Category Archives: Today

September 9 is the 253rd day of the year.

National Hug Your Boss Day
National “I Love Food” Day!
National Wiener Schnitzel Day A Wiener Schnitzel is a veal cutlet coated in bread and then pan-fried. This renowned dish is considered an Austrian delicacy in its beautiful capital, Vienna.

Teddy Bear Day: From Holiday Insights

During the early 1900s, President Theodore Roosevelt was in office as President of the United States. He was a hunter. While hunting in Mississippi in 1902, he refused to shoot a small bear. The Washington Post picked up on this story, and made a cartoon of the event. Toy store owners, Morris and Rose Michtom, wrote to President Roosevelt for permission to call their stuffed animals “Teddy Bears”. Teddy bears became wildly popular. Their company went on to become the Ideal Toy Company, one of the largest toy companies in the world.

1754 William Bligh was born. He became captain of the English ship, Bounty, and while sailing to Tahiti to bring back breadfruit trees, the most famous mutiny in history took place.

On this date in 1776 the Continental Congress officially named its new union of sovereign states the United States.

In 1791 – Washington, D.C., the capital of the United States, was named after President George Washington.

Birthday of Count Leo Tolstoy (September 9, 1828), Russian novelist famous for “War and Peace” and “Anna Karenina”

The Compromise of 1850 provisions included:

• Texas surrendered its claim to New Mexico, as well as its claims north of the Missouri Compromise Line. It retained the Texas Panhandle and the federal government took over the state’s public debt.
• California was admitted as a free state with its current boundaries.
• The South prevented adoption of the Wilmot Proviso that would have outlawed slavery in the new territories, and the new Utah Territory and New Mexico Territory were allowed, under the principle of popular sovereignty, to decide whether to allow slavery within their borders. In practice, these lands were generally unsuited to plantation agriculture and their settlers were uninterested in slavery.
• The slave trade (but not slavery altogether) was banned in the District of Columbia.
• A more stringent Fugitive Slave Law was enacted.

California Admission Day, on September 9, 1850 becoming the thirty-first state

• Capital: Sacramento
• Nickname: Golden State
• Bird: California Valley Quail
• Flower: Golden poppy
• Tree: California Redwood
• Motto: Eureka! I Have Found It

See our page California for more interesting facts and trivia about California.

1890 Harland Sanders was born near Henryville, Indiana. Founder of Kentucky Fried Chicken fast food restaurant chain.

September 10, 1898: Elisabeth of Bavaria, Empress of Austria was stabbed to death by Italian anarchist Luigi Lucheni at Lake Geneva, Switzerland.

1901 Henri de Toulouse-Lautrec died. French artist who documented Parisian night life in the 1890s with his insightful posters. For examples of his art, see Wikiart.

From Today in Science
NBC

In 1926, the National Broadcasting Company (NBC) was created by the Radio Corporation of America (RCA), shortly after the acquistion (May 1926) of the radio network operations of AT&T, which had decided to withdraw from radio. The new NBC network was publicized with full-page ads in many publications. The new network’s debut broadcast was transmitted on 15 Nov 1926. The network assets bought from AT&T with stations in major cities of several states became the NBC-Red network (a designation reflecting its origin when the inter-city circuit charts were marked with telephone links between network radio stations in red pencil. The smaller existing network of the buyer became NBC-Blue.

1995 Orville Redenbacher died. Founder of gourmet popcorn company.

September 6 is:

Fight Procrastination Day
Read a Book Day…Isn’t that every day?
National Coffee Ice Cream Day

Coffee is only grown near the equator, from the Tropic of Cancer to the Tropic of Capricorn, within a 1,000 mile limit.

From thoughtco.com

The Tropic of Cancer and the Tropic of Capricorn each lie at 23.5 degrees latitude. The Tropic of Cancer is located at 23.5 degrees north of the equator and runs through Mexico, the Bahamas, Egypt, Saudi Arabia, India, and southern China. The Tropic of Capricorn lies at 23.5 degrees south of the equator and runs through Australia, Chile, southern Brazil (Brazil is the only country that passes through both the equator and a tropic), and northern South Africa.

