July 26 is

Americans With Disabilities Day *

Bagelfest Day

Esperanto Day *

One Voice Day *

All or Nothing Day

Aunt and Uncle Day

Coffee Milkshake Day

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MORE! Emmy Noether, Ibn-e-Safi and Jacinda Ardern, click

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WORLD FESTIVALS AND NATIONAL HOLIDAYS

Barbados – Day of National Significance
(Labour Rebellion of 1937)

Cuba – Día de la Rebeldía Nacional
(Day of the National Rebellion)

India – Kargil Vijay Diwas
(Kargil War Victory 1999)

Liberia – Independence Day

Maldives – Independence Day

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On This Day in HISTORY

657 – Battle of Siffin, First Fitna (Muslim civil war): Caliph Ali ibn Abi Talib’s army meets the army of Caliph Muawiyah I on the banks of the Euphrates River in what is now Syria, with heavy losses on both sides, but no conclusive winner

Shrine of Ali

1581 – Plakkaat van Verlatinghe (Act of Abjuration): The northern Low Countries declare their independence from Spanish King Philip II

1612 – Murad IV born, Sultan of the Ottoman Empire (1623-1640), known for the brutality of his methods in restoring the authority of the state. He was only 11 years old when he was brought to power by a palace conspiracy against his uncle Mustafa I, sometimes called ‘the Mad.’ Murad was under the control of his mother, Kösem Sultan, until the Janissaries stormed the palace in 1631 and killed several members of the court, including the Grand Vizier. Murad then asserted himself, banning alcohol, tobacco and coffee in Istanbul, under penalty of death. There are reports of him disguising himself at night, prowling the lowest taverns in the city, then enforcing his command by throwing off his disguise, and personally beheading the offender.  He reinstated the harshest punishments to the judicial regulations.  Murad died of cirrhosis at the age of 27 in 1640. All ten of his sons died in infancy or childhood, so he was succeeded by his brother Ibrahim 

1711 – Lorenz Christoph Mizler born, German polymath, physician, mathematician, musician, composer, publisher, science writer and historian

1745 – A report in The Reading Mercury is the first record of a women’s cricket match, at Gosden Common, near Guildford England, played between “maids” from Bramley and Hambledon

1775 – U.S. postal system established with Benjamin Franklin as Postmaster General

1782 – John Field born, Irish pianist and composer

1791 – Franz Xaver Wolfgang Mozart born, Austrian composer and conductor, Mozart’s youngest child

1796 – George Catlin born, American painter, author, and traveler

1819 – Justin Holland born, African American classical guitarist, musical arranger, teacher who wrote music method books; abolitionist and civil rights activist, working with the Underground Railroad; attended Oberlin College, and learned Spanish, French, Italian and German to further his musical education

1847 – Liberia declares its independence

1856 – George Bernard Shaw born, Irish playwright, Nobel Prize laureate, awarded the 1925 Nobel Prize in Literature; he wrote over 60 plays; he is best known for his plays Saint Joan, and Pygmalion 

1865 – Rajanikanta Sen born, Indian poet and composer

1869 – Donaldina Cameron born in New Zealand, American social justice advocate and rescuer of human trafficking victims; became superintendent of the Presbyterian Mission House in San Francisco’s Chinatown at age 23; for decades she fought to end the illegal kidnapping and smuggling of Chinese girls and young women by the Tongs to be used as slave labor or prostitutes, rescuing over 3,000 Chinese girls and women held by the traffickers; called Fahn Gwai, “white devil” by her adversaries

Donaldina Cameron biography, Cameron with Hope Chow (Up R),
whom she rescued, and sketch of Cameron as a young woman

1875 – Carl Jung born, Swiss pioneer in analytical psychology; noted for his concepts of synchronicity, archetypal phenomena, the collective unconscious, the psychological complex, and extraversion and introversion

1875 – Antonio Machado born, Spanish poet, a leading figure in the Spanish ‘Generation of ’98’ literary movement, known for the evolution of his poetry from modernist to a style combining symbolism with social realism

1887 – Esperanto Day * celebrates the publication on this date of Unua Libro, the first book written in Esperanto, by the language’s creator, L.L. Zemenhof

1891 – France annexes Tahiti

1894 – Aldous Huxley born, English novelist and philosopher

1895 – Gracie Allen born, American comedian and vaudevillian, best known as part of the comic duo Burns and Allen, with her husband George Burns, on stage, radio, film and television. Burns downplayed his own comic brilliance, crediting Allen with their success, “All I had to do was say, ‘Gracie, how’s your brother?’ and she talked for 38 years.” 

