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Highly recommended:
Folklore of World Holidays
by Margaret
Read MacDonald
The Price of Loyalty: Bush, the White House, & the Education of Paul O'Neill
The Da Vinci
Code
Ancient Ways
A Short
History of Nearly Everything
Garden Witchery
The Twilight
of American Culture
Golden Bough
Folklore classic
Sabbat Entertaining
The Pagan Book of Days
Eight Sabbats for Witches
Celebrate the Earth
A Year of Holidays in the Pagan
Tradition
Wheel of the Year
The Trouble
with Islam
Be A Goddess
The Five Biggest Lies Bush
Told Us About Iraq
The Oxford Dictionary of Saints
Lucifer Ascending: The
Occult in Folklore and Popular Culture
Cassell's Dictionary of Superstitions
White Noise
Encyclopedia of Superstitions
The Book of Spells
Spellcraft
The Book of Saints
The Encyclopedia of Saints
Daily Everything
Brewer's
Dictionary of Phrase and Fable
Lord of the Rings
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An Inconvenient Truth
By Al Gore; DVD &
book
The Permaculture Home Garden
By Linda Woodrow
The Corporation
Highly recommended DVD
A
Question of Torture
By Alfred McCoy
Remotely
Controlled: How Television Is Damaging Our Lives and What We Can Do About
It
What
Would Jefferson Do?
By Thom
Hartmann
How
Mumbo-Jumbo Conquered the World
Pagan
Christianity
For
God and Country: Faith and Patriotism Under Fire
By James Yee
Crimes Against Nature : How George W Bush and His Corporate
Pals Are Plundering the Country and Hijacking Our Democracy
By Robert F Kennedy, Jr
The Price of Loyalty
The
Torture Debate in America
A
Question of Torture
By Alfred McCoy
When Corporations Rule the World
Alternatives to Economic Globalization
Feminism Without Borders
The Skeptic's Dictionary
Lies and the Lying Liars Who Tell Them
365 Goddess
Adventures in a TV Nation
Michael
Moore
Drawing Down the Moon
Globalization/Anti-Globalization
Body Wisdom
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Celtic Daily Prayer
Dude, Where's My Country?
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Mother Earth Spirituality
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10 Reasons to
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Groundhog Day,
USA and Canada
 Candlemas is also known as 'Groundhog
Day' in the United States and Canada, from the saying that the groundhog
first appears from hibernation on that day. If he sees his shadow,
he goes back for another six weeks – indicating six more weeks of
bad weather.
European settlers brought the
custom with them, mainly from Germany, but also from Czechoslovakia,
England and
other parts of Europe, where a badger had performed the same
prognostications for centuries prior.
There is, no doubt, an ancient
connection with the pre-Christian religions and the cross-quarter
day (half-way between equinox and solstice) of
Imbolc/St Brigid, as
discussed yesterday
and above. Note this old verse, in which it is a snake,
rather than a mammal, that signifies the coming of warmth to the
frozen earth:
This is the day of Bride [St
Bridget],
The Queen will come from the Mound.
This is the day of Bride,
The serpent will come from the hole.
Charles
Kightly,
The
Perpetual Almanack of Folklore, Thames and Hudson, 1987
(Punxsutawney
Phil, Groundhog – Groundhog Day as tourist commercialism)
Punxsutawney Phil
"Every
February 2, people gather at Gobbler's Knob, a wooded knoll just
outside of Punxsutawney, Pennsylvania.
"Residents contend
that the groundhog has never been wrong.
The
ceremony in Punxsutawney was held in secret until 1966, and only
Phil's prediction was revealed to the public. Since then, Phil's
fearless forecast has been a national media event.
"The
groundhog comes out of his electrically heated burrow, looks for his
shadow and utters his prediction to a Groundhog Club representative
in 'groundhogese.' The representative then translates the prediction
for the general public.
"If
Punxsutawney Phil sees his shadow, it means six more weeks of
winter. If he does not see his shadow, it means spring is just
around the corner.
"Approximately
90% of the time, Phil sees his shadow.
"Phil started making predictions in 1887 and has become an American
institution." Source
"Easterners may rely on that famous
groundhog, Punxsutawney Phil, to predict the coming of spring, but
in Lander [Wyoming, USA] (pop. 6,867) the toothy bewhiskered
meteorologist is a prairie dog named Lander Lil."
Source
The Shadow Report – Phil's record
Was Groundhog Day the
movie a rip-off?
