Tidbits of History

October 26 is:

National Mincemeat Pie Day
Per Foodimentary.com

Mince pies are descended from a huge pie baked on Christmas Eve containing chopped beef, suet, nuts, spices and fruit of which whole dried plums were an important constituent.
It was generally served as an entree.
Gradually the meat content was reduced, and today the mixture contains nuts, dried fruit (raisins, apples, pears, citrus peel, etc.), beef suet, spices and brandy or rum, but no beef.
Mincemeat is used primarily in pies and tarts.

The first Continental Congress adjourned in Philadelphia, Pennsylvania. The Congress met from September 5 to October 26, 1774 in response to the passage of the Coercive Acts and the Congress petitioned King George III for redress of those grievances. Fifty-six delegates from all the colonies except Georgia drafted a Declaration of Rights and Grievances and elected Virginian Peyton Randolph as the first president of Congress. Patrick Henry, George Washington, John Adams, and John Jay were among the delegates.

A year later, in 1775 – King George III of Great Britain went before Parliament to declare the American colonies were in rebellion, and to authorize a military response to quell the American Revolution.

The Pony Express officially ceased operations. From April 3, 1860, to October 1861, it became the West’s most direct means of east–west communication before the telegraph was established and was vital for tying the new state of California with the rest of the country.

Wyatt Earp, his two brothers and “Doc” Holliday confronted Ike Clanton’s gang in a gunfight at the OK Corral in Tombstone, Ariz in 1881. When the dust cleared, Billy Clanton and the McLaury brothers were dead, and Virgil and Morgan Earp and Doc Holliday were wounded. Ike Clanton and Billy Claiborne had run for the hills. Sheriff John Behan of Cochise County, who witnessed the shootout, charged the Earps and Holliday with murder. A month later, however, a Tombstone judge found the men not guilty, ruling that they were “fully justified in committing these homicides.” The famous shootout has been immortalized in many movies, including Frontier Marshal (1939), Gunfight at the OK Corral (1957), Tombstone (1993) and Wyatt Earp (1994).

October 26, 1905 – Norway became independent from Sweden. Per Wikipedia: The United Kingdoms of Sweden and Norway was a personal union of the separate kingdoms of Sweden and Norway under a common monarch and common foreign policy that lasted from 1814 until its peaceful dissolution in 1905. Over the years, a divergence of Norwegian and Swedish interests became apparent. In particular, Norwegians felt that their foreign policy interests were inadequately served by Sweden’s ministry of foreign affairs. There were several driving factors behind the growing conflict:

• Norway’s economy was more dependent on foreign trade and thus more sensitive to the protectionist measures favored by the mercantalist Swedish government at the time.
• Norway had trading and other links with the United Kingdom whereas Sweden had closer links with Germany.
• Norway had more interests than Sweden did outside Europe.

In addition, Norwegian politics were increasingly dominated by liberal tendencies characterized by the extension of parliamentary democracy, while Swedish politics tended to be more conservative.

Birthday of Hillary Rodham Clinton (October 26, 1947), wife of William Jefferson Clinton; first lady 1993-2001. Clinton became the first woman to be nominated for president of the United States by a major political party when she won the Democratic Party nomination in 2016. She lost to President Donald J. Trump.

1949 – U.S. President Harry Truman raised the minimum wage from 40 to 75 cents an hour.

October 25 is:

National Greasy Foods Day

Feast Day of Saints Crispin and Crispinian, patron saints of cobblers, curriers, tanners, and leather workers. It is said that they were brothers who spread Christianity during the day and made shoes at night to support themselves. They were tortured and thrown into the river with millstones around their necks. Though they survived, they were beheaded by the Emperor on October 25th, 285 or 286.

“St. Crispin’s Day” is referred to by William Shakespeare in Henry V describing the battle of Agincourt, from which we get the phrase “the band of brothers”.

Crispin Crispian shall ne’er go by,
From this day to the ending of the world,
But we in it shall be remember’d;
We few, we happy few, we band of brothers

1825 Birthday of Johann Strauss II, Austrian composer. Compositions such as The Blue Danube helped establish Strauss as “the Waltz King” and earned him a place in music history.

Birthday of Georges Bizet (October 25, 1838), French composer whose most famous work is the opera “Carmen”. Carmen has since become one of the most popular and frequently performed operas in the classical canon; the “Habanera” from act 1 and the “Toreador Song” from act 2 are among the best known of all operatic arias.

The Habanera

Birthday of Pablo Ruiz Picasso (October 25, 1881), Spanish-born painter and sculptor; founder of the Cubist school and leader in the surrealistic movement in France. Please visit Wikiart for pictures of his work.

