September 7th is

Acorn Squash Day

Buy a Book Day *

Grandma Moses Day *

Salami Day *

Superhuman Day *

Neither Rain Nor Snow Day *

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MORE! Edith Sitwell, Desmond Tutu and Grandma Moses, click

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WORLD FESTIVALS AND NATIONAL HOLIDAYS

Australia – Threatened Species Day

Brazil – Independence Day

Fiji – Constitution Day

Mozambique – Victory/Lusaka Accord Day

Pakistan – Air Force Day

Ukraine – Military Intelligence Day

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On This Day on HISTORY

1251 BC (legend) – A solar eclipse marks the birth of Heracles (aka Hercules) at Thebes

AD 70 –The Roman army under Titus, son of Emperor Vespasian, continues to occupy and plunder Jerusalem

923 – Emperor Suzaku born, he ascended the Chrysanthemum Throne of Japan in 930 at age 7, after the deaths of his older brother, Emperor Daigo at age 46, and Daigo’s eldest son.  Suzaku ruled for 16 years, then abdicated in favor of his younger brother, who became Emperor Murakami. Suzaku died in 952, immediately after his 30^th birthday

1533 – Elizabeth born, daughter of Henry VIII and Anne Boleyn; after the death of her half-sister Queen Mary I, she will become Queen Elizabeth I of England and Ireland

1541 – Hernando de Cabezon born, Spanish composer and organist

1683 – Maria Anna of Austria born, Queen consort of King John V of Portugal. When John suffered a stroke which left him partially paralyzed, she became regent from 1742 until his death in 1750, when her son became King Joseph I at age 36

1813 – First use in print of nickname ‘Uncle Sam’ for United States in NY’s Troy Post

Uncle Sam Cartoon by Thomas Nast – 1877

1814 – William Butterfield born, English Gothic Revival architect

1822 – Prince Pedro declares Brazil is independent from Portugal; on December 1, he is crowned Emperor Dom Pedro I of Brazil

1829 – Ferdinand Vandeveer Hayden born, American geologist; pioneering surveyor of the Rocky Mountains, and leader of the first federally-funded geological survey of the Yellowstone area of Wyoming

1857 – Mormon extremists in Mountain Meadows Utah slaughter 120 men, women and children of an emigrant wagon train on its way to California. Only 17 children, all younger than seven, were spared, and taken in by local families

1860 – Anna Robertson Moses born, aka Grandma Moses, American folk artist – (see 1960 entry)

Bennington, by Grandma Moses

1885 – Elinor Wylie born, American novelist and poet; her first poem to appear in print was “Velvet Shoes,” in Poetry magazine in 1920, followed in 1921 by publication of her collection Nets to Catch the Wind, and Black Armor in 1923, the same year her first novel, Jennifer Lorn, appeared. She was poetry editor of Vanity Fair magazine (1923-1925), and a contributing editor of The New Republic (1926-1928). Other works include the novel The Orphan Angel, and Angels and Earthly Creatures, a book of verse. She suffered from high blood pressure in adulthood, and severe migraines. She died of a stroke in 1928 at age 43

1887 – Dame Edith Sitwell born, English poet, critic and editor; an eccentric often cruelly mocked for her tall thin appearance, a large and distinctive nose, and her outrageous, flamboyant style of dress. Sitwell is best known for Façade, a series of her poems,  some of which first appeared in the literary magazine Wheels, and then later became an “entertainment,” a recitation of the poems with an instrumental accompaniment composed by William Walton, first performed for the public in 1923

1896 – First successful heart surgery performed by Ludwig Rehn in Frankfurt, repairing a stab wound suffered by 22-year-old Wilhelm Justus, who lived to age 56, dying in 1930

1900 – Taylor Caldwell born, prolific American novelist, much of it historical fiction, including Dear and Glorious Physician and Captains and the Kings

1901 – The Boxer Protocol, one of the ‘unequal treaties’ between China and an alliance of eleven Western nations, is signed, officially ending the Boxer Rebellion

1903 – Margaret Landon born, American author; her best-selling novel, Anna and the King of Siam, became the inspiration for the Broadway musical The King and I

1903 – Dorothy Marie Donnelly born, American poet, essayist and informal salon host with her husband Walter at their home, visited by intellectuals, scholars, and authors, including Senator Philip Hart, mystery writer Henry Branson who lived next door, Renaissance scholar Leo Kirschbaun, art historian Richard Ettinghausen, and poet Robert Hayden; Donnelly published six volumes of poetry and prose

1907 – Cunard Line’s RMS Lusitiana embarks on her maiden voyage from Liverpool England to New York City

RMS Lusitiana – 1907 post card

1912 – David Packard born, American engineer; co-founder of Hewlett-Packard Co.

