September 22^nd is

American Business Women’s Day *

Elephant Appreciation Day *

Ice Cream Cone Day *

White Chocolate Day

World Car-Free Day *

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MORE! Alma Thomas, Eric Baker and Maryam Shojaei, click

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WORLD FESTIVALS AND NATIONAL HOLIDAYS

Bulgaria – Independence Day

Estonia –
Resistance Fighting Day

Lithuania and Latvia:
Baltic Unity Day

Mali – Independence Day

Norway – Princess Märtha Louise Birthday

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On This Day in HISTORY

480 BC – Battle of Salamis, the Greek fleet of Themistocles defeats Xerxes I and his Persian fleet

904 – Chinese warlord Zhu Quanzhong kills Tang dynasty Emperor Zhaozong and seizes control of the imperial government

1236 – Pagan Samogitians defeat the Livonian Brothers of the Sword in the Battle of Saule (probably in what is now Lithuania), the first large-scale defeat of the Brothers of the Sword, a Catholic order of knights sanctioned by the Pope, which was raiding and plundering in the area

1515 – Anne of Cleves born, briefly fourth wife of Henry VIII, their marriage is annulled after six months, but she manages to keep her head on her shoulders, receives a generous settlement and remains in England; she and Catherine Parr are Henry VIII’s only wives who outlive him

Anne of Cleves, painted by H.Holbein -1539 (Louvre)

1598 – English playwright Ben Johnson kills actor Gabriel Spenser in a duel, is tried for the killing, but pleads “benefit of clergy” – a legal fiction that gave judges discretion in sentencing first-time offenders if they were clergy or could read the bible aloud (Johnson’s father was a clergyman, but he was raised by his stepfather, a bricklayer.) He avoids the death penalty, but is imprisoned, forfeits all his possessions and is branded on the thumb (to prevent him from using the benefit of clergy defense again)

1601 – Anne of Austria born, Spanish princess and Austrian archduchess of the House of Habsburg; became queen of France when she was married by proxy to King Louis XIII.  They were both 14 years old. Louis ignored his bride, and his mother, Marie de’ Medici , continued to conduct herself as queen of France, and held on to her considerable political power. Anne buffered herself among her Spanish ladies-in-waiting, which did not improve her French. In 1617, Louis rebelled against his mother’s influence, and had his mother’s favorite, the 1^st Marquis d’Ancre, assassinated. Anne’s Spanish ladies-in-waiting were sent back to Spain, and Louis finally began to pay attention to her. But after a series of stillbirths, he became aloof again. Finally, in 1638, at the age of 37, Anne gave birth to a son, Louis XIV, and 15 months later, gave birth to a second son, Philippe I, Duke of Orleans. When Louis died in 1643, Anne became regent for the 4-year-old King Louis XIV of France, until he reached his majority in 1651. She still had much influence with her son even after he became king. Louis married Anne’s niece Maria Theresa of Spain in 1660. Anne retired to the convent of Val-de-Grâce, where she died of breast cancer at age 64 in 1666. 

1692 – The last hangings of those convicted in the Salem witch trials; the remaining condemned prisoners are eventually released

1711 – The Tuscarora War begins as Southern Tuscaroras and their allies fight settlers in North Carolina who enlisted the Yamasee and Cherokee as allies

1762 – Elizabeth Simcoe born in England, English artist and diarist; married John Graves Simcoe, and went with him to colonial Canada, where he was the first Lt. Governor of Upper Canada. She painted over 500 watercolours of the town of York, Upper Canada, and her diary is a valuable record of the life of  early colonists in Ontario

1776 – Nathan Hale is hanged by the British as a spy for the Americans

1789 – U.S. Congress authorizes the office of Postmaster General, but the position had already been held by Benjamin Franklin, appointed by the Second Continental Congress in 1775, followed by Richard Bache in 1776 and Ebebezer Hazard in 1782. The first Postmaster General appointed by Congress is Samuel Osgood, four days after Congress officially approves the department

1791 – Michael Faraday born, English scientist, discoverer of electromagnetic induction

1792 – Primidi Vendémiaire of year one of the French Republican Calendar, as the French First Republic is born

1823 – Joseph Smith claims he was directed by a vision of the Angel Moroni to find a buried book of golden plates inscribed with a Judeo-Christian history of an unknown ancient American civilization, which he then “translates” into English and publishes as the Book of Mormon

1862 – Abraham Lincoln issues the preliminary Emancipation Proclamation, that all slaves held within rebel states would be free as of January 1, 1863

1868 – Louise C. McKinney born, one of Canada’s ‘Famous Five’ in the Persons Case; first woman sworn into the Legislative Assembly of Alberta, first woman elected to a Canadian legislature and in the entire British Empire; fought for women’s property rights, education, temperance, and government ownership of grain elevators and flour mills; the ‘Five’ and the Persons Case have been recognized as being of ‘National Historic Significance’ by the Canadian Government; in 2009, the Canadian Legislature voted to name all of the ‘Famous Five’ as Canada’s first “honorary senators”

