auguste Escoffier born, French culinary artist and author; his Le Guide Culinaire is still a major reference work

1856 – Anna Klumpke born, American portrait and genre painter, known for her portraits of famous women; and author of a biography of painter Rosa Bonheur

Portrait of Rose Bonheur by Anna Klumpke  – Klumpke in photo

1858 – Rowland Macy opens his first New York store, in Manhattan

1875 – Gilbert H. Grosvenor born, American geographer; president of National Geographic Society (1920-1954); he was also a pioneer in photojournalism

1884 – William Douglas Cook born, New Zealand horticulturalist; founder of Eastwoodhill Arboretum, now the national arboretum of New Zealand

1886 – ‘Liberty Enlightening the World’ a gift from the people of France, is dedicated by President Cleveland, and quickly becomes better-known as ‘The Statue of Liberty’

1893 – Peter Ilyich Tchaikovsky conducts the first public performance of his Symphony Number Six in B minor, “Pathetique”

1896 – Howard Hanson born, American composer, conductor and musical theorist; director of the Eastman School of Music (1924-1964); won the 1944 Pulitzer Prize for Music for his Symphony no. 4

1897 – Edith Head born, American motion-picture costume designer, who won eight Academy Awards for Best Costume Design, from The Heiress in 1949 to The Sting in  1973; created everything from Dorothy Lamour’s sarong to Audrey Hepburn’s stylish clothes for Breakfast at Tiffany’s

1903 – Evelyn Waugh born, English author of novels, biographies and travel books;  A Handful of Dust,  Brideshead Revisited, and The Loved One

1904 – The St. Louis Police Department begins using fingerprinting

1905 – Tatyana van Aardenne-Ehrenfest born, Dutch mathematician; contributed to De Bruijn sequences, the discrepancy theorem and the BEST theorem

1914 – Jonas Salk born, American medical researcher who develops the first vaccine against polio

1919 – The Volstead Act, also called the National Prohibition Act becomes law

1922 – Fascist Benito Mussolini takes control of the Italian government

Benito Mussolini, center,  in 1922

1922 – Gershon Kingsley born in Germany, American composer, pioneer of electronic music and the Moog synthesizer, and co-founder of the First Moog Quartet

1927 – Cleo Laine born as Clementine Bullock, daughter of a Jamaican father and an English mother, English jazz singer with a vocal range over of over three octaves

1929 – Virginia P. Held born, American social-political and feminist philosopher, whose work centers on the ethics of caregiving and the roles of women in society

1936 – The Statue of Liberty is rededicated by FDR on its 50^th anniversary

1938 – Anne Perry born Juliet Hulme, English author of historical detective fiction

1939 – Jane Alexander born, Tony Award winner, Two-time Emmy winner, Four-time Academy Award nominee, Director of the National Endowment for the Arts (1993-1997)

1940 – Greek Prime Minister Ioannis Metaxas says, “No” to an ultimatum made by Italian Prime Minister Benito Mussolini demanding he allow Italian forces to occupy strategic locations in Greece or otherwise face war – celebrated in Greece and Cyprus as Oxi Day * (Greek for ‘no’ – pronounced ‘oh-hee’)

1940 – Susan S. Harris born, American television comedy writer and producer; among her many TV series are Soap, Benson, and The Golden Girls

1942 – Gillian Lovegrove born, British computer scientist and academic; worked on object-oriented computing; advocate for gender balance in computer education and employment; with Wendy Hall, organized ‘Women into Computing’ conferences

1943 – Karlyn Patterson born, British psychologist; pioneering specialist in cognitive neuropsychology at the Department of Clinical Neurosciences, University of Cambridge and MRC Cognition and Brain Sciences Unit, Cambridge; fellow of the Royal Society and the British Academy

University of Cambridge

1946 – Sharon Thesen born, Canadian poet and academic; her 2000 poetry collection, A Pair of Scissors, won the Pat Lowther Award, presented by the League of Canadian Poets; in 2003, she was one of the judges for the Griffin Poetry

1949 – President Truman swears in Eugenie Moore Anderson as U.S ambassador to Denmark, first American woman appointed as chief of mission at ambassador level

1950 – Sihem Bensedrine born, Tunisian journalist and human rights advocate; in 1980, she was a reporter for the independent journal Le Phare, when the journal stopped publication, she was a political chief at Maghreb, and then at Réalités. When Maghreb  ceased publication in 1983, she oversaw the opposition newspaper El Mawkif. In 1998, she founded the Conseil National pour les Libertés en Tunisie (CNLT – National Council for Liberties in Tunisia), but in 1999, she faced numerous police and judicial actions, including confiscation and destruction of property and a personal libel campaign in which she was portrayed as a prostitute, because of her freedom of the press and human rights activities. In 2001, after denouncing torture, corruption, and lack of judicial independence during an interview with a foreign television station, she spent 45 days in Manouba women’s prison. Bensedrine was honored by OXFAM in 2005 with their Novib/PEN Award

1955 – Indra Nooyi born in India, Indian-American business executive, currently chair of PepsiCo, was its CEO (2006-2018), and CFO (2001-2006); consistently ranked by Forbes magazine as one of the 100 most powerful women in the world since 2008