"Groundhog Day, the 1993
movie starring Bill Murray and Andie MacDowell, will not have to
share its profits with the author of a 1981 book which was similarly
about a man condemned to live the same day over and over. As AP
reports, a US District Judge on Monday rejected a $20.44 million
lawsuit brought by Leon Arden, the author of One Fine Day. Judge Denny
Chin held Groundhog Day,
about a weatherman who gets trapped in a time warp in Punxsatawney,
was not as dark as Arden's book."
'Gossip',
The
Sydney Morning Herald,
December 13, 1995
Google
news: groundhog
Groundhog
Day as it relates to Chinese astronomy, Babylonian calendar, and
more
Hromnice,
Czech
Republic
"The day of Hromnice (pronounced
HROM-nyi-tseh) is an important day for Czech weather-related folklore. It falls on February 2nd, the same day the popular Groundhog Day is celebrated in the United States. And no wonder - both are based on the same ancient Celtic tradition. The Czech word Hromnice is derived from sanctified
"hromnice" candles that were lit on the night of February 2nd if there was a thunderstorm (thunder =
hrom).
"The weather on Hromnice is a sign of how long winter will linger. According to the tradition of Groundhog Day, the groundhog comes out of his hole after his winter sleep on February 2nd and if sees his shadow (i.e. if the day is sunny), he will go back to his hole and we should be ready for six more weeks of winter. If the day is cloudy, he will stay above ground, expecting the spring. There are dozens of Czech Hromnice sayings that predict the same, many of them reminding us that although we are starting to think about the spring, winter is by far not over and may not have even reached its peak."
Source
Lesser
Eleusinian Mysteries, ancient Greece (Feb 1 -
3)
Festival of
the Lęnaia to Dionysus,
god of wine and pleasure, ancient Greece (c. Jan 28 - Feb 5)
Festivals in ancient Greece
Celebration day for Our Lady of Candelaria,
sometimes associated with Oya or Yemaya, Voudon
(Voodoo) Source
Feast day of Yemaya (Iemanja; Yemaja; Yemanja; Yemayah; etc)
In Yorůbá mythology, Yemaja is a
mother goddess, patron deity of women, especially pregnant women,
and the Ogun River (the waters
of which are said to cure infertility). Her parents are Odudua
and Obatala.
She had one son,
Orungan, who raped her successfully one time and
attempted a second time; she exploded instead, and fifteen Orishas
came forth from her. They include Ogun, Olukum, Shakpana
and Shango.
Yemaja is also
venerated in Vodun. Among the Umbandists, Yemaja is a goddess of the ocean
and patron deity of the survivors of shipwrecks. In Santería,
Yemaja (also called Yemaya) is the equivalent of Our Lady of Regla.
Source:
Wikipedia
She is one the
three of the 'Supreme Trilogy' of the Yoruba gods: Changó,
Obatalá, and Yemayá. She is associated with the virgin Mary, and
sometimes with La Siren, an aspect of Erzulie,
a loa of Voudon.
Other days of this goddess include April 26 and
around June
20/21/22 (Summer
Solstice in Southern Hemisphere countries such as Brazil where
Yemaya is widely worshipped), and December 31,
New Year's Eve.
In a New Year's Eve ritual
made famous at Rio
de Janeiro's Copacabana
Beach, but practised in thousands of places worldwide, devotees
of the goddess throw flowers and votive boats into the sea. It is
considered a good omen for the coming year if the boat is accepted
by the deity and carried out to sea. However, if the votive vessel
is washed back upon the shore, the following year is not presumed to
have good auguries.
"Myth:
Yemaya is a West African creation goddess, often depicted as a
mermaid. She is associated with the moon, the ocean and female
mysteries. Typically portrayed as a beautiful woman, Yemaya
governs the household and intervenes in women's affairs. She is
a merciful goddess, invoked by women for aid in childbirth, love
and healing. She rules over the conception and birth of children
and ensures their safety during childhood. As a creation goddess,
Yemaya's womb spilled forth the fourteen Yoruba goddesses and
gods, and the breaking of her uterine waters caused a great flood,
which created the oceans. From her body the first human woman and
man, who became the parents of all mortal beings on earth, were
born ...
"She rules
the sea, the Moon, dreams, deep secrets, sea shells, ancient
wisdom, salt water, fresh water, ocean secrets, the collective
unconscious, and the surface of the ocean, seas, and lakes. Her
many titles include Queen of Witches, Mother of Fishes, The
Constantly Coming Woman, The Ocean Mother, Mother of Dreams and
Secrets, Mother of All, Mother of the Sea, Holy Queen Sea, The
Womb of Creation, Mother of Pearl, Stella Maris (star of the sea),
and Yeyé Omo Eja, Mother Whose Children Are the Fish. In Africa
she is Mama Watta, Mother of Waters.
