February 6th is

Chopsticks Day

Frozen Yogurt Day

Lame Duck Day *

Zero Tolerance for Female
Genital Mutilation Day *

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MORE! Mary Leakey, Bob Marley and Natalie Cole, click

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WORLD FESTIVALS AND NATIONAL HOLIDAYS

Second day of  Lunar New Year –also called Losar, Tet, Buddhist New Year, and Spring Festival – in Bhutan, China, Hong Kong, Macau, Malaysia, Mauritius, Nepal, Mongolia,  Singapore, South Korea, Taiwan and Vietnam

Canada – Saint-Jean-Port-Joli:
Fête d’hiver (snow sculpture)

Chile – Mapu Lahual coastal preserve:
Nomadic Festival (music, art and culture)

Brazil – Palmas: Palmas Music Festival

Egypt – Cairo: Groove Nest Festival

Ethiopia – Addis Ababa:
Africa Unite (music and film festival)

Finland/Norway/Sweden – Sámi
National Day * (also called Laplanders)

India – Bengaluru: White Desert Festival
(Kutch region cultural festival)

Japan – Sapporo: Sapporo Yuki Matsui
(snow festival)

Mexico – Mexico City:
Zona Maco Mexico Arte Contemporaneo

Netherlands – Amsterdam:
Amsterdam Human Rights Weekend

New Zealand and Niue – Waitangi Day
(New Zealand 1840 founding)

South Africa – Swellendam:
Up the Creek Music Festival

Thailand – Phuket:
UnKonscious Festival (music)

United Kingdom – London:
Parsons Green Art Festival

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On This Day in HISTORY

AD 60 – The earliest date on which the day of the week is known now, from a graffito at Pompeii

885 –Emperor Daigo of Japan born, who reigned from 897 to 930, when he became ill, abdicated in favor of his son, entered the Buddhist priesthood, and died shortly after

1564 – Christopher Marlowe born, major English dramatist and likely part-time spy for his country (the Privy Council avowed to Cambridge that he had been engaged in unspecified “affaires” on “matters touching the benefit of his country” during a long absence from university)

1577 – Beatrice Cenci born, victim of ongoing incestuous rape by her father Francesco, who also beat the rest of the family; when she reports him to authorities, they do nothing. She, her mother and two brothers plot his murder, but carry it out so ineptly they are quickly arrested, tried, found guilty; all but the youngest son are executed, whose entire inheritance goes to the Pope’s family while he is condemned to life at forced labor. Beatrice becomes a heroine to Rome’s common people for her courage in reporting her father, seen as symbol of resistance against an arrogant aristocracy

Beatrice Cenci – artist disputed

1611 – The Chongzhen Emperor born, last emperor of the Ming dynasty, who succeeded his brother, the Tainqi Emperor, and ruled from 1627 to 1644, when he killed all the members of the imperial household except his sons, and then committed suicide, rather than surrender to the rebels led by Li Zicheng, who became the first Emperor of the Shun dynasty

1649 – Claimant King Charles II of England and Scotland declared King of Great Britain, by Scotland’s Parliament, but not approved by the English or Irish Parliaments

1664 – Mustafa II born, Sultan of the Ottoman Empire from 1695 to 1703, when he was deposed by disaffected troops from the Ottoman invasion of western Georgia, a costly and disastrous campaign

1665 – Anne, Queen of England, Scotland and Ireland, born, who succeed William, husband of her sister Mary, after his death, and reigned from 1702 to 1714, becoming Queen of Great Britain and Ireland in 1707, after England and Scotland were united under the Acts of Union. None of the 17 pregnancies she endured resulted in healthy infants, and greatly impaired her health. However, Great Britain became a major military power, and the economic and political base for the golden age of the 18th century was established during her reign. Anne died at age 49, after a long period of illness culminating in a stroke 

Queen Anne,  by Sir Godfrey Kneller

1685 – James II of England and VII of Scotland becomes King upon the death of his brother Charles II

1694 – In Brazil, Quilombo dos Palmares, a community started in 1605, and made up mostly of escaped slaves, many of them brought from Africa, is destroyed by the Bandeirantes (fortune hunters who captured and enslaved natives of the region in addition to hunting for precious metals and gems), but the survivors and their descendants continued to resist capture for almost another century

1756 – Aaron Burr born,  U.S. Vice President (1801-1805), but mostly remembered for killing Alexander Hamilton in a duel in 1804

1778 – In Paris, the Treaty of Alliance and the Treaty of Amity and Commerce are signed by the U. S. and France, signaling official recognition of the new republic

1788 – Massachusetts becomes the sixth state to ratify the United States Constitution

1820 – The first 86 African American immigrants, sponsored by the American Colonization Society (originally called the Society for the Colonization of Free People of Color of America), depart from New York to start a settlement in present-day Liberia

1838 – Henry Irving born, English actor-manager, leading Shakespearean of his day