1877 – Victor Shelford born, American zoologist and animal ecologist who helped establish ecology as a separate field, noted for his work on the process of change in species structure in an ecological community over time. He was the first president of the Ecological Society of America in 1915, and one of the founders of the Nature Conservancy in the 1940s

1880 – Dame Christabel Pankhurst born, English suffragette, co-founder with her mother Emmeline Pankhurst of the Women’s Social and Political Union (WSPU) and director of their militant action from exile in France (1912-1913), but she publicly supported Britain during WWI. Though she had earned a law degree in 1906 from the  University of Manchester, and received honours on her LL.B. exam, she was not allowed to practice law because of her gender

1885 – Erich von Stroheim born, Austrian film director, writer and actor

1888 – National Geographic magazine’s first issue is published

1891 – Alma Thomas born, African-American Expressionist painter and art educator; part of the the Washington Color School, a visual art movement started in Washington DC; in 1924, she was the first graduate from Howard University’s Fine Arts Department; taught at Shaw Junior High School (1924-1960), where she started a community arts program. In 1934, she earned a Masters in Art Education from Columbia University

1894 – Elisabeth Rethberg born as Lisbeth Sättler, German soprano and international opera star; she began her career at the Dresden Opera. Rethberg made her debut at New York’s Metropolitan Opera debut as Aida in Giuseppe Verdi’s opera in 1922, a role for which she became noted, then performed at the Met for 20 seasons. She also made appearances at London’s Royal Opera House, the Salzburg Festival, and Milan’s La Scala. She retired from the stage in 1942

1895 – Babette Deutsch born, American poet, critic, translator and novelist. She also taught at the New School for Social Research and Columbia University, where one of her students was Lawrence Ferlinghetti. She made well-regarded translations of poems by Boris Pasternak and Rainer Maria Rilke, and with her husband, Avraham Yarmolinsky, translated Eugene Puskin’s Eugene Onegin. The first collection of her poetry, Banners, published in 1919, was followed by nine additional collections. She published four novels, which are out-of-print, four books about poetry, and edited Poems of Samuel Taylor Coleridge (1967)

1896 – Queen Victoria surpasses her grandfather King George III as the longest reigning British monarch, until her record is overtaken by Queen Elizabeth II

1899 – Elsie Allen born, Native American Pomo basket weaver from the Northern California Cloverdale Rancheria of Pomo Indians of California. The women in her family were accomplished basketweavers, and her mother Annie founded the Pomo Indian Women’s Club to promote traditional Pomo basketry, but she also convinced Elsie to break with tradition and keep her baskets to show future basketmakers instead of burning or burying them. As interest within the tribe in basketry waned, she began teaching anyone who was interested in learning her technique, and using non-traditional materials, causing controversy within the tribe. One of her last students was her niece, Susan Billy. Allan also worked with linguist Abraham M. Halpern to document the Southern Pomo language

1900 – William Spratling born, American silver designer and architect

1901 – Charles Huggins born in Canada, American  surgeon and urologist, 1966 Nobel Prize in Medicine

1905 – Ellen Church born, first woman hired as an airline stewardess; a registered pilot and a registered nurse, she is turned down by Boeing Air Transport as a pilot, but hired her in 1930 as head stewardess, recruiting seven others for a three-month trial period. Boeing requirements: must be RNs, under age 25, less than 5’4” tall, and under 115 pounds, also expected to help haul luggage, and with pushing the aircraft into the hangar. The pay for women of that time was good: $125 a month

1905 – Italo Marchiony finally receives his patent for an ice-cream-cone-making machine *, for which he had filed in December, 1903, five months before the St. Louis World’s Fair opened, which popularized the idea of eating ice cream from a cone

1908 – Esphyr Slobodkina born in Russia, Russian-American  artist, author, and illustrator, whose family immigrated to the U.S. in 1928. She is best known for her classic children’s picture book Caps for Sale. Slobodkina was a also a notable avant garde artist, sculptor and feminist. In 2000, at age 91, she established the Slobodkina Foundation, dedicated to the conservation, preservation, and exhibition of art, and to encourage others to follow her example and pursue their dreams

1908 – Bulgaria declares its independence from the Ottoman Empire

1910 – The Duke of York’s Picture House opens in Brighton, now the oldest continually operating cinema in Britain

1913 – Lillian Chestney born, American painter and illustrator of children’s books and classic comic books

Classic Comics – Gulliver’s Travels – illustrated by Lillian Chestney

1919 – The steel strike of 1919, led by the Amalgamated Association of Iron and Steel Workers, begins in Pennsylvania and spreads across the United States

1920 – Eric Baker born, English journalist and human rights activist, co-founder of Amnesty International

1924 – Rosamunde Pilcher born, British author of historical romance novels

1931 – Fay Weldon born, English author, essayist, feminist and playwright; best known for her novel The Life and Loves of a She-Devil, and for writing the first episode of Upstairs, Downstairs. While studying psychology and economics at the University of St. Andrews in the early 1950s, she recalls taking classes with moral philosopher Malcolm Knox, who “spoke exclusively to the male students, maintaining that women were incapable of moral judgment or objectivity.”

