February 27th is

Anosomia Awareness Day *

National Strawberry Day

National Kahlua Day

World NGO Day *

International Polar Bear Day *

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MORE! Charlotte Ray, William Purvis and Mabel Staupers, click

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WORLD FESTIVALS AND NATIONAL HOLIDAYS

Australia – Battery Point:
Jazzamanca Festival

Canada – Quebec: Festival des
Hivernants (winter travelers)

Chile – Viña del Mar: Festival
Internacional de la Canción (song)

Dominican Republic –
Independence Day

Egypt – Qesm: Scout Film Festival

Germany – Berlin:
Spring Light Festival

Hungary – Budapest:
Budapest Dance Festival

India – Maharashtra:
Marathi Language Day

Mexico – Matamoros:
Charro Days (horsemen)

Nigeria – Lagos:
Lagos Theatre Festival

Peru – Lima:
Latin American Design Festival

South Africa – Sandton:
African Education Festival

Tibet – Lhasa:
Monlam Great Prayer Festival

United Kingdom – London: Sink
Without Trace (migrant deaths discussion)

Vietnam – Doctors Day

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On This Day in HISTORY

380 – Edict of Thessalonica: Theodosius I,  Gratian and   Valentinian II, the three reigning Roman Emperors, “desire” all subjects of the Roman Empire to profess the faith of the bishops of Rome and of Alexandria, making Nicene (trinitarian) Christianity the state religion of the Roman Empire

425 – The University of Constantinople is founded by Emperor Theodosius II at the urging of his wife Aelia Eudocia

The Pandidakterion of the University of Constantinople

907 – Abaoji, a Khitan chieftain, is enthroned as Emperor Taizu, establishing the Liao dynasty in northern China

1560 – The Treaty of Berwick, which expels the French from Scotland, is signed by England and the Lords of the Congregation of Scotland

1594 – Henri IV is crowned King of France

1696 – The British House of Commons, in response to a failed assassination attempt on King William III, agrees to the swearing of an Oath of Association, in effect a loyalty oath to the King, reinforcing the argument that William’s preservation from the assassins is divine providence, and he is still entitled to sit on the English throne after the death of Queen Mary

1782 – Great Britain’s House of Commons votes against further war in America

1801 – Pursuant to the District of Columbia Organic Act of 1801, Washington, D.C. is placed under the jurisdiction of the U.S. Congress

1807 – Henry Wadsworth Longfellow born, American poet

1812 – Argentine War of Independence: Manuel Belgrano raises the Flag of Argentina in the city of Rosario for the first time

1812 –Lord Byron gives his first address as a member of the House of Lords, in defense of the Luddites, who were using violence against Industrialism in his home county of Nottinghamshire

1827 – The first Mardi Gras celebration begins in New Orleans LA

1844 – The Dominican Republic gains independence from Haiti

1847 – Dame Ellen Terry born, British stage actress, leading Shakespearean actress of her day; gave lectures on Shakespeare’s women characters

Ellen Terry as Lady MacBeth, Beatrice and Portia

1848 – Hubert Parry born, British composer, best known for setting William Blake’s poem Jerusalem to music

1850 – Laura Howe Richards born, American author, poet and biographer

1854 – Elizabeth Almira Allen born, American teacher for 48 years, and the first woman president of the New Jersey Education Association. As an advocate for teachers’ pensions, Allen was instrumental in the passage in 1896 of the first statewide teacher retirement law in the U.S., passed by the New Jersey state legislature. The bill provided for a half-pay annuity to teachers with at least 20 years of service who were no longer able to work, but it was a voluntary plan, with contributions taken from teacher salaries. Allen launched a campaign to enroll as many teachers as possible, and within three months, she and her team had enrolled over half of the state’s teachers. She served as the first secretary of the Teachers’ Retirement Fund

1859 – Bertha Pappenheim born, Austrian-Jewish feminist and author (anonymously and as “P. Berthold”), became the director of an orphanage for Jewish girls, changing the curriculum from preparation for marriage to vocational training; founding member and first president of the Jüdischer Frauenbund (Jewish Women’s Association); translated Mary Wollstonecraft’s “A Vindication of the Rights of Woman” into German; advocate for women’s education and equal rights, and activist against the trafficking of women; co-founder of the Zentralwohlfahrtsstelle der Juden in Deutschland (Central Welfare Agency of German Jewry)

1860 – Abraham Lincoln makes his famous Cooper Union speech in New York, which is largely responsible for his election to the Presidency of the United States