"The African
disapora spread Yemaya's worship to the New World, where she was
syncretized with Mary as Our Lady of Regla (Virgin of Madrid), and
Our Lady of the Immaculate Conception. In Cuba she is Yemaya,
Yemaya Achabba (stern aspect), Yemaya Oqqutte (violent aspect),
Yemaya Olokun (powerful dream aspect), and Yemaya Ataramagwa,
Queen of the Sea. In Trinidad she is Emanjah, a river goddess. In
Brazil she is an ocean goddess called Yemanja and Imanje. In Haiti
her name is Agwe, Mother of the Sea, and in New Orleans she is
called La Balianne.
"The cowrie
shell is Yemaya's symbol, and fish are sacred to her. Her jewels
include crystals, pearls, and mother of pearl. Blue, white, and
silver are Yemaya's colors. Seven is her number ...
"Invoke Yemaya
for blessings, compassion, wisdom, fertility, creation, riches,
inspiration, motherhood, female power, natural wealth, love
spells, wish magic, sea spells, fertility rituals, water magic,
women's issues, having children, sustaining life, washing away
sorrow, revealing mysteries, acquiring ancient wisdom,
protecting the home, learning not to give your power away, and
comforting children in crisis. Invoke her as Erzulie for beauty,
good fortune, and good health. Invoke her as Yemoja to cure
infertility, as Yemana for rain, as Emanjah for teaching
children, as Yemaya Olokun for dream magic and protecting babies
in the womb; and as Yemaya Ataramagwa for money spells. Invoke
Yemaya as Agwe for affection and blessings ..." Source
"She is one of the great goddesses of
Africa and of the African diaspora. In her original homeland, she
was the Yoruba goddess of the Ogun river, where she was said to
the be daughter of the sea into whose waters she empties. Her
breasts are very large, because she was mother of so many of the
Yoruba gods
"She is also the mother of waters –
Mama Watta – who gave birth to all the world's waters. Even as
she slept, she would create new springs, which gushed forth each
time she turned over. At her main temple, at Abeokuta in the Ibara
district, she is offered rams, yams and corn.
"In the
African diaspora, Ymoja has remained a popular divinity. She is
Imanje or Yemanja in Brazilian Macumba, where she is
ocean-goddess of the crescent moon. In Cuba she is Yemaya,
appearing in many variants: Yemaya Ataramagwa, the wealthy queen
of the sea; stern Yemaya Achabba; violent Yemaya Oqqutte; and
the overpowering Yemaya Olokun, who can be seen only in dreams.
She is Agwe in Haiti, La Balianne in New Orleans. She is
syncretized with Our Lady of Regla and Mary, Star of the Sea; in
Brazil, she is Our Lady of the Immaculate Conception, whose
followers wear crystal beads and greet her appearance with
shouts of 'Odoya.' On her feastday on February 2, crowds gather
on the ocean beaches of Bahia to offer her soap, perfume,
jewelry and fabric which, together with letters bearing requests
to the goddess, are thrown out to sea."
Patricia Monaghan, The
New Book of Goddesses and Heroines, Llewellyn, 1997
Images
of Yemaya
Matka Boska Gromniczna (Mother of God of
the Blessed Thunder Candle), Poland
Blessing of the candles and end of the
Christmas
season.
"Candles decorated with ribbons and
liturgical symbols are brought to the priest for blessings, then
burned at home until sunrise the next day."
Source
Iroquois
Midwinter Festival (Jan 30 - Feb 8)
Shiwasu Matsuri, Mikado Jinja, Nango,
Miyazaki Prefecture, Japan (Jan 20 - Feb 20)
Owase Yaya Matsuri (Shouting Festival),
Japan (Feb 1
- 8)
Kurokawa Noh, Kasuga Shrine, Kushibiki,
Yamagata Prefecture, Japan (Feb 1 - 2)
Sounkyo Ice Festival, Sounkyo Onsen (spa), Hokkaido,
Japan (Jan
29 - Mar
5)
Housecleaning Day, Tibet
Source: The Phoenix and
Arabeth 1992 Calendar
Veja
Diena (Day of Wind), ancient Latvia
The day was thought of as an extremely windy day, and various
rituals were performed to ensure that the damage from the wind would
not be too bad the following
summer.
