Tidbits of History

April 16 is National Eggs Benedict Day – From days of the year.com
History of Eggs Benedict Day
The actual origin of Eggs Benedict is one shrouded in myth and mystery. There are those that profess that it was the favorite breakfast of the notorious betrayer Benedict Arnold, and became a favorite of the British after his defection from the American Revolutionary forces. Others say that its origins are far more recent, being the result of a hangover remedy ordered by one Lemuel Bendict, a Stock Broker who celebrated a bit too hard the night before. While the original order in this case is rumored to be “buttered toast, poached eggs, crisp bacon, and a hooker of Hollandaise”, and the maître d’hotel was so impressed with it that he made a couple modifications and added it to the menu.
Another, purportedly older origin story speaks of Pope Benedict XIII and a bit of an obsession with a particular egg dish. Every day he would order this specific meal when the opportunity presented itself, and so it was that it became deeply associated with him. It also was rumored that there was something going on with his health that made eggs be something of a craving as it helped to assuage the effects.

National Librarian Day
National Stress Awareness Day

1818 – The United States Senate ratified the Rush-Bagot Treaty, establishing the border with Canada.

April 16, 1862 – Emancipation Day (Washington, DC) celebrates the signing of the Compensated Emancipation Act for the release of certain persons held to service or labor in the District of Columbia. The Act freed about 3,100 enslaved persons in the District of Columbia nine months before President Lincoln issued his famous Emancipation Proclamation. The District of Columbia Compensated Emancipation Act represents the only example of compensation by the federal government to former owners of emancipated slaves. The act, which set aside $1 million, immediately emancipated slaves in Washington, D.C., giving Union slaveholders up to $300 per freed slave. An additional $100,000 allocated by the law was used to pay each newly freed slave $100 if he or she chose to leave the United States and colonize in places such as Haiti or Liberia.

Birthday of Wilbur Wright (April 16, 1867), American pioneer aviator who, with his brother Orville (born August, 1871), invented the first powered airplane, Flyer, capable of sustained, controlled flight (17 Dec 1903). Orville made the first flight, airborn for 12-sec. Wilbur took the second flight, covering 853-ft (260-m) in 59 seconds. Wilbur died of typhoid in 1912.

1900 – The first book of postage stamps was issued. The two-cent stamps were available in books of 12, 24 and 48 stamps.

In 1908 the Natural Bridges National Monument was established in Utah.

Bernard Baruch, an American financier, stock investor, philanthropist, statesman, and political consultant, coined the term “Cold War” in 1947 to describe the relationship between the United States and the Soviet Union.

1968 – Major league baseball’s longest night game was played when the Houston Astros defeated the New York Mets 1-0. The 24 innings took six hours, six minutes to play.

Cambodian Khmer Rouge occupy Phnom Penh in 1975.

2003 – The Treaty of Accession was signed in Athens admitting 10 new member states to the European Union – Czech Republic, Estonia, Cyprus, Latvia, Lithuania, Hungary, Malta, Poland, Slovenia, Slovakia.

April 13 is National Peach Cobbler Day

Palm Sunday Palm Sunday commemorates the triumphal entry of Jesus into Jerusalem, where he would be crucified five days later. According to the Gospels, Jesus rode into town on a donkey as exuberant crowds hailed him as the Messiah and spread out palm branches and cloaks in his path.

Scrabble Day April 13 is the day Scrabble inventor Alfred Mosher Butts was born in 1899.

On April 13, 1742 George Frideric Handel’s oratorio, Messiah, made its world-premiere in Dublin, Ireland.

Birthday of Thomas Jefferson (1743), third president of the U.S.

From: Library of Congress: Description of a visit to Thomas Jefferson at Monticello in 1782,
from Travels in North-America, in the Years 1780-81-82 by the Marquis de Chastellux.

Let me describe to you a man, not yet forty, tall, and with a mild and pleasing countenance…. An American, who without ever having quitted his own country, is at once a musician, skilled in drawing, a geometrician, an astronomer, a natural philosopher, legislator, and statesman…. Sometimes natural philosophy, at others politics or the arts, were the topics of our conversation, for no object had escaped Mr. Jefferson; and it seemed as if from his youth he had placed his mind, as he has done his house, on an elevated situation, from which he might contemplate the universe.

1775 – Lord North extended the New England Restraining Act to South Carolina, Virginia, Pennsylvania, New Jersey and Maryland. The act prohibited trade with any country other than Britain and Ireland.

The first elephant ever seen in the United States arrived from India on this day in 1796.

On April 13, 1829, the English Emancipation Act granted freedom of religion to Catholics.