1861 – In Warsaw, Russian troops fire on a crowd protesting Russian rule over Poland, killing five protesters

1869 – Alice Hamilton born, American pathologist, academic, research scientist and physician; first woman appointed to the faculty of Harvard University, a pioneer in the field of toxicology, focusing on occupational illnesses and the dangers of exposure to industrial metals and chemical compounds. In 1911, she was appointed as a special investigator for the U.S. Bureau of Labor, inspecting mines, mills and smelters. She compiled statistics, beginning with lead, the poison most widely used by industry, which dramatically documented the high mortality and morbidity rates of exposed workers. She followed this by compiling statistics on aniline dyes, picric acid, arsenic, carbon monoxide, and many other industrial poisons, and work hazards. Her work contributed greatly to the passage of workmen’s compensation laws and to the development of safer working conditions. Hamilton was president of the National Consumers League (1944-1949). She was also an activist in social welfare reform and the peace movement, and a volunteer at Chicago’s Hull House. She lived to be 101 years old  

1869 – When John W. Menard speaks in Congress in defense of his claim to a contested seat representing Louisiana’s Second Congressional District, he becomes the first black person to make a speech in the House of Representatives. The rest of the congressmen decided against both claimants. Congressman James A. Garfield of the examining committee said “it was too early to admit a Negro to the U.S. Congress.”

1872 – Charlotte E. Ray becomes the first woman graduate from Howard University School of Law, and the first African American woman lawyer. Ray opened her own law office, advertising in a newspaper run by  Frederick Douglass, but she practiced law for only a few years because prejudice against African Americans and women made her business unsustainable. Ray eventually moved to New York, where she became a teacher in Brooklyn. She was involved in the women’s suffrage movement and was a member of the National Association of Colored Women

1877 – Adela Verne born, English pianist and composer, considered the greatest woman pianist of her era; noted for composing a march dedicated to Elizabeth, the Queen Mother

1881 – First Anglo-Boer War, Battle of Majuba Hill: The Boers decisively defeat the British in the last battle of the First Anglo-Boer War. Major-General George Pomeroy Colley, commander of the British forces was shot and killed by a Boer marksman. The defeat of the British led to the signing of the Pretoria Convention between Transvaal Boers and the UK, reinstating a self-governing South African Republic, under nominal British suzerainty

1883 – William B. Purvis patents a self-inking hand stamp; he also invented a fountain pen with an ink reservoir to make it more portable

1883 – Oscar Hammerstein I patents the first cigar-rolling machine (lyricist’s father)

1886 – Hugo Black born, U.S. Supreme Court Justice for 34 years; fighter for civil liberties, civil rights, freedom of the press, and freedom of religion; he defended the decisions of the NY Times and Washington Post to publish the Pentagon Papers

1890 – Mabel Staupers born, 1917 graduate of Freedman’s Hospital of Nursing (now Howard University), led Harlem Committee of NY Tuberculosis and Health Association, organized health education, public lectures, free exams and dental care for school children fought for full racial integration with help of Frances Bolton, integrated Army and Navy nurses

Mabel Keaton Staupers displays the Mary Mahony Award for distinguished
service in nursing to nurses at the Harlem Hospital Nurses Residence in 1947

1896 – The Charlotte Observer publishes a picture of an X-ray photograph made by Dr. H.L. Smith., showing all the bones of a hand and a bullet that was placed on the palm

1897 – Marian Anderson born, African-American contralto; she achieved European fame prior to her American popularity, largely due to racial prejudice. In 1939, Howard University tried to hire the DAR’s Constitution Hall for a Marian Anderson concert, the only venue in Washington DC large enough to hold the expected crowd, but the Daughters of the American Revolution refused the black performer’s appearance. Many DAR members resigned, including First Lady Eleanor Roosevelt, who wrote about it in her weekly column, gaining world-wide attention. Supported by the First Lady and FDR, an open air concert in front of the Lincoln Memorial was arranged; Marian Anderson sang for an interracial crowd of 75,000 and a radio audience of millions, opening with “My Country ‘Tis of Thee” – In 1964, she began her final concert tour with an appearance at Constitution Hall

1902 – John Steinbeck born, American author, Nobel Prize in Literature; The Grapes of Wrath, Tortilla Flats, Cannery Row

1912 – Lawrence Durrell born, English novelist and poet; best known for his four novels which make up The Alexandrian Quartet