Our Lady of Candelaria, Mexico
Source: The Phoenix and Arabeth 1992
Calendar
Feast day of St Apronian
the Executioner
Feast day of St Bruno
Feast day of St Candidus
Feast day of St Candlemas
Feast day of St Columbanus
of Ghent
Feast day of St Cornelius
the Centurion
Feast day of St Feock
Feast day of St Firmus of
Rome
Feast day of St Fortunatus
Feast day of St Jeanne de
Lestonnac
Feast day of St Lawrence of
Canterbury, Archbishop
Feast day of St Marquard of
Hildesheim
Feast day of the Martyrs of
Ebsdorf
Feast day of St Mun
Feast day of Our
Lady of the Purification, Santo Amaro, Brazil (Feb 1 - 4)
Feast day of the
Purification
of Mary
(Snowdrop, Galanthus nivalis,
is
today's plant, dedicated to the Purification of the Virgin)
Feast day of the Presentation
of the Lord
Feast day of St Theodoric
Click for Eastern Orthodox liturgical days Shop saints
World Wetlands Day
"2 February each year is World Wetlands Day. It marks the date of the adoption of the Convention on Wetlands on 2 February 1971, in the Iranian city of Ramsar on the shores of the Caspian Sea. Each year since 1997, government agencies, non-governmental organizations, and groups of citizens at all levels of the community have taken advantage of the opportunity to undertake actions aimed at raising public awareness of wetland values and benefits in general and the Ramsar Convention in particular. From 1997 to 2004, the Convention's Web site has posted reports from more than 80 countries of WWD activities of all sizes and shapes, from lectures and seminars, nature walks, children's art contests, sampan races, and community clean-up days, to radio and television interviews and letters to newspapers, to the launch of new wetland policies, new Ramsar Sites, and new programmes at the national level. Government agencies and private citizens from all over the world have sent us their news, often with photographs, and these annual summaries and 600+ individual reports, with more than 900 images, make an excellent archive of ideas for future celebrations.
"And each year since 1997, the Ramsar Secretariat, with generous
financial assistance from the private sector Danone Group, has
offered a new selection of posters, stickers, videos, pocket
calendars, leaflets and information packs free of charge and has
suggested a unifying theme for the benefit of those who wish to use
it. Here is a general guide to both the annual WWD index pages and
the reports of each year's activities."
Google
news: wetlands More
More
World
Day for Consecrated Life (Roman Catholic; date varies in early
February)
Crępe
Day, France
1208
James I of
Aragon (Catalan:
Jaume I, Spanish:
Jaime I; d. July
27, 1276),
surnamed the Conqueror, the king
of Aragon, count of Barcelona
and Lord of Montpellier
from 1219
to '76
1650 Nell
Gwynne (d. 1687),
English actress who rose from a fruit-barrow girl to the mistress of
King Charles II
1754 Charles
Maurice de Talleyrand-Périgord (d. 1838), French foreign minister to
Napoleon and King
Louis XVIII
1854 José
Guadalupe Posada (d. January 20, 1913), Mexican
engraver
and illustrator, sometimes known as 'the
Artist of the Day
of the Dead'.
Posada's best known works are his calaveras, or skeletons,
which often assume various costumes, such as the
Calavera de la Catrina, the 'Skeleton of the Female Dandy',
which was meant to satirize the life of the upper
classes during the reign of Porfirio Díaz. Most of his imagery was
meant to make a religious or satirical point.
More
on Posada
 1859 Havelock
Ellis (d. July
8, 1939),
British psychologist,
author (Sexual
Inversion; The Task of Social Hygiene; The
Dance of Life) and sociologist noted for his studies of
human sexual behaviour, and one-time resident of Sydney,
Australia. In about 1877, Ellis was at 18 years of age the stand-in headmaster of Grafton Grammar
School,
Grafton being a northern regional city of New South Wales
not far from where this almanac is produced.
His Australian experience informed his only novel, Kanga
Creek (1922; picture).
From
Wikipedia:
He studied medicine at St
Thomas' Hospital, although never had a regular medical practice;
he joined The
Fellowship of the New Life in 1883,
meeting other social reformers Edward
Carpenter and George
Bernard Shaw. In 1891, when still a virgin, Ellis married Edith
Lees. He was interested in sexual liberation and wrote the seven-volume Studies in the Psychology of Sex between 1897
and 1928.
Until 1935
this work was only legally available to the medical profession.
His Sexual Inversion, the first
English medical text book on homosexuality,
co-authored with John
Addington Symonds, described the sexual relations of homosexual
men, something that Ellis did not consider to be a disease or a
crime. A bookseller was prosecuted in 1897
for stocking it. Other psychologically important concepts developed
by Ellis include auto-eroticism and narcissism,
both of which were later taken on by Sigmund
Freud (see Havelock Ellis, Philosopher of Sex: A Biography,
By Vincent Brome, Routledge, 1979,
p. 122).
Ellis was a supporter of eugenics
which he wrote about in The Task of Social Hygiene.