1861 – American Civil War: Fort Sumter surrendered to Confederate forces.

Jefferson Memorial was dedicated in 1943

On April 13, 1970, an oxygen tank aboard Apollo 13 exploded, putting the crew in great danger and causing major damage to the spacecraft while en route to the Moon.

April 10 is the 101st day of the year.

National Cinnamon Crescent Day

Golfer’s Day

National Siblings Day

1606 – The Virginia Company of London was established by royal charter by James I of England with the purpose of establishing colonial settlements in North America. The territory granted to the London Company included the eastern coast of America from the 34th parallel (Cape Fear) north to the 41st parallel (in Long Island Sound)… The company was permitted by its charter to establish a 100-square-mile (260 km2) settlement within this area. The portion of the company’s territory north of the 38th parallel was shared with the Plymouth Company, with the stipulation that neither company found a colony within 100 miles (161 km) of each other.

By 1609, the Plymouth Company had dissolved. As a result, the charter for the London Company was adjusted with a new grant that extended from “sea to sea” of the previously-shared area between the 38th and 40th parallel.

April 10, 1790 – Robert Gray, merchant sea-captain, was the first American to circumnavigate the Earth. He explored and named the Columbia River in 1792.

April 10, 1815 – The Mount Tambora volcano began a three-month-long eruption, lasting until July 15. The eruption ultimately killed 71,000 people and affected Earth’s climate for the next two years. Mount Tambora is on the island of Sumbawa, Indonesia. Tambora’s 1815 eruption was the largest in recorded human history.

Birthday of Joseph Pulitzer 1847, American journalist and publisher who founded Columbia University Graduate School of Journalism. The Pulitzer Prize is an award for achievements in newspaper, magazine and online journalism, literature, and musical composition in the United States. It was established in 1917 by provisions in the will of American (Hungarian-born) Joseph Pulitzer who had made his fortune as a newspaper publisher, and is administered by Columbia University in New York City.

1849 – Safety pin patented by Walter Hunt of NYC; He sold the rights for $100.

Humane Day, anniversary of the incorporation of the ASPCA in 1866.

1872 – The first Arbor Day is celebrated in Nebraska.

1912 – RMS Titanic set sail from Southampton, England on her maiden and only voyage.

1925 “The Great Gatsby” by F. Scott Fitzgerald was published.

1947 Brooklyn Dodgers president Branch Rickey announced he had purchased the contract of Jackie Robinson from the Montreal Royals, paving the way for Robinson to become the first black to play in the major leagues.

April 9 is:

National Chinese Almond Cookie Day

Name Yourself Day To celebrate, you are allowed to give yourself a new name for one day. If you have ever wondered what it would be like to have a different name, this would be the day to find out.

On April 9, 1413, Henry V was crowned King of England. Henry V, also called Henry of Monmouth, was King of England from 1413 until his death in 1422.

From 2201 Fascinating Facts by David Louis, published by Greenwich House, New York, 1983:

Death of French writer Francois Rabelais (Apr 9, 1553), His last will and testament reads: “I have nothing. I owe much. The rest I leave to the poor”. His dying words were “I am going to a great perhaps”.

The expedition organized by Sir Walter Raleigh departed England for Roanoke Island (now in North Carolina) to establish the Roanoke Colony on this day in 1585.

April 9, 1682 – Robert Cavelier de La Salle discovered the mouth of the Mississippi River, claimed it for France and named it Louisiana.

Winston Churchill Day – on April 9, 1963, Winston Churchill became an honorary American Citizen. Others who have received this honor include William Penn (1984), Mother Teresa (1996), Marquis de LaFayette (2002), and Casimir Pulaski (2009) (called The Father of the American Cavalry). LaFayette was made an honorary citizen of the state of Maryland in 1783.

April 9, 1865 – American Civil War: Robert E. Lee surrendered the Army of Northern Virginia (26,765 troops) to Ulysses S. Grant at Appomattox Courthouse, Virginia, effectively ending the war.

1939 Marian Anderson sings at the Lincoln Memorial in Washington, D.C. The Daughters of the American Revolution (DAR) refused to allow Anderson to sing to an integrated audience in Constitution Hall in Washington, D.C. The incident placed Anderson in the spotlight of the international community on a level unusual for a classical musician. With the aid of First Lady Eleanor Roosevelt and her husband, President Franklin D. Roosevelt, Anderson performed a critically acclaimed open-air concert on Easter Sunday, April 9, 1939, on the Lincoln Memorial steps in the capital. Anderson was accompanied, as usual, by Finnish pianist Vehanen. They began the performance with a dignified and stirring rendition of “My Country, ‘Tis of Thee.” The event was featured in a documentary film. She sang before an integrated crowd of more than 75,000 people and a radio audience in the millions.