1912 – Johanna Catharina Jacoba Cornelius born, South African organizer for the Garment Worker’s Union (GWU); elected as GWU president (1934-1935); GWU general secretary (1952-1974)

Garment workers march in support of GWU leader Solly Sachs

1922 – The U.S. Supreme Court, in a unanimous decision, upholds the principle that the 19th Amendment guarantees American women the right to vote in Leser v. Garnett; Judge Oscar Leser sues to have the names of two women, Cecelia Street Waters and Mary D. Randolph, removed from the voting rolls in Baltimore because the Maryland Constitution limits suffrage to men, and the Maryland legislature had refused to ratify the Nineteenth Amendment; the Supreme Court’s decision insures that the right to vote can actually be used by American women, as citizens of the United States, no matter what state they live in

1923 – Viktor Kalabis born, Czech composer whose career was hampered, first by the Nazi invasion, then by his refusal to join the Communist Party; his Sinfonia is one of the world’s most-played Czech compositions; founder of the Concertino Praga young musicians competition

1924 – Samella Sanders Lewis born, artist, and art historian; first African American woman to earn a degree in fine arts and art history; founder of Contemporary Crafts in 1969, the first black-owned art publishing house

Field, by Samella Sanders Lewis

1925 – Pía Sebastiani born, Argentine pianist and composer; as a composer, best known for her composition for piano and orchestra; as a pianist, she was noted for her performances of Beethoven piano concertos

1930 – Joanne Woodward born, American actress, producer, stage director and philanthropist; she won an Academy Award for Best Actress for The Three Faces of Eve; co-founder with her husband Paul Newman of the Hole in the Wall Gang Camp in 1988, a non-profit residential summer camp, and year-round center providing free services to thousands of children with cancer and other serious conditions, and to their families. In 1994, she and Newman were jointly presented with the Award for Greatest Public Service Benefiting the Disadvantaged by the Jefferson Awards of the American Institute for Public Service

1932 – Elizabeth Taylor born in London, American movie star and Academy Award winning actress, noted humanitarian; one of the first celebrities to be an HIV/AIDS activist, as a co-founder of the American Foundation for AIDS Research in 1985, and the founder of the Elizabeth Taylor AIDS Foundation in 1991. She was also a supporter of the Jewish National Fund, and on the board of trustees of the Simon Wiesenthal Center

1933 – The Reichstag, Germany’s parliament building in Berlin, is set afire; the Nazis regime accuses Communists of setting the fire

1933 – Frances Perkins is appointed Secretary of Labor, becoming the first woman to serve in a U.S. Cabinet position

1936 – Sonia Johnson born, American feminist, activist and writer; outspoken supporter of the Equal Rights Amendment and vocal critic of the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-Day Saints (Mormons) which led to her excommunication from the church. Born a fifth-generation Mormon, she began speaking in favor of the ERA in 1977, and co-founded Mormons for ERA. In 1978, she testified before the U.S. Senate Subcommittee on the Constitution, Civil Rights and Property Rights. The church began disciplinary proceedings against Johnson after she delivered her speech “Patriarchal Panic: Sexual Politics in the Mormon Church” at a meeting of the American Psychological Association (APA) in New York City in September 1979, denouncing the nationwide lobbying efforts of the LDS church to prevent passage of the ERA.  Her husband divorced her in October 1979. In December 1979, she was charged with hindering the LDS worldwide missionary program, damaging Mormon social programs, and teaching false doctrine, and was excommunicated. She ran in 1984 as the U.S. Citizens Party candidate for President, but only received 72,161 votes, which left her bitter and disillusioned. Among her books are From Housewife to Heretic, and Going Out of Our Minds: The Metaphysics of Liberation, in which she rejects all the efforts to improve the lives of women through legislation and government, likening the male-dominated State to an abusive husband, who alternately batters and rewards women to keep them under control

1939 – In NLRB v. Fansteel Metallurgical Corporation, the U.S. Supreme Court struck a major blow against unions, ruling that sit-down strikes are illegal: in a split decision, the majority rules that the National Labor Relations Board, in ordering Fansteel to reinstate workers fired for participating in a sit-down strike, had exceeded its authority; that even though workers staged the sit-down because of Fansteel’s illegal actions in impeding union organizing and refusing to negotiate a contract, the strikers’ participation in a sit-down strike justified their firing

1942 – Charlayne Hunter-Gault born, African American journalist and foreign correspondent for National Public Radio and the Public Broadcasting Service