1897 – Paul Gallico born, author and journalist; best known for The Snow Goose: A Story of Dunkirk, Mrs. ‘Arris Goes to Paris, and The Poseidon Adventure

1900 – Sarah Kafrit born in the Russian Empire, Israeli teacher and politician; member for Mapai of the Knesset (Israeli legislature) between 1951 and 1959; a founding member in 1927 of the moshav (farmers’ collective) Kfar Yehoshua; member of the secretariat of Women’s Councils

1903 – Estes Kefauver born, American Democratic politician; U.S. Senator (Tennessee 1949-1963); U.S. House of Representatives (1939-1949); as a Congressman, he was a staunch supporter of the New Deal and the Tennessee Valley Authority, but he is best remembered for his investigation of organized crime in the 1950s, and his fights to pass anti-trust legislation and curb the growing power of  corporations as Chair of the Senate Antitrust and Monopoly Subcommittee from 1957 until his death in 1963

1904 – Edwin A. Link born, American industrialist and inventor; pioneer in underwater archaeology, submersibles, and aviation; inventor of the flight simulator

1906 – Irena Morzycka-Iłłakowicz born in Berlin, Polish 2^nd Lieutenant of the National Armed forces, and an intelligence agent working with the Polish resistance movement during WWII.  She lived separately from her husband under assumed names to make it more difficult for the Gestapo to find either one of them. She was fluent in seven languages: Polish, French, English, Persian, Finnish, German and Russian. Between 1941 and 1942, her section was systematically destroyed by the Nazis, and numerous other underground activists were arrested. She was arrested in 1942, undergoing harsh interrogations without revealing anything. Her husband arranged for a guard to be bribed to put her in a group of non-political prisoners being transported to the Majdanek concentration camp. A group of fighters dressed in Gestapo uniforms presented a falsified document claiming her for further interrogation in Warsaw. She moved from Lublin to Klarysek-Janówek, then returned to Warsaw to work with the Soviet intelligence network in Poland, while her husband was sent to London in 1943 as a representative of the National Armed Forces. He wanted her to come with him, but command decided she should go separately later. Nine days before she was to leave, she was summoned to a meeting, but was murdered in unknown circumstances. Her husband eventually found her body, and she was buried under an alias, as Barbara Zawisza. To prevent the Gestapo from capturing them, her husband was at the funeral disguised as a gravedigger, and her mother posed as a cemetery helper. She was posthumously decorated with the  Krzyż Narodowego Czynu Zbrojnego, one of Poland’s highest honors

1908 – U.S. Attorney General Charles J. Bonaparte issues an order that initiates the Office of the Chief Examiner, which evolves into the Federal Bureau of Investigation (FBI), as it is renamed in 1935

1914 – Erskine Hawkins born, American trumpeter and bandleader

1918 – Emmy Noether’s paper, which became known as Noether’s theorem, is presented by a colleague at a meeting the Royal Society of Sciences (because she was not a member of the society), at Göttingen, Germany. Her theorem, from which conservation laws are deduced for symmetries of angular momentum, linear momentum, and energy, is  regarded by many physicists as one of the most important mathematical theorems ever proved, which guided the development of modern physics. Even though the importance of her paper was recognized, Noether was not appointed to a paid position, as a lecturer, until 1923. Before that, her family supported her while she worked as an untenured professor without being paid

1921 – Jean Shepherd born, American author, screenwriter and radio host; known for his humorous tales of life in the American Midwest, especially A Christmas Story

1923 – Jan Berenstain born, with husband Stanley, wrote and illustrated children’s books, how-to guides for parents, and cartoons for magazines

The Berenstains

1923 – Bernice Rubens born, Welsh novelist; noted for  Madame Sousatzka, and The Elected Member, which won the 1970 Booker Prize for Fiction

1925 – Ana María Matute born, Spanish author and member of the Real Academia Española; honored with the prestigious Miguel de Cervantes Prize for lifetime achievement Spanish letters in 2010; Fiesta al noroeste (Celebration in the Northwest) won the 1952 Café Gijón Prize

1928 – Ibn-e-Safi born in British India as Asrar Ahmad, a prolific and best-selling Pakistani Urdu-language author, novelist and poet; best known for his series, Jasoosi Dunya (The Spy World), and Imraan, a multi-volume mixed collection of satirical works and poetry, many of them ghazals, a classical poetic form which originated in Persia in the 7th century