"His father was a sea-captain, his mother, the daughter of a sea-captain, and many other relatives lived on or near the sea. At seven years of age his father took him on one of his voyages, during which he called at Sydney, Callao and Antwerp. After his return Ellis went to a fairly good school called the French and German College near Wimbledon, and afterwards to a school at Mitcham. In April 1875 he left London on his father's ship for Australia, and soon after his arrival at Sydney obtained a position as a master at a private school. It was discovered that he had had no training for this position and he became a tutor in a private family living a few miles from Carcoar. He spent there a happy year, reading many books, and then obtained a position as a master at the grammar school at Grafton. The headmaster died just as the school was opening and Ellis carried on the school for that year, but was too young and inexperienced to do so successfully. At the end of the year he returned to Sydney and, after three months training, was given charge of two government part-time elementary schools, one at Sparkes Creek and the other at Junction Creek. He lived happily and healthily at the schoolhouse at Sparkes Creek for a year, the most eventful year of his life he was afterwards to call it. "In Australia I gained health of body; I attained peace of soul; my life task was revealed to me; I was able to decide on a professional vocation; I became an artist in literature . . . these five points covered the whole activity of my life in the world. Some of them I should doubtless have reached without the aid of the Australian environment, scarcely all, and most of them I could never have achieved so completely if chance had not cast me into the solitude of the Liverpool Range." (My Life, p. 139).
"Ellis returned to England and arrived there in April 1879. He had decided to take up the study of sex and felt his best step must be to qualify as a medical man. He taught at a school for a year to earn some money with which to make a start, and with some help from his people, eventually obtained his licentiate of the Society of Apothecaries in February 1889. He had for five years or more been doing literary work including the general editorship of the Mermaid Series of the works of the old dramatists. His first original book was The New Spirit (1890), which was followed by The Criminal (1890), The Nationalization of Health (1892), Man and Woman (1894), and Sexual Inversion, which afterwards became the second volume of the work by which he is most known, Studies in the Psychology of Sex, which appeared in 1897. The seventh and last volume was published in 1928. Other volumes of importance included Affirmations (1897), A Study of British Genius (1904), Impressions and Comments, three series (1914-24), Kanga Creek: An Australian Idyll, his one essay in fiction, begun in 1885 but not published until 1922, and The Dance of Life (1923). He also wrote much verse, but no volume was published until Sonnets and Folk Songs from the Spanish appeared in 1925. A practically complete list of his books and articles in periodicals up to 1928 will be found in Houston Peterson's Havelock Ellis, Philosopher of Love. His volumes after that date are listed at the end of My Life. Working almost to the end Ellis died on 8 July 1939. He married Edith Lees, also a writer, who died in 1916. There were no children.
"Ellis was a man of remarkable and attractive personality who did an enormous amount of writing which gave him an established position as an author and a scientist. His Kanga Creek belongs to Australian literature, and has been called "the most delightful of bush idylls". (H. M. Green, An Outline of Australian Literature, p. 280)."
Source
"At the age of sixteen he made a
voyage to Australia in a ship under his father's command. He
worked there as a teacher in New South Wales, where he underwent
an inner transformation. Later Ellis returned to this experience
in the novel Kanga Creek (1922) and his autobiography: 'Yet
there has never been a moment when the foundation and background
of my life have not been marked by the impress they received at
Sparke's Creek.'" Source
"At sixteen, he set out on another world tour, but became too sick to go beyond Sydney. Ellis remained in Australia for four years, earning his living as a school teacher.
"While in Australia, Ellis read Life in Nature by James Hinton (surgeon, philosopher, sex reformer) and was profoundly affected by it: he abandoned the Christianity of his youth for Hinton's religious vitalism and determined to become a doctor like Hinton in order to explain sexuality, a project that would become his life's work. Back in England, Ellis' enthusiasm for Hinton led Hinton's sister-in-law to help finance his education."
Source
Lawson
& Co: associations with Henry and Louisa Lawson
More
 1882 James
Joyce (d. 1941), Irish novelist. In
1922, on his
40th birthday, Ulysses was published in Paris by
American expatriate Sylvia
Beach under the imprint Shakespeare and
Company; the 1,000 numbered
copies were sold out within a month. On
his 57th birthday, in
1939, Joyce showed friends the first bound
copy of Finnegan's Wake.
"Unfortunately,
Joyce turned out to be a high-maintenance perfectionist, and made
many changes on proof, which is a very costly proposition.