The tropics are the two lines where the sun is directly overhead at noon on the two solstices—about June 21 and December 21. The sun is directly overhead at noon on the Tropic of Cancer on June 21 (the beginning of summer in the Northern Hemisphere and the beginning of winter in the Southern Hemisphere), and the sun is directly overhead at noon on the Tropic of Capricorn on December 21 (the beginning of winter in the Northern Hemisphere and the beginning of summer in the Southern Hemisphere).

The reason for the location of the Tropic of Cancer and the Tropic of Capricorn at roughly 23.5 degrees north and south, respectively, is due to the axial tilt of the Earth. The Earth is tilted 23.5 degrees from the plane of the Earth’s revolution around the sun each year.

The area bounded by the Tropic of Cancer on the north and Tropic of Capricorn on the south is known as the “tropics.” This area does not experience seasons, because the sun is always high in the sky. Only higher latitudes, north of the Tropic of Cancer and south of the Tropic of Capricorn, experience significant seasonal variation in climate. Areas in the tropics can be cold, however. The peak of Mauna Kea on the Big Island of Hawaii stands nearly 14,000 feet above sea level, and snow is not unusual.

If you live north of the Tropic of Cancer or south of the Tropic of Capricorn, the sun will never be directly overhead. In the United States, for example, Hawaii is the only location in the country that is south of the Tropic of Cancer, and it is thus the only location in the United States where the sun will be directly overhead in the summer.

Puritans settled Salem in 1628. It will later become part of Massachusetts Bay Colony.

Birthday of Gilbert du Motier, Marquis de Lafayette (September 6, 1757), French aristocrat and military officer who became a general in the American Revolutionary War and a leader of the Garde nationale during the French Revolution. He was granted honorary U.S. citizenship in 2002, one of only 8 people so honored.

Birthday of Jane Addams (September 6, 1860), American social worker, founder of Hull House in Chicago, a settlement house for newly arrived European immigrants.

September 6, 1901: US President William McKinley was shot by anarchist Leon Czolgosz at Pan American Exposition in Buffalo NY. Two shots were fired. The first deflected off a button and was easily found and removed. The second however was fatal. The newly-developed X-ray machine was displayed at the fair, but doctors were reluctant to use it on McKinley to search for the bullet because they did not know what side effects it may have had on him. Also, ironically, the operating room at the exposition’s emergency hospital did not have any electric lighting, even though the exteriors of many of the buildings at the extravagant exposition were covered with thousands of light bulbs. Doctors used a pan to reflect sunlight onto the operating table as they treated McKinley’s wounds. McKinley eventually went into shock. He died from his wounds early on the morning of September 14th.

September 6, 1997: The funeral of Diana, Princess of Wales took place in London.

September 5 is:

Be Late for Something Day

Cheese Pizza Day

About 93% of Americans eat at least one pizza every month.
About 350 slices of pizza are consumed every second in the United States.
The most pizzas are delivered (and eaten) on New Year’s Day, New Year’s Eve, Halloween, Thanksgiving Eve, and Super Bowl Sunday.
Pepperoni is the most popular pizza topping in the United States.

1698 – Russian Tsar Peter the Great imposed a tax on beards of one hundred rubles annually. He also sought to end arranged marriages, which were the norm among the Russian nobility, because he thought such a practice was barbaric and led to domestic violence, since the partners usually resented each other.

Anniversary of the first meeting of the First Continental Congress in Philadelphia in 1774. It was a convention of delegates from twelve colonies (Georgia was not present) that met at Carpenters’ Hall in Philadelphia, Pennsylvania, early in the American Revolution. It was called in response to the passage of the Coercive Acts (also known as Intolerable Acts by the Colonial Americans) by the British Parliament. The Intolerable Acts had punished Boston for the Boston Tea Party. The Congress ultimately agreed to impose an economic boycott on British trade, and they drew up a Petition to the King pleading for redress of their grievances and repeal of the Intolerable Acts. That appeal had no effect, so the colonies convened the Second Continental Congress the following May, shortly after the battles of Lexington and Concord, to organize the defense of the colonies at the outset of the Revolutionary War. The delegates also urged each colony to set up and train its own militia.

Sam Houston was elected as the first president of the Republic of Texas in 1836.

Birthday of Jesse James (September 5, 1847), American outlaw, gang leader, bank robber, train robber, and murderer.

1882: The first United States Labor Day parade was held in New York City.