Ellen Terry and Henry Irving as Benedict and Beatrice in Much Ado About Nothing

1840 – Signing of the Treaty of Waitangi, establishing New Zealand as a British colony

1842 – Mary Rudge, English chess master, first woman accepted as a member of the Bristol Chess Club; winner of the first Women’s International Chess Congress (1897); in a simultaneous display, world champion Emmanuel Lasker concedes his unfinished game against her when he runs out of time because he would have lost against best play; her highest rating: 2146

1843 – The first minstrel show in the U. S., The Virginia Minstrels, opens at the Bowery Amphitheatre in New York City

1866 – Annie Warburton Goodrich born, chief nursing inspector for US Army hospitals; organizes US Army School of Nursing; first Dean of Yale School of Nursing

1867 – Robert Tanner Jackson, member of Harvard’s first graduating Dentistry class, becomes the first African-American to earn a degree as dentist

1895 – María Teresa Vera born, Cuban singer, musician and composer; who was prominent in the 20^th century Trova movement, inspired by a group of 19^th century itinerant musicians called trovadores, who sang and played on guitar songs which they or their friends composed. Trovadores greatly influenced the evolution of Cuban popular music

1899 – The 1899 Treaty of Paris, a peace treaty between the U. S. and Spain, is ratified by the United States Senate

1900 – The Permanent Court of Arbitration, an international arbitration court at The Hague, is created when the Senate of the Netherlands ratifies an 1899 peace conference decree

1903 – Claudio Arrau born, Chilean pianist and composer

1905 – Irmgard Keun born, German novelist; a significant author of the Weimar period noted for her portrayals of women in books like Gigli, Nach Mitternacht (After Midnight), Scherzartikel (Joke Object), and Blühende Neurosen (Neuroses in Full Flower); her books were banned by the Nazis

1911 – The first old-age home for pioneers opens in Prescott, AZ

1913 – Mary Leakey born, British paleoanthropologist and archaeologist; among her important finds are the discovery of the first fossilized Proconsul skull, an extinct ape believed to be ancestral to humans, and the fossilized hominid footprints 3.6 million  years old, which showed humanity’s ancestors were walking upright much earlier than previously believed

1917 – Sámi National Day * – the first Sámi Congress is held in Trondheim, Norway

1918 – The Representation of the People Act 1918 grants British women over the age of 30 the right to vote if they “were either a member or married to a member of the Local Government Register, a property owner, or a graduate voting in a University constituency.” Because over 700,000 British men were killed in WWI, this meant that the women who qualified under the act became 43% of the electorate

1919 – Takashi Yanase born, Japanese writer, poet, illustrator and lyricist; best known for the picture book and anime series Anpanman, a superhero whose head is an anpan, a bean-jam filled pastry

1922 – The Washington Naval Treaty is signed in Washington, D.C., limiting the naval armaments of United States, Britain, Japan, France, and Italy

1929 – Colin Murdoch born, New Zealand pharmacist and veterinarian, inventor of the tranquilliser gun, a disposable hypodermic syringe. and child-proof medicine containers

1932 – Dog sled racing becomes an Olympic event for the first time

1933 – Walter E. Fauntroy born, Civil rights leader, District of Columbia delegate to the U.S House of Representatives (1971-1991)

1933 – Lame Duck Day * salutes the 20^th Amendment to the U.S. Constitution, which shortened the length of time that outgoing Presidents still have the powers of their office, including making nominations, and for outgoing members of Congress to have voting powers to approve laws, and in the Senate, to approve nominees from the Executive Branch. A “lame-duck session” happens when Congress meets after an election, and these now last from the November elections until January 2 of the following year. Previously, newly elected Presidents and Congress members weren’t sworn in until March 4th. The U.S. Secretary of State proclaimed the ratification of the amendment on February 6, 1933

1934 – Far-right leagues rally in front of the Palais Bourbon in an attempted coup against the French Third Republic, creating a political crisis in France

1937 – Kuma Elizabeth Ohi becomes the first Japanese American woman lawyer when she receives her degree from John Marshall Law School in Chicago IL

1942 – Thailand, allied with Japan in hopes of expanding their territory into China, had declared war on the U.S. and U.K. on January 25.  The United Kingdom responds by declaring war on Thailand, which is being used by the Japanese as a staging area

1942 – Sarah Brady born, gun control activist and author of A Good Fight

1945 – Bob Marley born, Jamaican reggae singer-songwriter

1950 – Natalie Cole born, American singer, daughter of Nat King Cole

1951 – The Canadian Army enters combat in the Korean War

1952 – Elizabeth II becomes queen regnant of the United Kingdom and the Commonwealth upon the death of her father, George VI. At the exact moment of succession, she was in a tree house at the Treetops Hotel in Kenya 

Holiday snapshot, before Princess Elizabeth learns of her father’s death.  She and her
husband were on a brief break before continuing on to Australia for an official visit,
which was immediately canceled, and they returned quickly to Britain.