Publishing the 'great Mr. Joyce,' as Beach liked to call him,
virtually bankrupted Shakespeare & Company, even though the
fledgling operation gained immortality in the process. The saddest
part of all is that although Sylvia Beach ostensibly owned the
worldwide rights to Ulysses, once the book was published, Joyce did
an about-face and sold the manuscript to Random House for $45,000
– a rather tidy sum in those days. What's even more astonishing
is that to her last hour, Beach vigorously defended Joyce's
reputation and never alluded to this episode, leaving it to
subsequent literary scholars to unearth the painful
truth." Source
1901 Jascha Heifetz (d. 1987), Russian-born
American violinist
1905 Ayn
Rand (d. 1982), American author (Atlas Shrugged)
1915 Abba
Eban (born Aubrey Solomon;
d. 2002), Israel's foreign minister
(1966 - '74)
1920
Vivienne Abraham (d. March 31,
2003), Australian
political activist and lawyer. She was editor of The Peacemaker
from 1953 until 1955, joint editor with her sister Shirley 1964 -
'68, and editor from 1969 until 1971, when it ceased publication.
"With friend
and fellow pacifist G. A. Bishop, Abraham represented the
Federal Pacifist Council of Australia at a conference in Lebanon
during this time ...
"From
1982-1989 Abraham was Honorary Secretary and Treasurer of the
Women's International League for Peace and Freedom (Australian
Section)."
Source
"She
represented the Federal Pacifist Council of Australia (FPCA) at
the Conference in Lebanon that formed the World Peace Brigade
for Non-Violent Action, 28 Dec. 1961-1 Jan. 1962. In the late
1960s she was Honorary Secretary of the FPCA and a committee
member of the Peace Pledge Union of N.S.W., which had been
formed in 1938."
Source
Guide to the Papers of
Vivienne Abraham, MS 9152, National Library of Australia
1926 Valery Giscard d'Estaing,
French politician
1927 Stan
Getz (d. 1991), American jazz tenor saxophonist
1937
Tom Smothers
(Tommy Smothers),
American
comedian,
composer and
musician, who, with brother
Dick
Smothers, was one half of the
Smothers
Brothers comedy duo
Smothered: The
Censorship Stuggles of the Smothers Brothers Comedy Hour
1942 Graham
Nash, English-born
singer-songwriter with '60s folk-rock groups
The Hollies,
and
Crosby,
Stills, Nash and Young. He is also a photographer and photograph
collector, and co-founder of Nash
Editions, a pioneering digital fine-arts printmaking firm.
The Father of Digital Image Printing
Wilson's Almanac Book of Days hip list
1942 Christine
Keeler, British showgirl at the heart of the 1963 'Profumo Affair'
which rocked the UK
Morley's
recollection of the Keeler photoshoot
1947 Melanie,
singer
1947 Farrah Fawcet, American actress,
originally came to fame in TV series Charlie's Angels
1954 Christie Brinkley, American
supermodel
1977 Shakira,
singer
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Diabetes Sunday
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February
1
Freedom
Day
1
Inspire
Your Employees To Excellence Day
2
Groundhog
Day
2
No
Talk Day
2
Imbolc
2
Candlemas
3
Carrot Cake Day
3
Artist Day
3
Wedding Ring Day
4
Homemade Soup Day
4
Halfway Point Of Winter
4
Thank A Mailperson Day
4
Bald Eagle Day (Utah)
5
Super Sunday
5
Primrose Day
5
Chocolate Fondue Day
6
Reggae Day
7
Send A Card To A Friend Day
8
Smile Day
8
Laugh And Grow Rich Day
8
Boy Scout Day
8
Rebel Day
9
Weather Day
9
Toothache Day
9
Pizza Pie Day
10
Umbrella Day
11
Make A New Friend Day
11
Thomas Edison Day
11
Grandmother Achievement Day
12
Chocolate Day
12
Lantern Festival
13
I Value Our Friendship Day
13
Dream Of Your Sweetheart Day
13
Clean Out Your Computer Day
14
Valentine's Day
14
Hug Day
14
Heart To Heart Day
14
Have A Heart Day
15
Thanks For A Great Valentine's Day
15
Burger Lovers' Day
15
Flag Day (Canada)
15
Jewelry Day
15
Gumdrop Day
18
Thumb Appreciation Day
18
Pluto Day
19
Chocolate Mint Day
19
Temporary Insanity Day
19
Solar System Day
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962 Pope
John XII crowned Otto I, Holy Roman Emperor.
1032
Conrad II, Holy Roman Emperor became
King of Burgundy.
1119
Callixtus
II became Pope.
1355 Edward III
of England marched through the
Lothian region of
Scotland with fire and
sword – this day was from then on called by the Scots "Burnt
Candlemas".
1536
Spanish
conquistador,
Pedro de
Mendoza, founded Buenos Aires, Argentina.
1653 New
Amsterdam (later renamed New York
City) was incorporated.
1665 A British fleet won New Amsterdam (later New York) from the
Dutch settlers under Peter
Stuyvesant.