From 2201 Fascinating Facts by David Louis, published by Greenwich House, New York, 1983
Execution by hanging of Carl Panzram (mass murderer of 23 people) (Sept 5, 1930 ). While the noose was being put around his neck, he allegedly spat in his executioner’s face and declared, “I wish the entire human race had one neck, and I had my hands around it!” When asked by the executioner if he had any last words, Panzram barked, “Yes, hurry it up, you Hoosier bastard! I could hang a dozen men while you’re screwing around!”

Jerry Lewis hosted his first Muscular Dystrophy telethon in 1952; it raised $15,000. In 2010 the telethon raised $61 million.

1975 – Assassination attempt on US President Gerald Ford in Sacramento by Lynette “Squeaky” Fromme. A member of the infamous “Manson family”, she was sentenced to life imprisonment and was released on parole on August 14, 2009, after serving 34 years.

September 4 is:

Labor Day Labor Day is a federal holiday in the United States celebrated on the first Monday in September to honor and recognize the American labor movement and the works and contributions of laborers to the development and achievements of the United States.

Newspaper Carrier Day
Eat an Extra Dessert Day
National Wildlife Day
National Macadamia Nut Day
Per foodimentary.com:

• Macadamia nuts are native to Australia. They are named for John Macadam, a Scottish born physician and chemist who promoted the nuts cultivation in Australia.
• The Macadamia Nut is one of Australia’s few contributions to the world’s food plants, and this rich, buttery nut is considered by many to be the most delicious of all nuts.
• The Macadamia was introduced into Hawaii around 1881 and used as an ornamental. The first commercial orchards of macadamias in Hawaii were not planted until 1921.
• Most of the world’s macadamia nuts are grown on the island of Hawaii.
• Today Macadamias are cultivated in many areas, including Indonesia, Central America, South Africa, the West Indies, Mediterranean countries and California.

Birthday of the City of Los Angeles in 1781. A group of forty-four settlers known as “Los Pobladores” founded the pueblo called “El Pueblo de Nuestra Señora la Reina de los Angeles del Río de Porciúncula”; in English it is “The Town of Our Lady the Queen of Angels of the Porciúncula River”. Two-thirds of the settlers were mestizo or mulatto with a mixture of African, indigenous and European ancestry. The settlement remained a small ranch town for decades, but by 1820 the population had increased to about 650 residents. Today, the pueblo is commemorated in the historic district of Los Angeles Pueblo Plaza and Olvera Street, the oldest part of Los Angeles.

Birthday of Marcus Whitman (September 4, 1802), American pioneer and missionary physician who, along with his wife Narcissa Whitman, started a mission to the Cayuse in what is now southeastern Washington state in 1836. The area later developed as a trading post and stop along the Oregon Trail, and the city of Walla Walla, Washington developed near there. A measles epidemic in 1847 killed all the Cayuse children and about half of the Cayuse adults. The Indians held the Whitmans responsible and killed Marcus, Narcissa, and 12 other settlers.

Birthday of Sarah Childress Polk (September 4, 1803), wife of James Knox Polk, first lady 1845-1849. From Biography of Sarah Childress Polk:

Sarah Polk is said to have been serious, religious, a proper lady in every way except in her love of politics and gentlemanly conversation. She was known to remain behind with the men to talk, rather than retire to the parlor with the ladies. Humor was never a strong point with her (or with her husband). She… eventually took on the duties of an unpaid secretary to her husband.

From Today in Science
Box Camera
In 1888, George Eastman was issued a landmark U.S. patent No. 388,850 for his box camera. On the same date, he registered the trademark name: Kodak. The Eastman Kodak company was formed 24 Apr 1888. This design was the first Kodak mass-produced camera, and brought photography to the mass market. As described in its advertising, the operation was simple: “Pull the String, Turn the Key, Press the Button.” Now anyone could take pictures family, events, indoor and outdoor scenes, and vacations, without needing special skills. Only 22-ounces in weight, it required no tripod or table for support. It used a fixed-focus lens which was still fast enough to take practically instantaneously exposures. Its roll film was enough to take 100 pictures, each 2½ inches diameter.