1956 – United Nations Security Council Resolution 112, recommending to the General Assembly that the Sudan be admitted as a member nation, is adopted

1957 – Kathy Najimy born, American comedian, actress and activist for equal rights for women and the LGBTQ community, and for raising awareness of AIDS and domestic violence; noted for her feminist play, The Kathy and Mo Show, which she wrote and performed with Mo Gaffney, and for writing and producing Gloria: A Life, about Gloria Steinem. She has spoken at events for the Human Rights Campaign, Planned Parenthood and PFLAG, and was a speaker at the 2004 March for Women’s Lives. Najimy is also an active member of Time’s Up

Kathy Najimy, on right,  with Hillary Clinton

1958 – Cecily Adams born, American comedian and casting director; she studied improvisational comedy at the Groundings, and became a member of the Acme Comedy Theatre in Los Angeles, where she also coached actors. She had guest roles on Star Trek: Deep Space Nine; Just Shoot Me!; and Murphy Brown. Adams was a casting director for television series, including 3rd Rock From the Sun; Home Room; and That 70s Show. Though a non-smoker, she died of lung cancer at age 46 in 2004

1959 – Jack Kilby of Texas Instruments files the first patent for an integrated circuit

1959 – At Cape Canaveral, the first successful test firing of a Titan intercontinental ballistic missile

1970 – John Lennon’s “Instant Karma” is released in the U.K.

1970 – South African Prime Minister Balthazar J. Vorster announces that all Coloured people will be removed from the common voters’ roll

1971 – NASA Astronaut Alan B. Shepard uses a six-iron that he had brought inside his spacecraft to swing at three golf balls on the surface of the moon

1976 – In testimony before a U.S. Senate subcommittee, Lockheed President Carl Kotchian admits that the company paid out approximately $3 million in bribes to the office of Japanese Prime Minister Kakuei Tanaka

1987 – Justice Mary Gaudron becomes the first woman to be appointed to the High Court of Australia (1987-2003); previously, she was the Solicitor-General of New South Wales (1981-1987)

1989 – The Round Table Talks start in Poland, thus marking the beginning of the overthrow of communism in Eastern Europe

1994 – Togo holds its first multi-party parliamentary election

1998 – Washington National Airport is renamed Ronald Reagan National Airport

1999 – Jordan’s King Hussein transfers full political power to his oldest son Crown Prince Abdullah

2000 – Second Chechen War: Russia captures Grozny, Chechnya, forcing the separatist Chechen Republic of Ichkeria government into exile

2000 – Foreign Minister Tarja Halonen is elected as Finland’s first woman president

2000 – Hillary Clinton formally declares her candidacy for U.S. Senator from New York. “Politics is the art of making possible what seems to be impossible,” she told a cheering crowd 

2001 – Ariel Sharon is elected Israeli prime minister

2002 – Celine Dion’s “A New Day Has Come” gets a limited release

2003 – The first International Day of Zero Tolerance to Female Genital Mutilation * is sponsored by the United Nations, the World Health Organization (WHO) and the global movement Every Woman, Every Child; Stella Obasanjo, Nigerian First Lady and spokesperson for the campaign, announces the Zero Tolerance effort at the Inter-African Committee (IAC) Conference on Traditional Practices Affecting the Health of Women and Children

Stella Obasanjo

2005 – The African Union says the military in Togo has conducted a virtual coup by ignoring the constitution and appointing the son of Africa’s longest ruling leader, Gnassingbe Eyadema, to take over as the country’s new leader just hours after his father died of a heart attack

2010 – French Red Cross aid worker Laurent Maurice, kidnapped in Chad, is released after 89 days of captivity, described as “tired but appears to be in good health”

2017 – Israel’s Parliament passed a law retroactively approving Jewish settlements on Palestinian land. Palestinian land owners would be compensated, or receive alternative land. Israel’s attorney general said the controversial law was unconstitutional, and vowed not to defend it when it inevitably goes to Israel’s high court, which is expected to nullify it. The passage of the law, however, marked the latest in a series of provocative steps by conservative hardliners, reportedly encouraged by the Trump administration’s softening of the U.S. position on settlements, which the Obama administration opposed. Palestinians say the new law is an obstacle to a peace deal that would establish a Palestinian state 

2019 – NASA scientists announced that 2018 was the fourth hottest year in the nearly 140 years the Earth’s average surface temperatures have been recorded. The news marked the latest in a series of indications of quickly rising temperatures across the world. The scientific consensus is that much of the trend is due to human activity. The last five years are now the five warmest years on record, and 18 of the 19 warmest years have occurred since 2001. “We’re no longer talking about a situation where global warming is something in the future,” said Gavin A. Schmidt, director of NASA’s Goddard Institute for Space Studies, which conducted the analysis. “It’s here. It’s now.” 

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