1914 – Neither Rain Nor Snow Day * celebrates the opening day of main New York City Post Office building, inscribed, “Neither snow nor rain nor heat nor gloom of night stays these couriers from the swift completion of their appointed rounds” from a passage in Herodotus describing the Persian mounted postal carriers, 500 BC:  “It is said that as many days as there are in the whole journey, so many are the men and horses that stand along the road, each horse and man at the interval of a day’s journey; and these are stayed neither by snow nor rain nor heat nor darkness from accomplishing their appointed course with all speed.” (trans. by A.D. Godley)

1916 – U.S. federal employees win the right to Worker’s Compensation in the Federal Employees Liability Act

1923 – Nancy Keesing born, Australian Jewish author of fiction, nonfiction and poetry; Garden Island People, The Woman I Am: Poems, Douglas Stewart

1925 –Laura Ashley born, Welsh designer who built a fashion, home furnishings and textiles empire; known for her floral prints

1925 – Bhanumathi Ramakrishna born, multilingual Indian film star, producer, director, scriptwriter, and author; awarded the Padma Bhushan, India’s 3^rd highest civilian award, for her contributions to Indian cinema; also known for her philanthropy, founding member of the community service organization Altrusa International, life member of the Red Cross Society, and a school bearing her name in Tamil Nadu providing free education for the poor

1927 – Philo Farnsworth builds the first fully electronic television device, an “image dissector”

1927 – Claire L’Heureux-Dubé born, Canadian lawyer and judge; one of the first Canadian women lawyers to handle divorces cases (1952-1973), she was also the first woman appointed as a judge to the Quebec Superior Court (1973-1979), and led a federal commission studying immigration problems in Quebec. She was elevated to the Quebec Court of Appeal (1979-1987), and became the second woman, after Bertha Wilson, appointed as a puisne justice (1987-2002) on the Supreme Court of Canada, which consists of a Chief Justice and 8 puisne (lesser) justices. She earned a reputation on the court as a committed feminist and supporter of minority rights. Of the 254 judgments she wrote, 40% of them were dissents, so she was known as the court’s “Great Dissenter.” Among her notable dissents, in 1993, she was the sole justice in Canada (AG) v Mossop, to acknowledge that the meaning of “family” is not fixed, and should be adapted to the changing times, including same-sex couples. She was honored in 2003 by being made a Companion of the Order of Canada, and in 2004 as a Grand Officer of the National Order of Quebec

1929 – Kathleen Gorham born, Australian ballerina who established her reputation in companies in Australia, Paris and London before becoming the first prima ballerina of the newly formed Australian Ballet in 1962, dancing a wide range of roles before retiring in 1966, then taught ballet and was director of the National Theatre Ballet School in Melbourne. Gorham had a stroke in 1979, but continued to teach, settling in Southport, Queensland, until her death after a heart attack in 1983 at age 54

Kathleen Gorham and  dancer/choreographer Paul Grinwis
as the Lovers in Les Amants Eternels (The Eternal Lovers)

1934 – Mary Bauermeister born, German painter, art installation creator and garden designer, influenced by Pop Art and Nouveau Réalisme

Twin-Tools Series Sale Table, 1967 – Mary Bauermeister

1936 – Buddy Holly born as Charles Holley, influential American Rock’n’Roll star of the 1950s , who was killed in plane crash at age 22 in 1959, along with fellow rock stars Ritchie Valens and the Big Bopper

1936 – Benjamin, the last known Tasmanian “wolf” (thylacinus cynocephalus), a carnivorous marsupial, dies at the Hobart Zoo in Tasmania. Thylacine fossils estimated to be 23 million years old have been found in NW Queensland

1940 – Artie Shaw and his orchestra record “Temptation”

1940 – WWII: The German Luftwaffe begins its blitz of London, a massive aerial bombardment; in 71 raids over the next eight months, over 40,000 civilians will be killed, and as many as 139,000 injured

1943 – Beverley McLachlin, Canadian jurist, Chief Justice of Canada (2000-2017); the first woman Chief Justice, and the longest serving in Canadian history. In May 2015, she stirred up controversy in Canada during a speech at the Global Centre for Pluralism, by saying that Canada attempted to commit “cultural genocide” against aboriginal peoples in what she called the worst stain on Canada’s human-rights record. Since 2018, she has served as a Non-Permanent Judge of the Court of Final Appeal of Hong Kong