1965 1st baseball game at Houston Astrodome, Astros beat NY Yankees 2-1 in exhibition as Mickey Mantle hits MLB’s 1st indoor homerun; US President Lyndon Johnson and wife Lady Bird attend.

April 9, 1989 In Tbilisi, Georgia, a peaceful demonstration for independence was broken up by the Soviet Army, killing 20 people. The country gained independence on this date exactly two years later.

April 7 is :

National Coffee Cake Day The first coffee cakes appeared around the 17th century in Europe, when drinking coffee beverages was introduced.
National Beer Day
No Housework Day

World Health Day, anniversary of the establishment of the World Health Organization in 1948.

Death of El Greco (Doménikos Theotokópoulos) in 1614, artist of the Spanish Renaissance. A sample of his works can be found at Wikiart.org.

Domenikos Theotokopoulos, other wise known as “El Greco” due to his Greek heritage, was a popular Greek painter, sculptor, and architect of the Spanish Renaissance. He was a master of post-Byzantine art by the age of 26, when he traveled to Venice, and later Rome, where he opened his first workshop. Unlike other artists, El Greco altered his style in order to distinguish himself from other artists of the time, inventing new and unusual interpretations of religious subject matter. He created agile, elongated figures, and included a vibrant atmospheric light. After the death of Raphael and Michelangelo, he was determined to leave his own artistic mark, and offered to paint over Michelangelo’s Last Supper to Pope Pius V.

In 1652, at the Cape of Good Hope, Dutch sailor Jan van Riebeeck established a resupply camp that eventually becomes Cape Town.

Birthday of William Wordsworth (April 7, 1770), English poet, author of “The World Is Too Much With Us”.

The world is too much with us; late and soon,
Getting and spending, we lay waste our powers;
Little we see in Nature that is ours;
We have given our hearts away, a sordid boon!
This Sea that bares her bosom to the moon,
The winds that will be howling at all hours,
And are up-gathered now like sleeping flowers,
For this, for everything, we are out of tune;
It moves us not. –Great God! I’d rather be
A Pagan suckled in a creed outworn;
So might I, standing on this pleasant lea,
Have glimpses that would make me less forlorn;
Have sight of Proteus rising from the sea;
Or hear old Triton blow his wreathèd horn.

In 1798, the Mississippi Territory was created by an act of Congress, with Natchez as the capital.

In 1862, Union forces led by Gen. Ulysses S. Grant defeated the Confederates at the Battle of Shiloh in Tennessee.

In 1915, jazz singer-songwriter Billie Holiday, also known as “Lady Day,” was born in Philadelphia.

On April 7, 1923, the Workers Party of America (NYC) becomes official Communist Party

On April 7, 1927, the image and voice of Commerce Secretary, Herbert Hoover, were transmitted live from Washington to New York in the first successful long-distance demonstration of television.

In 1959, a referendum in Oklahoma repealed the state’s ban on alcoholic beverages.

In 1962, nearly 1,200 Cuban exiles tried by Cuba for their roles in the failed Bay of Pigs invasion were convicted of treason. Per Wikipedia:

About 1,202 members of Brigade 2506 were captured, of whom nine died from asphyxiation during transfer to Havana in a closed truck. In May 1961, Fidel Castro proposed to exchange the surviving Brigade prisoners for 500 large farm tractors, valued at US$28,000,000. On 8 September 1961, 14 Brigade prisoners were convicted of torture, murder and other major crimes committed in Cuba before the invasion. Five were executed and nine others imprisoned for 30 years… On 29 March 1962, 1,179 men were put on trial for treason. On 7 April 1962, all were convicted and sentenced to 30 years in prison. On 14 April 1962, 60 wounded and sick prisoners were freed and transported to the US.

On 21 December 1962, Cuban Prime Minister Fidel Castro and James B. Donovan, a US lawyer aided by Milan C. Miskovsky, a CIA legal officer, signed an agreement to exchange 1,113 prisoners for US$53 million in food and medicine, sourced from private donations and from companies expecting tax concessions. On 24 December 1962, some prisoners were flown to Miami, others following on the ship African Pilot, plus about 1,000 family members also allowed to leave Cuba. On 29 December 1962, President Kennedy and his wife Jacqueline attended a “welcome back” ceremony for Brigade 2506 veterans at the Orange Bowl in Miami, Florida

The World Trade Organization ruled in favor of the United States in its long-running trade dispute with the European Union over bananas on April 7, 1999. See the guardian.com for more information.