Just Because Day
The Duchess Who Wasn’t Day *
National Pots de Creme Day
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MORE! Man Ray, Norah Lofts and Léon Theremin, click________________________________________________________________
WORLD FESTIVALS AND NATIONAL HOLIDAYSJapan – Makinohara:
Windblow Sagara Festival
Netherlands – Vijfhuizen:
Mysteryland Festival
Moldova – Ziua Republicii
(Independence day)
South Korea – Daegu:
International Bodypainting Festival
United Kingdom –
Lincolnshire: Lost Village Festival
Portsmouth: Victorius Festival
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On This Day in HISTORY410 – The Visigoths, after sacking the city of Rome for three days, depart for Southern Italy, with the city’s portable wealth, and Galla Placidia, sister of Emperor Honorius, as a valuable hostage
479 – The second Persian invasion of Greece is stopped by Greek victories, for an army led by Pausanias at Plataea, and in a battle between marines of the Greek city-states allied naval forces and remnants of the Persian navy at Mycale on the Ionian coast
854 – Rhazes, Abū Mohammad- ibn Zakariyyā al-Razi, born, Persian polymath, alchemist, philosopher and physician; a pioneer in humoral theory, which leads to distinguishing between contagious diseases, particularly small pox and measles
1549 – The army of John Dudley, Earl of Warwick, destroys Robert Kett’s rebels at the Battle of Dussindale; Kett’s Rebellion is sparked by enclosure, the fencing of common land by landlords exclusively for their own use, leaving peasant with nowhere to graze their animals, and other landowners forcing tenants off their farms to convert the land into pasture for sheep as wool prices went up; both practices creating widespread unemployment and increasing hardship for the poor
1776 – American Revolution – Battle of Brooklyn Heights: The first major battle after the Declaration of Independence is a defeat for the Americans under George Washington, who were outnumbered 2 to 1 by a combined force of British Redcoats and Hesse-Kassel troops leased to King George III by Frederick II of Sweden
1796 – Sophia Smith born, founder of Smith College for women
1805 – Sallie Gordon Law born, American nurse, first recorded nurse in the Civil War, president of the Southern Mothers’ Association
1828 – U.K. brokers Uruguay’s independence at peace talks with Brazil and Argentina
1833 – Margarethe Meyer Schurz born, German-American educator, opened the first German-language kindergarten in the United States, won Elizabeth Peabody to the kindergarten cause
1834 – Clara Erskine Clement born, American traveler and author; History of Egypt, and Women Artists in Europe and America
1859 – Petroleum discovered in Titusville PA, site of world’s first commercial oil well
1871 – Theodore Dreiser born, American novelist and journalist; Sister Carrie and An American Tragedy
1872 – Mary Anderson born, American labor leader and activist, Women’s Trade Union League, first director of Women’s Bureau in the U.S. Department of Labor
1875 – Katherine McCormick born, American biologist, philanthropist, and activist, established the Neuroendocrine Research Foundation at Harvard, funded research into oral contraception from the development and testing of the first pill through the 1960s
1877 – Charles Rolls born, English automotive and aviation pioneer, engineer and businessman, co-founder of Rolls-Royce Limited
1883 – Krakatoa erupts in 4 enormous explosions that destroy 2/3 of the island, set off tsunamis, leave 36,000 dead and cause five years of frigid worldwide “volcanic winters”
1896 – Anglo-Zanzibar War: The shortest war in world history (09:00 to 09:45), between the United Kingdom and the Sultanate of Zanzibar; The British Royal Navy barrage set the Palace on fire, and sank the Sultan’s yacht
1896 – Léon Theremin, Russian physicist and engineer, inventor of the Theremin1904 – Norah Lofts born, British author, known primarily for historical fiction, recipient of the National Book Award (from the American Booksellers Association)
1918 – Mexican Revolution/WWI: Battle of Ambos Nogales: U.S. Army forces skirmish with Mexican Carrancistas (followers of Venustiano Carranza, President of Mexico 1917-1920) in the only battle of WWI fought on American soil; while Mexico officially remained neutral in WWI, there was strong-anti-American sentiment; after Germany recognized Carranza’s government after the Constitution of 1917, and the Zimmerman telegram, tension was high between the neighboring countries
1927 – The “Famous Five” Canadian women file a petition to Supreme Court of Canada, asking, “Does the word ‘Persons’ in Section 24 of the British North America Act, 1867, include female persons?”
1928 – Kellogg-Briand Pact, named for authors U.S. Secretary of State Frank Kellogg and French Foreign Minister Aristide Briand, is signed by the United States, France and Germany. Ultimately 61 nations sign the pact, which inspires similar provisions in the United Nations charter in 1945
1929 – Ira Levin born, American novelist-playwright; noted for Rosemary‘s Baby, The Stepford Wives, and the play Deathtrap
1932 – Antonia Fraser born, British author, known for history, biographies and fiction
1939 – First Flight of the turbojet-powered Heinkel He 178, world’s first jet aircraft
1939 – William Least Heat-Moon born, American travel writer and historian
1942 – Red Army Marshal Georgy Zhukov is appointed Deputy Commander-in-Chief, and takes charge of the defense of Stalingrad against the German offensive
1957 – Malaysia’s Federal Constitution comes into force, establishing its Federation as a constitutional monarchy, led by a Prime Minister, with the Monarch filling a mostly ceremonial role.
1962 – NASA Mariner-2 unmanned space mission to Venus is launched
1979 – The Irish Republican Army kills Lord Louis Mountbatten, his grandson and 2 others with a bomb hidden in his fishing boat at Mullaghmore, County Sligo, Ireland
1985 – The Nigerian government is overthrown without bloodshed by Army Chief of Staff Major General Ibrahim Babangida, who becomes the new Head of State
1991 – European Community recognizes the independence of Estonia, Latvia and Lithuania. Moldova declares its independence from Russia
1993 – Michael Jackson’s Neverland Ranch is raided by the police after a child who stayed there alleges molestation, but no charges are filed at that time
2003 – Mars makes its closest approach to Earth in nearly 60,000 years, just 34,646,418 miles (55,758,005 km) away
2012 – An unknown fan starts The Duchess Who Wasn’t Day,* mistakenly believing August 27 was her date of birth (it’s actually April 27, 1855), to celebrate Irish author Margaret Wolfe Hungerford, who wrote under the pen name “The Duchess” and coined “Beauty is in the eye of the beholder” in her novel Molly Bawn
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