1949 – Dianne Hayter born, Baroness Hayter of Kentish Town, British politician; Labour Co-operative member and deputy leader of Labour in the House of Lords since 2010; served on the Labour Party National Executive Committee (1998-2010), representing the Socialist Societies, and as Chair of the Labour Party (2007-2008). She was Chief Executive of the European Parliamentary Labour Party (1990-1996), and previously served as General Secretary of the Fabian Society (1976-1982). In July 2019, she was sacked as Shadow Brexit Minister for making what Labour called “deeply offensive” remarks at a Labour First group meeting, asserting that the party’s leadership was not open to external views and comparing them to being “in a bunker” like the “last days of Hitler”

1951 – Mark Isham born, American musician, synthesist and film composer; noted for use of his music in many films and television series, including The Hitcher, Point Break, Of Mice and Men (1992 version), Nell, Blade and the TV shows Beauty & the Beast, and Once Upon a Time

1953 – Nikita Khrushchev is elected first secretary of the Soviet Union Communist Party

1956 – Sam Cook releases single “You Send Me’

1957 – First appearance of NBC’s peacock logo

1960 – On the 100^th Birthday of Anna Mary Robertson Moses, NY Governor Rockefeller proclaimed the first ‘Grandma Moses Day’ to honor the American folk artist, who began painting in her 70s

Self-Portrait, Grandma Moses

1962 – Jennifer Egan born, American novelist, short story writer and journalist; current President of the PEN America Center, since 2018; her book, A Visit from the Goon Squad, won the 2011 Pulitzer Prize for Fiction and the National Book Critics Circle Award. She won the Carroll Kowal Journalism Award for her 2002 New York Times Magazine cover story on homeless children

1977 – Torrijos-Carter Treaties signed by U.S. and Panama. U.S. agrees to transfer control of the Panama Canal at the end of the 20^th century.

1979 – The Chrysler Corporation asks the U.S. government for a $1.5 billion bail-out to save it from bankruptcy

1979 – ESPN makes it cable television debut

1986 – Desmond Tutu becomes the Archbishop of Cape Town, the first black leader of the Anglican Church in South Africa

1997 – First flight of the Lockheed Martin F-22 Raptor, fifth-generation, single-seat, twin-engine, all-weather stealth tactical fighter aircraft developed for the U.S. Air Force

2004 – Attention Deficit Disorder Association spearheads passage of U.S. Senate resolution designating September 7 as National ADHD Awareness Day *

2006 – The Salami Appreciation Society of Henrico VA inaugurates Salami Day *

2008 – The U.S. government takes control of Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac mortgage financing companies

2012 – The first Buy a Book Day * encourages readers to support authors by purchasing copies of their work

2015 – Pope Francis announced reforms to make the Roman Catholic Church’s procedure for marriage annulments easier. The move marks the latest in a series of changes the pope has made to make the church more welcoming. Americans accounted for about half of the nearly 50,000 annulments granted in 2012, the latest year for which statistics are available. Less than two weeks ago, Pope Francis announced that all priests would be able to forgive the “sin of abortion” in the “Year of Mercy” starting in December. These changes reportedly have given rise to mounting complaints from conservatives within the church

2016 – The first Superhuman Day * inspired by the Summer Paralympic Games, celebrates all the incredible athletes, musicians, craftspeople, artists and people from every other discipline, who never let disability stop them from fulfilling their dreams

Richard Whitehead (GBR) sets a new Paralympic Record and wins the Gold Medal in
the Men’s 200m – T42 Final in the Olympic Stadium at the Paralympic Games,
Rio de Janeiro, Brazil – photo by Bob Martin for OIS/IOC

2017 – A federal appeals court ruled that the Trump administration must let in thousands of vetted refugees blocked by Trump’s Executive Order. The court also ruled the administration must broaden the list of people who qualify for exemptions from the temporary ban on travel from six Muslim-majority countries. The ban exempts people with a “bona fide relationship with a person or entity in the United States.” The administration said that covered immediate family members and in-laws, but not grandparents, cousins, aunts, and uncles. The appeals panel said the government had not offered a “persuasive explanation” for why a mother-in-law qualified but a grandmother did not

2019 – Thousands of women in the U.S. now have to travel out of their home states in order to have an abortion because of the growing number of states which have passed increasingly restrictive laws, and imposed requirements on women’s healthcare clinics which have caused many of them to close. Although abortion opponents say the laws are intended to reduce abortions and not send people to other states, at least 276,000 women terminated their pregnancies outside their home state between 2012 and 2017, according to an Associated Press analysis of data collected from state reports and the U.S. Centers for Disease Control and Prevention. “In many places, the right to abortion exists on paper, but the ability to access it is almost impossible,” said Amy Hagstrom Miller, CEO of Whole Women’s Health, which operates seven abortion clinics in Maryland, Indiana, Texas, Virginia and Minnesota. “We see people’s access to care depend on their ZIP code.”

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