1937 – Spanish Civil War: Battle of El Mazuco, part of the War in the North, is won by the Nationalists, who overwhelm the Republicans, leading to the fall of the city of Gijón and abandonment of Asturias, last Republican province in NW Spain; firs use of carpet bombing against a military target

1939 – Deborah Lavin born, South African historian and academic, working in the UK for most of her career; lecturer at  Queen’s University Belfast and the University of Witwatersrand; Senior Associate of St Antony’s College, Oxford. Principle of Trevelyan College at Durham University (1979-1995), and co-director of Durham’s Research Institute for the Study of Change (1980-1995); President of the Durham University Howland Trust (1995-1997); co-author of South African Memories: Scraps of History

1939 – Junko Tabei born, Japanese mountaineer; first woman to o reach the summit of Mount Everest, and the first woman to ascend all Seven Summits by climbing the highest peak on every continent

1940 – Anna Karina born as Hanne Bayer in Denmark, Danish-French film actress, director, and writer. She appeared in several films by French New Wave director Jean-Luc Godard in the 1960s; in 1972, she set up her own production company to produce her directorial debut, Vivre ensemble, which screened in the Critics’ Week lineup at the 26th Cannes Film Festival. She also directed the French-Canadian film Victoria. Karina has written novels in French, including Vivre ensemble and Golden City

1942 – Candida Lycett Green born, British author, columnist and co-founder of the satirical magazine, Private Eye; many of her books are about the English countryside, including English Cottages and Unwrecked England

1947 – “Jane Doe” Norma McCorvey born, plaintiff in the landmark Roe v. Wade case in which the U.S. Supreme Court ruled that the banning of abortion by individual states was unconstitutional. In her 1994 autobiography, I Am Roe, she wrote about her sexual orientation and relationship with her long-time partner, Connie Gonzales. After becoming an Evangelical Christian 1995, she expressed regrets for her part in Roe v. Wade, and became an anti-abortion activist. But shortly before her death, she said her anti-abortion activism was all an act: “I took their money and they’d put me out in front of the cameras and tell me what to say.” She added, “If a young woman wants to have an abortion, that’s no skin off my ass. That’s why they call it choice.”

1947 – Jo Beverly born in England as Mary Dunn, English-Canadian author of historical romance novels, noted for Medieval romances and her Malloren series

1948 – When USAF pilot Gail Halvorsen starts dropping handkerchief parachutes attached to candy bars for children in Berlin after meeting some of them, the news story garners so much positive publicity that the Air Force makes it an official part of the Berlin Airlift, dubbed Operation Little Vittles, beginning on this day; before it is over, he and other pilots have dropped 23 tons of candy

1949 – The Soviet Union explodes its first atomic bomb

1952 – Gloria Borger born, American journalist, columnist and chief political analyst at CNN; previously an anchor at CNBC, and a correspondent for CBS News

1953 – Ségolène Royal born, French Socialist politician; French Minister of Ecology, Sustainable Development and Energy (2014-2017); President of the Poitou-Charentes Regional Council (2004- 2014); Member of the National Assembly for Deux-Sévres (2002-2007); first woman in France to be nominated by a major party as a presidential candidate in 2007

1955 – British commercial television begins, with only six minutes of ads allowed per hour and no Sunday morning TV permitted

1958 – Andrea Bocelli born, Italian tenor, songwriter and record producer. Born with poor eyesight, he became completely blind in a football (soccer) accident at age 12. Honored with many awards and titles, including a star on Hollywood’s Walk of Fame, 8 World Music Awards and 3 Classical BRITs 

1958 – Beth Catlin born, autistic savant; her hobby is making and sending birthday cards to people she has met. She is able to remember the names, birthdates and addresses of 3,834 people so far; no card has ever been returned for a mistaken address

1961 – John F. Kennedy signs congressional act establishing the Peace Corps

1961 – Diane Lemieux born, French Canadian politician, lawyer and feminist; advocate for women’s rights and sexual assault victims. Member of the Assemblée nationale du Québec (Quebec National Assembly, 1998-2007); president of the Conseil du statut de la femme (Quebec Council for the Status of Women/CSF, 1996-1998); recipient of Québec’s 1991 Prix de la Justice award