1949 – Chaim Weizmann becomes the first Israeli president

1950 – Julia Schwab Neuberger born, second British woman rabbi and the first hired by a synagogue, Chief Executive of the King’s Fund (1997-2004), a health issues think tank, author of The Moral State We’re In (2005)

1951 – The 22nd Amendment to the U.S. Constitution was ratified, limiting U.S.  Presidents to two terms

1958 – Margaret Wood Hassan born, American attorney and Democratic politician; Governor of New Hampshire (2013-2017); since 2017,  U.S. Senator from New Hampshire

1967 – Pink Floyd record their first single, “Arnold Layne”

1971 – Sara Blakely born, American businesswoman, founder of Spanx

1972 – The Shanghai Communique is issued by U.S. President Nixon and Chinese Premier Chou En-lai, that U.S.- Chinese relations should be normalized

1973 – The American Indian Movement (AIM) begins their 71-day occupation of  Wounded Knee in South Dakota, demanding the U.S. Senate launch an investigation of the Bureau of Indian Affairs, and that the Senate Foreign Relations Committee hold hearings on the scores of Indian treaties broken by the U.S. government

1974 – People magazine is first issued by Time-Life (later known as Time-Warner)

1980 – The first multiracial election is held in Zimbabwe. Robert Mugabe is elected as the nation’s first Black president

1980 – Chelsea Clinton born, American author, journalist, and global heath advocate; daughter of Bill and Hillary Clinton; special correspondent for NBC News (2011-2014). She has written five books for children on getting involved in social issues and biographies of notable women in history, and co-authored with Devi Sridhar Governing Global Health: Who Runs the World and Why?, a scholarly book on global health policy.  She also co-authored The Book of Gutsy Women: Favorite Stories of Courage and Resilience with her mother. Since 2011, she has taken a prominent role in the Clinton Foundation, working on improving global health, and creating more opportunities for women

1981 – Chrysler Corporation is granted an additional $400 million in federal loan guarantees; Chrysler had posted a loss of $1.7 billion in 1980

1986 – The U.S. Senate approves telecast of its debates on a trial basis

1990 – The Exxon Corporation and Exxon Shipping are indicted on five criminal counts for 1989 Exxon Valdez oil spill

1991 – U.S. President George H.W. Bush announces on live television that “Kuwait is liberated”

1992 – Polar Bears International is founded, sponsors of  International Polar Bear Day * to raise awareness of the impact of global climate change on the habitat of Polar bears, whose numbers are dwindling rapidly because the polar ice is melting

1997 – In Ireland, divorce becomes legal

1998 – Britain’s House of Lords agrees to give a monarch’s first-born daughter the same claim to the throne as any first-born son, ending 1,000 years of primogeniture

1999 – While trying to circumnavigate the Earth, Colin Prescot and Andy Elson set a new hot air balloon endurance record of being aloft for 233 hours and 55 minutes

1999 – Nigeria returns to civilian rule when General Olusegun Obasanjo becomes the country’s first elected president since August of 1983

2012 – Daniel Schein launches Anosomia Awareness Day, * asking supporters to wear red; Anosomia is olfactory dysfunction, sense of smell loss; sponsored by The Monell Center in Philadelphia PA, and Fifth Sense, a UK-based non-profit which provides support and information for people with smell and taste disorders, #LongLostSmell

2014 – World NGO Day * – The UN Office for Project Services, and the UN Development Programme mark the first commemoration of World NGO Day, aimed at inspiring people to become more involved with non-profit organizations

2015 – U.S. authorities seized a stolen Picasso painting worth millions of dollars and said it would be returned to France’s National Museum. U.S. Attorney Loretta Lynch filed papers to forfeit the cubist painting, “La Coiffeuse,” which was shipped to the U.S. via Federal Express from Belgium in December, on its way to a climate-controlled storage facility in Queens. The original shipment described its contents as a $37 “art craft.”

2019 – U.S. District Judge Fred Biery of San Antonio ordered the state of Texas to end its effort to weed out non-citizen voters, saying there is no evidence of widespread election fraud in Texas and the state’s flawed list questioning the eligibility of 98,000 people had “created a mess.” The office of Republican Texas Governor Greg Abbott’s new elections chief, Secretary of State David Whitley, came up with the list by comparing voter rolls with a database of legal U.S. residents with state IDs. Within days, many on the list were found to be citizens. Judge Biery said as a result “perfectly legal naturalized Americans” received threatening correspondence that “exemplifies the power of government to strike fear and anxiety and to intimidate the least powerful among us.”

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