1801 Ireland was represented for the first time in the British
Parliament.
1812 Russia established
a fur trading colony at
Fort Ross,
California.
1829 Explorer Charles Sturt
(1795 -
1869) became the first European to discover the
Darling River, which is
is the longest river in
Australia,
flowing 2,739 km (1,700 mi)
from northern
New South Wales to its confluence with the
Murray
River at
Wentworth, NSW.
Today the Darling is in poor health, suffering from overuse of its
waters,
pollution from
pesticide
runoff and prolonged
drought,
possibly the result of manmade
global warming. To quote Australian writer,
Henry Lawson:
The skies
are brass and the plains are bare,
Death and ruin are everywhere;
And all that is left of the last year's flood
Is a sickly stream on the grey-black mud;
The salt-springs bubble and the quagmires quiver,
And this is the dirge of the Darling River.
1848 Mexican-American War: The Treaty of Guadalupe Hidalgo was signed
ending the war.
1848
California Gold Rush: The first ship with Chinese emigrants
seeking fortune in California's gold country arrived in San Francisco.
1852 The first public toilet for men opened, on
Fleet Street, London.
1870 USA: It was revealed that the famed Cardiff Giant was just carved gypsum and not the
petrified remains of a human as claimed by famed circus promoter PT Barnum.
"A large (ten and a half feet tall) stone
figure of a human that was unearthed and supposed to be a fossilized man.
Supposedly discovered by a farmer, William C. Newell, on his property in
upstate New York on October 16, 1869 as he was digging a well. It had
actually been created by George Hull. Hull was a New York tobacconist who in
1866 had hired a stone mason to carve the giant out of stone, and then had
treated it to make it appear old. He then transported it to Cardiff, New
York where it was buried on Newell's farm. Once 'discovered', it was
displayed and attracted huge amounts of attention. Finally, experts came to
look at it. First came Dr. John F. Boynton who declared it a statue made by
Jesuit missionaries to impress the Indians. Then Othniel C. Marsh examined
it and declared it a humbug of very recent origin. Still the public remained
fascinated, and the giant was moved to New York City. P.T. Barnum offered to
buy it, but his offer was declined. Barnum then fashioned a copy of the
giant and displayed this. The copy drew more people than the fake due to
Barnum's promotional skills. Historians suggest people might have wanted to
believe in it out of a combination of local pride and curiosity about
natural science awakened by Darwinian theory. The giant is now on display in
the Farmer's Museum in Cooperstown, New York."
Source
"When P.T. Barnum's purchase
offer was refused, he had his own Cardiff Giant created. That's why the modern
world is gifted with more than one Cardiff Giant.
"The authentic
Cardiff Giant resides at the New York Historical Society's Farmer's
Museum, Cooperstown, NY. P.T. Barnum's fake is propped up in the rear of Marvin's
Marvelous Mechanical Museum, Farmington Hills, MI."
Source
The other Cardiff Giant was
William George Auger
from Wales (presumably Cardiff)
1872
Joshua Norton I, 'Dei
Gratia' Emperor of the United States and Protector of Mexico, fired all
public officials.
The Public Officials having again notoriously
betrayed the confidence & trust imposed in them by a trusting people; and
having shamefully disregarded the public interest and the people's welfare to
feather their own nests; now, therefore, We, Norton I, Emperor of America &
Protector of Mexico, do hereby order all such Officials to resign forthwith,
& do declare their said offices vacant from the date hereof. 1872.
1878 Greece declared
war on Turkey.
1880 The first electric streetlight was
installed in Wabash, Indiana.
1882 The Knights of Columbus were formed in New Haven, Connecticut.
1887 In Punxsutawney, Pennsylvania the first Groundhog
Day was observed.
1892
William
Painter patented the
Crown Cork
bottle
cap (USA Patent 468,258).
1893 First movie close-up (of a sneeze),
Edison
studio, West Orange, New Jersey, USA.
1897
USA: The Pennsylvania
state capitol was destroyed by fire.
1899
Largely due to intercolonial rivalries between
Victoria
and New South
Wales, the Australian
Premiers' Conference held in Melbourne agreed Australia's national capital
should be located between Sydney and Melbourne at a place called Canberra.1914
The first Cub Scouts pack was founded, in Sussex, England.
1912 Australia: Emma Miller (1839 - 1917),
73, trade unionist and pioneer Australian feminist, foundation president of the
Woman's Equal Franchise Association between 1894 and 1905, took on a mounted police charge and stuck a hatpin in the horse of the
Queensland Commissioner of Police, Mr Cahill.
Cahill was thrown from his mount and later
walked with a limp.