From Today in Science
In 1906, U.S. patent No. 830,115 was issued to Robert Eugene Turner of Norfolk, Virginia, for his invention of a “Type Writing Machine,”(typewriter) with a carriage powered by a motor to “return automatically when the end of the writing-line is reached, also to return same by pressing a key-lever on the keyboard to return the carriage at any point of its stroke.” Also, line spacing was provided by manual or automatic means. A low-powered motor was adapted to feed the carriage in the printing direction, a high-powered motor for returning the carriage in the reverse direction, and the necessary mechanism to control their action. A buffering mechanism was included to reduce the impact of the returning carriage at the end of its reverse stroke.

From Today in Science
Transcontinental Television
In 1951, President Harry Truman inaugurated transcontinental television service in the U.S. when AT&T carried his address to the opening session of the Japanese Peace Convention in San Francisco. The conference would formalize the end of hostilities with Japan, opening the door for Japan’s economic recovery. The largest single television audience to date, estimated at over 30 million people, viewed President Harry Truman, some as far away as New England. Eighty-seven stations all over the U.S. received and broadcast Truman’s speech, the result of a $40 million infrastructure investment by AT&T. Microwave radio technology transmitted the television signal from San Francisco to Chicago. From there, it was carried on existing coaxial cables to the East Coast.

September 2 is:

National Blueberry Popsicle Day
National Grits for Breakfast Day
From: Foodimentary.com

• Grits (also sometimes called sofkee or sofkey from the Muskogee word) are a food of Native American origin common in the Southern United States and mainly eaten at breakfast.
• They consist of coarsely ground corn, or sometimes alkali-treated corn (hominy).
• Grits are similar to other thick maize-based porridges from around the world, such as polenta, or the thinner farina.
• Grits are usually prepared by adding one part grits to two-to-three parts boiling water, sometimes seasoned with salt or sugar.
• They are usually cooked for 5–10 minutes for “quick” grits or 20 or more minutes for whole kernel grits, or until the water is absorbed and the grits become a porridge-like consistency.

Anniversary of the historic Great London fire of 1666 which left four-fifths of London in ashes. The fire of began in the shop of the King’s baker. After burning for four days, more than 13,000 buildings had been destroyed.

From Today in Science
Julian Calendar
In 1752, today was the last day of the Julian calendar in Great Britain, Ireland and the British colonies, including those on the East coast of America. Eleven days were skipped to adopt the Gregorian calendar, designed to realign the calendar with equinoxes. Hence the following day was 14 Sep. For more than a century and a half before, following the decree by Pope Gregory XIII, Italy, and three other Catholic countries (Spain, Portugal and Poland) used the Julian calendar for the last time on 4 Oct 1582. France followed, ending Julian calendar use on 9 Dec 1582. Russia did not change until the early 20th century: 31 Jan 1918 was the last Julian date, followed the next day by 14 Feb 1918. Parts of China changed in 1912, but the Communist revolution, 1949, established Gregorian calendar use in all China.

Birthday of Lydia Liliʻu Loloku Walania Wewehi Kamakaʻeha, (September 2, 1838), last Queen of the Hawaiian Islands, overthrown in 1893. Remembered as the author of several songs including “Aloha Oe” (Farewell to Thee).

Birthday of Eugene Field (September 2, 1850), American jounalist; author of children’s verses such as “Little Boy Blue” and “Wynken, Blynken, and Nod”.

Little Boy Blue

The little toy dog is covered with dust,
But sturdy and stanch he stands;
And the little toy soldier is red with rust,
And his musket molds in his hands.
Time was when the little toy dog was new
And the soldier was passing fair,
And that was the time when our Little Boy Blue
Kissed them and put them there.

“Now, don’t you go till I come,” he said,
“And don’t you make any noise!”
So toddling off to his trundle-bed
He dreamed of the pretty toys.
And as he was dreaming, an angel song
Awakened our Little Boy Blue,–
Oh, the years are many, the years are long,
But the little toy friends are true.

Ay, faithful to Little Boy Blue they stand,
Each in the same old place,
Awaiting the touch of a little hand,
The smile of a little face.
And they wonder, as waiting these long years through,
In the dust of that little chair,
What has become of our Little Boy Blue
Since he kissed them and put them there.

Comment: I don’t know why but this was one of my mother’s favorite poems and probably the first one I ever learned.

1944 Future US President George H. W. Bush bailed from a burning plane during a mission in the Pacific.

September 2, 1945: Vietnam became independent, with Ho Chi Minh as leader.

The first automatic teller machine in the United States was installed on September 2, 1969 in Rockville Center, New York.