1933 – “Yomo” Toro, Puerto Rican guitarist and composer

1939 – Kay Starr records “Baby Me” with Glenn Miller’s orchestra

1939 – Wopko Jensma born, South African poet and graphic designer; though highly talented, he suffered from schizophrenia. He majored in sculpture at the University of Pretoria. After living in Mozambique, Botswana and Swaziland, he returned to South Africa, where he disappeared in 1993 from a Salvation Army shelter for homeless men without a trace 

1939 – Jun Henmi born as Mayumi Shimizu, Japanese author and poet; known for her fiction and nonfiction works about people affected by WWII. She won the Nitta Jirō Culture Prize in 1984 for her book Otoko-tachi no Yamato (published in English as Yamato: The Last Battle)

1943 – Mick Jagger born, Rolling Stones, singer-songwriter

Mick Jagger, photo from Young magazine

1945 – Dame Helen Mirren born, notable English actress, began her career with the Royal Shakespeare Company in 1967; one of the few actors to achieve acting’s ‘Triple Crown’ – a 2007 Oscar and an Olivier Award for Best Actress as Queen Elizabeth II in The Queen; and a Tony Award for Best Actress in a Play, for playing the same role in the  play The Audience, which inspired the film. In 2017, Mirren narrated Cries from Syria, a documentary film about the Syrian Civil War, directed by Evgeny Afineevsky.  She has publicly stated that she is an atheist, and a naturalist, at her “happiest on a nude beach with people of all ages and races.”

1946 – Aloha Airlines begins service from Honolulu International Airport

1947 – President Truman signs the National Security Act,  forming the Department of Defense, the CIA, the National Security Council, and the Joints Chiefs of Staff

1948 – Harry Truman’s executive order desegregates U.S military and federal agencies

1950 – Anne Rafferty born, Lady Justice Rafferty, British justice; Lady Justice of Appeal of England and Wales since 2011, member of the Privy Council; first woman Chair of the Criminal Bar Association of England and Wales; also Chancellor of the University of Sheffield since 2015; High Court Justice 2000-2011; Deputy High Court Justice (1999-2000) Recorder (1991-1999), and Queen’s Council (1990-1991)

1952 – Dame Glynis Breakwell, British social psychologist and an active public policy adviser and researcher specialising in leadership, risk management and identity process. She has been a Fellow of the British Psychological Society since 1987 and an Honorary Fellow since 2006. Appointed Dame Commander of the Order of the British Empire  in 2012, and is also a Deputy Lieutenant of the County of Somerset

1953 – Arizona Governor Pyle orders raid on polygamists in Short Creek AZ

1956 – Egyptian President Gamal Abdel Nasser sets off the Suez Crisis by nationalizing the Suez Canal. Israel, followed by the UK and France, invades Egypt in October. Political pressure from the U.S., the USSR and the UN leads to the withdrawal of the invading nations. Damage closed the canal from October 1956 to March 1957. The UN created the United Nations Emergency Force (UNEF) Peacekeepers to police the Egyptian-Israeli border

1963 – World’s first geosynchronous satellite, Syncom 2, is launched

1964 – Anne Provoost born in Belgium, Flemish author of novels for young adults, and essays; noted for her novels My Aunt is a Pilot Whale, which deals with sexual abuse, and Falling, which examines the allure of Neo-Nazi rhetoric, and won Belgian, Dutch and French literary awards

1964 – Sandra Bullock born, American actress, producer and philanthropist; she was twice nominated for an Academy Award for Best Actress for The Blind Side and Gravity, and won the Oscar for The Blind Side. She is the founder of Fortis Films, and was an executive producer on the sitcom George Lopez (2002-2007). Fortis Films produced the movie All About Steve in 2009. Bullock is a supporter of the American Red Cross, donating $1 million USD each for least five different disasters, including the 2004 Indian Ocean earthquakes and tsunamis, the Haiti earthquake, and Hurricane Harvey in Texas. She did a public service announcement urging people to sign a petition for clean-up efforts after the Deepwater Horizon oil spill in the Gulf of Mexico. Bullock made a large donation to Warren Easton High School in New Orleans, which was heavily damaged by Hurricane Katrina. She is also a supporter of the Texas non-profit The Kindred Life Foundation, which assists struggling teen parents and their children