1961 – Bonnie Hunt born, American comedian, actress, director, producer, writer and television host. She created, produced, wrote, and starred in The Building (1993),  Bonnie (1995-1996), and Life with Bonnie (2002-2004), and then hosted The Bonnie Hunt Show (2008-2010)

1964 – Fiddler on the Roof opens on Broadway, and The Man From U.N.C.L.E. debuts on NBC-TV

1966 – Ruth Jones born, Welsh actress, writer and producer. Co-writer and co-star of the BBC sitcom Gavin & Stacy (2007-2010, 2019). She was awarded the BAFTA Cymru Sian Phillips Special Recognition Award in 2009

1969 – Sue Perkins born, English comedian, writer, radio broadcaster, actress and television presenter. Known for her partnership with Mel Giedroyc as the comedic duo Mel and Sue, hosts of The Great British Bake Off, and lunchtime programmes on British public television’s Channel 4. She was one of the many writers for the long-running BBC series Absolutely Fabulous. Beginning in 207, Perkins appeared on a series on Supersize Me programmes, in which she and food critic Giles Coren spent a few days wearing historically correct clothing and eating typical meals served during different periods of history, beginning with Edwardian Supersize Me, and ranging from surviving on WWII rations to splendid Elizabethan feasts. In 2013, she wrote and starred in a six-part comedy series, Heading Out

1970 – Gladys Berejiklian born to Armenian immigrants, Australian politician, Premier of New South Wales and Leader of the New South Wales Liberal Party since 2017; Liberal Party Deputy Leader  (2014-2017); Member of the New South Wales Parliament for Willoughby (2003-2017)

1971 – Elizabeth Bear born as Sarah Bear Wishnevsky, American speculative fiction author; 2005 John W. Campbell Best  New Writer; 2006 Locus Award for Best First Novel, Hammered/Scardown/Worldwired ; 2008 Hugo Award for Best Short Story, “Tideline”; and 2009 Hugo Award for Best Novelette for Shoggoths in Bloom

1975 – Sara Jane Moore is foiled by the U.S. Secret Service in an attempt to assassinate President Gerald Ford

1980 – Conflict between Iran and Iraq erupts into full-scale war

1985 – First Farm-Aid concert, Champaign IL, raises $10 million for U.S. farm families

1983 – U.S. Congress passes joint resolution acknowledging Business Women’s Day * to honor the founding of the Business Women’s Association on September 22, 1949

1988 – Canadian government apologizes for internment of Japanese-Canadians during World War II, and promises compensation

1992 – U.N. General Assembly expels Yugoslavia for its role in Bosnia-Herzegovina war

1995 – Time Warner strikes a deal to buy Turner Broadcasting for $7.5 billion

1996 – The first Elephant Appreciation Day * in the U.S.

2000 – The first World Car Free Day *

2008 – U.S. Mint unveils the first changes to the penny in 50 years; new designs replace the Lincoln Memorial on the other side from Abraham Lincoln’s head

2015 – European Union ministers approved a plan requiring member nations to take in a share of 120,000 migrants arriving in Greece and Italy over the next two years. The move applies to people “in clear need of international protection.” The decision came over the objections of the Czech Republic, Hungary, Romania, and Slovakia. Leaders from the 28-nation bloc will hold an emergency summit to continue discussing the wave of migrants and refugees trying to reach Europe from Syria, Iraq, and other countries torn by war and poverty

2019 – President Gianni Infantino of FIFA (Fédération Internationale de Football) said women will finally be allowed into Tehran’s Azadi (“Freedom”) stadium to watch the World Cup qualifier match on October 10, which was FIFA’s deadline by which “women have to be allowed into football stadiums in Iran for all football matches.” However, Iranian authorities have capped the number of women who can attend at 4,600 out of a stadium capacity of 100,000 seats. The effective 5% quota on seats for women contravenes FIFA’s constitution, statutes, and its human rights policy. This ban against women started 40 years ago, just after the Iranian Revolution. Iran is the only country in the world to ban women from attending sports events held in stadiums. Iranian women and girls have defied the ban for years by disguising themselves as men to attend games, but those who are caught have been detained, arrested, beaten, jailed, and abused. Human Rights Watch has declared that Iran’s plan to cap the number of women is discriminatory, deceptive, and dangerous. There are also no women’s restrooms at the Azadi stadium, and the Football Federation of the Islamic Republic of Iran (FFIRI) has rejected adding them, citing “budgetary issues.” Iranian women’s rights activist Maryam Shojaei, who is the sister of the Iranian football team’s captain, said, “FIFA should earmark funds to build women’s restrooms to ensure the inclusion of everyone. The leagues are more frequent and important than World Cup matches, and FIFA must give them a deadline for club league matches so that families can go together to watch the games.”

Maryam Shojaei

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