1956 – Elvis Presley’s song “Love Me Tender” became the No. 1 Billboard Pop Hit, the first time a musician had back-to-back hits in the No. 1 spot, because “Don’t Be Cruel/Hound Dog” had been the previous No. 1 song for 11 weeks

1957 – Marian P. Bell born, British economist; Bank of England’s Monetary Policy Board (2002-2005); Royal Bank of Scotland (1982-1989 and 1991-2000); Governor of the National Institute of Economic and Social Research (2014 to present)

Royal Bank of Scotland – Head Office in Edinburgh

1958 – Angelo Giuseppe Roncalli is elected Pope, taking the name John XXIII

1958 – Concha García Campoy born, Spanish radio and television journalist and program host; Televisión Española News Service (1983-1987 and 1991-1993); Cadena SER radio (1987-1991); Antena 3 Radio (1993-1999); also worked for Telecino, Punto Radio and Cuarto; in 2012, she was diagnosed with leukemia, and died in 2013

1962 – Soviet leader Nikita Khrushchev informs U.S. President Kennedy that he ordered the dismantling of Soviet missile bases in Cuba

1962 – St. Jude’s Day * Entertainer Danny Thomas officially opened the St. Jude’s Children’s Research Hospital on February 4, 1962. The feast of St. Jude, patron saint of hopeless causes, is October 28, which has become a major fundraising day for St. Jude’s Hospital. In 1962, the survival rate for children with cancer as 20%. Today, it is more than 80%, and much of the credit belongs to St. Jude’s Hospital

1963 – The Beach Boys release “Be True To Your School” in the U.S.

1963 – Sheryl Underwood, American comedian and television host; BET Comic View host and appears on Funny You Should Ask; although a Republican, she campaigned for Barak Obama and Hillary Clinton

1965 – Pope Paul VI issues a decree absolving Jews of collective guilt for the crucifixion of Jesus Christ, and the Gateway Arch is completed in St. Louis MO

1967 – Julia Roberts born, American actress and producer; won the Oscar for Best Actress in 2001 for Erin Brockovich; co-founder and head of Red Om Films, which has produced Eat Pray Love and several children’s movies; traveled to Haiti in 1995 and spoke about the poverty she witnessed as part of a UNICEF fundraising campaign, and was the voice of Mother Nature on a Conservation International 2014 short film aimed at raising awareness of climate change

1976 – John D. Erlichman, former aide to disgraced President Nixon, enters a federal prison camp to serve his sentence for Watergate-related convictions

1982 – Soviet premier Leonid Brezhnev condemns the U.S. for arms buildup

1983 – The U.S. vetoes a U.N. Security Council resolution “deeply deploring” the ongoing U.S.-led invasion of Grenada

1985 – South African Prime Minister P.W. Botha, in an attempt to suppress growing opposition to Apartheid, declared a State of Emergency in 36 of the 260 magisterial districts, which reached its 100^th day on this date. Sporadic violence was still being reported, especially in black townships where large contingents of South African Defence Force troops were deployed. Up to this point, over 5000 people had been arrested, and more than 850 people had been killed, including political activist Victoria Mxenge, gunned down in front of her children. The State of Emergency continued until March 7, 1986. But in June, 1986, a National State of Emergency was declared, and television news coverage of political unrest was banned

1986 – The centennial of the Statue of Liberty is celebrated in New York

2002 – World Animation Day * is launched by ASIFA, Association Internationale du Film d’Animation – the International Film Association to honor the first public showing of Emile Reynaud’s Theatre Optique in Paris, on October 28, 1892

2005 – Vice President Dick Cheney’s top adviser, I. Lewis “Scooter” Libby, resigned after he is indicted on charges of obstruction of justice, perjury and making false statements in the CIA leak investigation. Libby will be convicted and sentenced to 30 months in prison, but President George W. Bush will commute his sentence

2007 – Cristina Fernandez de Kirchner is elected Argentina’s first woman president

2009 – Angela Merkel is sworn in for a second term as German chancellor

2014 – An unmanned Antares rocket carrying NASA’s Cygnus CRS Orb-3 resupply mission to the International Space Station explodes seconds after taking off from the Mid-Atlantic Regional Spaceport in Virginia

2016 – In the U.S., right-wing anti-government militants were acquitted of conspiracy charges for an armed takeover of the Malheur Wildlife Refuge in Oregon which lasted 41 days in protest over the sentencing of two local ranchers to 5 years in prison for arson on federal land. On the same day, at the Standing Rock Sioux Reservation in North Dakota, police in riot gear arrested 141 peaceful demonstrators attempting to block the planned Dakota Access oil pipeline, on charges of “criminal trespassing, engaging in a riot, and conspiracy to endanger by fire.” (One demonstrator set fire to some tires that were part of a barricade.) Native American demonstrators say the pipeline’s route goes through sacred land, which had been part of the Great Sioux Nation land in the 1851 Fort Laramie Treaty that was later revoked, after clashes between tribes and between Native Americans and white settlers who were illegally moving on to reservation land, which the U.S. Government did little to stop

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