1969 – Tanni Grey-Thompson born, Baroness Grey-Thompson of Eaglescliff, British politician, and academic; born with spina bifida, she was a successful wheelchair racer (1984-2007), winning many gold and silver medals in the Paralympic Games and World Championships; after a stint as a BBC television presenter, she became Chancellor of Northumbria University (2015 to present); created a Life Peer in 2010, she took her oath of office for the House of Lords in English and Welsh

1971 – Apollo 15 launched from Cape Kennedy FL on a manned moon mission

1977 – Quebec’s National Assembly declares French the province’s official language

1979 – The Clash releases their first U.S. single, “I Fought the Law”

1980 – Jacinda Ardern born, New Zealand politician; Prime Minister of New Zealand, Member of the New Zealand Parliament for Mount Albert, and Leader of the Labour Party since 2017; Member of Parliament for the Labour Party List (2008-2017).When Arden took office as Prime Minister, she was 37 years old, New Zealand’s youngest PM since Edward Stafford in 1856. She is also New Zealand’s first prime minister to be pregnant in office; when her daughter was born in June, 2018, she became the second head of state after Benazir Bhutto to give birth while in office. Ardren has drawn international praise for her response to the deadly terrorist attacks on two Christchurch mosques in 2019, and her leadership of New Zealand during the coronavirus pandemic, rated one of the most effective responses in the world, with 1,504 cases, and only 22 deaths out of a population of 4.886 million.

1984 – Prince’s movie Purple Rain premieres in Hollywood

1990 – Americans With Disabilities Day * – The Americans With Disabilities Act (ADA) is signed into law

1997 – One Voice Day * is launched, a global peace initiative, asking people everywhere to take a few moments at 6 PM Universal Time to read aloud the Universal Peace Covenant, created by the faculty and students at the School of Metaphysics – read here:  http://som.org/the-universal-peace-covenant/

1999 – The New York branch of Christie’s displays 1,500 of Marilyn Monroe’s personal things for future sale

2002 – Federal judge approves a $1.25 billion settlement between Swiss banks and over 500,000 plaintiffs alleging the banks hoarded money deposited by Holocaust victims

2016 – Hillary Clinton becomes the first woman nominee for U.S. President by a major political party at the Democratic National Convention in Philadelphia

2016 – Solar Impulse 2 becomes the first solar-powered aircraft to circumnavigate the Earth

2017 – An investigation by USA Today reveals that the U.S. is the most dangerous developed county in which to give birth. Every year, over 50,000 American women are severely injured giving birth, and about 700 women die. An estimated 50% of these injuries and deaths can be prevented if hospitals would provide better care. There is no tracking system for doctors to record childbirth issues, and doctors and hospitals alike regularly miss or ignore obvious signs of pre- and post- natal complications. The negligence has resulted in a sharp increase in maternal mortality rates, up from 17 deaths in 100,000 births in 1990 to 26.4 deaths per 100,000 in 2015. The rest of the developed world saw steady or improved death rates, with many below 10 deaths per 100,000 births, according to statistics kept by the World Health Organization (WHO). The average cost of delivering a baby without complications in the U.S. is also much higher than many other countries – almost $11,000, compared to about $3,200 in Canada, or just over $2,500 in Germany or France

2018 – Ahmed Alit Dahir, attorney general of Somalia, announced the nation’s first prosecution for female genital mutilation after a 10-year-old girl bled to death following begin cut the previous week. The announcement was described as a “defining moment” in a nation where 98% of all women and girls undergo FGM, the highest rate anywhere in the world. Speaking at a conference on FGM in the capital, Mogadishu, Dahir said he had sent a team of 10 investigators to interview Deeqa Dahir Nuur’s parents and the village cutter who performed the fatal operation. “We are ready to take it to court,” Dahir told an audience of officials, journalists and religious leaders. Deputy prime minister Mahdi Mohamed Gulaid, who was also at the event co- hosted by the Global Media Campaign to End FGM and the Ifrah Foundation, said: “It is not acceptable that in the 21st century FGM is continuing in Somalia. It should not be part of our culture. It is definitely not part of the Islamic religion.” FGM survivor and activist Ifrah Ahmed, 26, said the declaration “had taken everyone by surprise.” Ahmed added, “It shows just how quickly things can move when there is political will.”  Most girls in Somalia undergo FGM between the ages of five and nine. The operation is often performed by untrained midwives or healers using knives, razors or broken glass.

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