"On 2 February 1912,
known as Black Friday, at the height of a general strike, Miller led a
contingent of women to Parliament House, avoiding police with fixed bayonets.
The women were charged by baton swinging police on their return from
Parliament House. Miller reputedly stuck her hatpin into a horse ridden by the
Police Commissioner, Patrick Cahill. Cahill fell from his horse and claimed to
have been permanently injured. Direct political action was not Miller's only
cause. She was anti-militarist and opposed conscription in World War I. She
believed that 'those who make the quarrel should be the only ones to
fight'. As vice-president of the Women's Peace Army, Miller attended the
Peace Alliance Conference in Melbourne in 1916. She also fought hard for free
speech and civil liberties. During the First World War, Miller preached equal
pay to those fearing that women would take the jobs of men away at the
war." Source
Family
rediscovers grandma suffragette
More And
more More
1915 Germany began blockades of British waters.
1920 Estonia declared its independence from Russia.
1932 The first world
disarmament convention was held at Geneva.
1933 Adolf
Hitler dissolved the German Parliament.
1935 The polygraph machine was tested for the first time.
Leonard Keeler conducted the experiment in Portage, Wisconsin, USA.
1943 World War
II: The
German Army surrendered to
the Soviet Army at Battle of Stalingrad after the loss of
200,000 troops.
1945 World War II: USA President Franklin
D Roosevelt and British Prime Minister Winston
Churchill left to meet Soviet leader Joseph
Stalin at the Yalta Conference.
1959 Buddy
Holly, Ritchie Valens and the
Big Bopper
made their last onstage appearances during the GAC Winter Show tour, at the Surf
Ballroom in Clear Lake, Iowa.
Wilson's
Almanac Book of Days hip list
1962 For the first time in 400 years Neptune
and Pluto
aligned.
1970 British philosopher and political activist, Lord Bertrand Russell,
died in Penryndeudraeth, Merioneth, aged 97.
Some
Almanac dates for Lord Russell
December
11, 1950, Russell
recommended that all warmongers spend at least two hours a day in a boat in
shark-infested swimming pools in a bid to avert wars.
December 23, 1954, he broadcast on "Man's Peril" – the H-bomb.
July
9, 1955, he and eight other eminent persons called for the
abolition of war.
February 17, 1958 The Campaign
for Nuclear Disarmament was founded in London, with Bertrand Russell as its
first president, demanding unilateral nuclear disarmament by Britain.
December 9, 1961, England: The Committee of 100, including Bertrand Russell, held
demonstrations at various US air and nuclear bases.
Some
other people who worked till a great age
1972 Protesters in Dublin burned down the British embassy as
retaliation for the 'Bloody Sunday' killings in
Derry the week before (January
30, qv),
in which British soldiers killed 14 young Irish civil rights protesters.
1980 Abscam: Reports
surfaced that FBI personnel were targeting members
of the United States Congress in a sting operation.
1982 Photo analysis from
Voyager
2 indicated several new moons in our solar system.
1982 Australia: Lindy Chamberlain (b.
1948) was committed to stand trial for
the murder of her ten-week-old baby Azaria, who Lindy asserted was taken by a
dingo. Lindy Chamberlain was later convicted and imprisoned, but finally
pardoned.
1984 The
Medicare free
universal health care scheme was formally adopted in
Australia, replacing the
Medibank scheme.
1986
Liechtenstein allowed women to vote for the first time,
one of the last countries to do so. New Zealand, Afghanistan and Australia were
among the first.
A world chronology of women's suffrage
1989 Soviet Invasion of Afghanistan: The
last Soviet
Union armored column left Kabul ending nine years of military occupation.
1990 Apartheid:
In South
Africa President FW de
Klerk allowed the African National Congress to legally
function again and promised to set Nelson
Mandela free.
2005
President
of the United States George
W Bush delivered his 2005 State
of the Union address. The section on Social
Security reform was booed by some members of Congress, a very rare show of
open disdain for the President
during such a speech.
C-SPAN
State of the Union videos and transcripts (since 1945)
White
House coverage Text
file of state of the union addresses from 1790-2002
State
of the Union Addresses of the American Presidents (1790-2006)
2005
A former secret US
military investigative report on Guantanamo
Bay was revealed to conclude there was no evidence of systemic detainee
abuse but cited several cases of questionable physical force documented on
videotape. Prisoners released had stated abuse was commonplace, and one former
US National
Guardsman received brain damage after being beaten while posing undercover
as a rowdy detainee. All Freedom
of Information Act requests by the ACLU
for video and photographs depicting detainee treatment were denied.
Tomorrow: Many people can play 'Chopsticks' … but who wrote it?
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