July 15 is:
Tapioca Pudding Day
National Gummy Worm Day
Cow Appreciation Day
Feast day of Saint Swithin, known as a weather prophet. Legend has it that, if it rains today, it will continue to rain for 40 days.
Birthday of Rembrandt (Rembrandt Harmenszoon van Rijn), on July 15, 1606. Rembrandt was a Dutch painter, considered to be one of the greatest painters in European art, and the most important in Dutch history. See Wikiart for samples of his works.
Birthday of Clement Clarke Moore (1779), American poet, born in New York, best known for the poem called “A Visit from Saint Nicholas” It is from this poem (published in 1823) that we know Santa has eight reindeer and their names. (Rudolph came later in 1939.)
‘Twas the night before Christmas, when all through the house
Not a creature was stirring, not even a mouse;
The stockings were hung by the chimney with care,
In hopes that St. Nicholas soon would be there;The children were nestled all snug in their beds,
While visions of sugar-plums danced in their heads;
And mamma in her ‘kerchief, and I in my cap,
Had just settled down for a long winter’s nap,When out on the lawn there arose such a clatter,
I sprang from the bed to see what was the matter.
Away to the window I flew like a flash,
Tore open the shutters and threw up the sash.The moon on the breast of the new-fallen snow
Gave the lustre of mid-day to objects below,
When, what to my wondering eyes should appear,
But a miniature sleigh, and eight tiny reindeer,With a little old driver, so lively and quick,
I knew in a moment it must be St. Nick.
More rapid than eagles his coursers they came,
And he whistled, and shouted, and called them by name;“Now, DASHER! now, DANCER! now, PRANCER and VIXEN!
On, COMET! on CUPID! on, DONNER and BLITZEN!
To the top of the porch! to the top of the wall!
Now dash away! dash away! dash away all!”As dry leaves that before the wild hurricane fly,
When they meet with an obstacle, mount to the sky,
So up to the house-top the coursers they flew,
With the sleigh full of toys, and St. Nicholas too.And then, in a twinkling, I heard on the roof
The prancing and pawing of each little hoof.
As I drew in my hand, and was turning around,
Down the chimney St. Nicholas came with a bound.He was dressed all in fur, from his head to his foot,
And his clothes were all tarnished with ashes and soot;
A bundle of toys he had flung on his back,
And he looked like a peddler just opening his pack.His eyes — how they twinkled! his dimples how merry!
His cheeks were like roses, his nose like a cherry!
His droll little mouth was drawn up like a bow,
And the beard of his chin was as white as the snow;The stump of a pipe he held tight in his teeth,
And the smoke it encircled his head like a wreath;
He had a broad face and a little round belly,
That shook, when he laughed like a bowlful of jelly.He was chubby and plump, a right jolly old elf,
And I laughed when I saw him, in spite of myself;
A wink of his eye and a twist of his head,
Soon gave me to know I had nothing to dread;He spoke not a word, but went straight to his work,
And filled all the stockings; then turned with a jerk,
And laying his finger aside of his nose,
And giving a nod, up the chimney he rose;He sprang to his sleigh, to his team gave a whistle,
And away they all flew like the down of a thistle.
But I heard him exclaim, ere he drove out of sight,
HAPPY CHRISTMAS TO ALL, AND TO ALL A GOOD-NIGHT!
1799 – French Captain Pierre-François Bouchard found The Rosetta Stone in the Egyptian village of Rosetta.Per Wikipedia:
The Rosetta Stone is a rock stele, found in 1799, inscribed with a decree issued at Memphis, Egypt, in 196 BC on behalf of King Ptolemy V. The decree appears in three scripts: the upper text is Ancient Egyptian hieroglyphs, the middle portion is Demotic script, and the lowest is Ancient Greek. Because it presents essentially the same text in all three scripts (with some minor differences among them), the stone provided the key to the modern understanding of Egyptian hieroglyphs.
1834 – The Spanish Inquisition was officially disbanded after nearly 356 years of terror.
1838 – Ralph Waldo Emerson delivered the Divinity School Address at Harvard Divinity School. He discounted Biblical miracles and declared that Jesus a great man, but not God. The Protestant community reacted with outrage.
1870 – Rupert’s Land and the North-Western Territory were transferred to Canada from the Hudson’s Bay Company. The province of Manitoba and the Northwest Territories were established from these vast territories.
1910 – Emil Kraepelin, in his book Clinical Psychiatry, gave a name to Alzheimer’s disease, naming it after his colleague, Alois Alzheimer.
1979 – U.S. President Jimmy Carter gave his so-called malaise speech. He characterized the greatest threat to the country as “this crisis in the growing doubt about the meaning of our own lives and in the loss of a unity of purpose for our nation” but in which he never uses the word malaise.
2003 – AOL Time Warner disbands Netscape. The Mozilla Foundation was established on the same day.
2006 – Twitter was launched, becoming one of the largest social media platforms in the world.
From Today in Science
In 1869, margarine was patented by Hippolyte Mège Mouriés in France (No. 86489). He won the contest held by Emperor Napoleon III to find a substitute for butter used by the French Navy. His formula included a fatty component that mixed to a pearly luster, so he named his product after the Greek word for pearl – margaritari. His margarine was manufactured from tallow. Although the prize winner, it was not until F. Boudet patented a process for emulsifying it with skimmed milk and water (1872) that margarine was made sufficiently palatable to be a commercial success.