Birthday of Richard Evelyn Byrd (October 25, 1888), American naval officer and polar explorer who made five important expeditions to the Antarctic. He was a recipient of the Medal of Honor, the highest honor for valor given by the United States, and was a pioneering American aviator, polar explorer, and organizer of polar logistics.

Former First Lady,Carolyn Harrison, wife of Benjamin Harrison, died on this day in 1892 of tuberculosis. She was the second First Lady to die while her husband was President, the first one being Letitia Tyler in 1842.

1929 Former Interior Secretary Albert B. Fall was convicted of accepting $100,000 bribe in the Teapot scandal. He was the first US Cabinet member to go to jail.

Fall was appointed to the position of Secretary of the Interior by President Warren G. Harding in March 1921. He had been a U. S. Senator from New Mexico. Soon after his appointment, Harding convinced Edwin Denby, the Secretary of the Navy, that Fall’s department should take over responsibility for the Naval Reserves at Elk Hills, California, Buena Vista, California, and Teapot Dome, Wyoming. This last setting became the namesake of the scandal to erupt in April 1922 when The Wall Street Journal reported that Secretary Fall had decided that two of his friends, oilmen Harry F. Sinclair (Mammoth Oil Corporation) and Edward L. Doheny (Pan-American Petroleum and Transport Company), should be given leases to drill in parts of these Naval Reserves without open bidding. His acceptance of bribes for the leases resulted in the Teapot Dome scandal.

From Today in Science
Microwave oven
In 1955, the first domestic microwave oven was sold by Tappan. In 1947, Raytheon demonstrated the “Radarange,” the world’s first microwave oven. Ratheon’s commercial, refrigerator-sized microwave ovens cost between $2,000 and $3,000. In 1952, Raytheon entered into a licensing agreement with Tappan Stove Company which had a consumer distribution and marketing infrastructure. In 1955, Tappan introduced the first domestic microwave oven, a 220-volt more compact wall-unit the size of a conventional oven, but less powerful microwave generating system. It had two cooking speeds (500 or 800 watts), stainless steel exterior, glass shelf, top browning element and a recipe card drawer. However, at $1,300 sales were slow.

2001 Microsoft released the Windows XP operating system.

October 24 is:

National Bologna Day
Foodimentary.com says:

Bologna sausage, sometimes phonetically spelled as baloney, boloney or polony, is a sausage derived from the Italian mortadella, a similar looking finely ground pork sausage containing cubes of lard, originally from the Italian city of Bologna.
Bologna can alternatively be made out of chicken, turkey,beef, pork, venison or soy protein.
Occasionally a slice of bologna is heated up so, as the fat renders, the round slice takes the shape of a bowl which may be filled with cheese or other fillings.
Sometimes referred to as garlic bologna, German sausage differs from traditional bologna due to various seasonings, most typically garlic being added to the recipe.
Kosher or halal bologna is typically made with only beef, but sometimes made from turkey, chicken or lamb.

1260 – The Cathedral of Chartres was dedicated in the presence of King Louis IX of France; the cathedral is now a UNESCO World Heritage Site.
Chartres Cathedral, also known as the Cathedral of Our Lady of Chartres, is a Roman Catholic church in Chartres, France, about 80 km southwest of Paris and is the seat of the Bishop of Chartres. The cathedral is well-preserved for its age: the majority of the original stained glass windows survive intact.

The first transcontinental telegraph message was sent from California to President Abraham Lincoln in 1861. The U.S. transcontinental telegraph line linked the Atlantic and Pacific coasts by connecting the “Eastern connection” at Omaha, Nebraska with the “Western connection” at Carson City, Nevada.

The George Washington Bridge connecting New York and New Jersey was dedicated in 1931. The George Washington Bridge is the world’s busiest motor vehicle bridge, carrying over 103 million vehicles per year in 2016.

President Dwight D. Eisenhower pledged United States support to South Vietnam. in 1954.

From Today in Science
Nylon Stockings
In 1939, nylon stockings went on sale in the U.S. for the first time to employees at DuPont’s Wilmington, Delaware nylon factory. The modern materials revolution began in 1938 with DuPont’s commercialization of their nylon product, which was the first man-made fibre to be made exclusively from mineral sources. The company specifically intended to compete with silk in the women’s hosiery market. The fibre was strong, elastic, moth-proof and did not absorb moisture. Years of research led to enormous success. “Nylons,” as they were soon called, eventually replaced silk stockings. Covering only about two-thirds of a woman’s leg, from the feet to mid-thigh, stockings were fastened with garters and a belt.

October 23 is:

National Boston Cream Pie Day
Per Foodimentary.com
Boston Cream Pie was invented at Boston’s Parker House around 1912. Ho Chi Minh, the future Communist leader of North Vietnam, claimed to have been a dessert cook at the time.

A Boston cream pie is a cake that is filled with a custard or cream filling and frosted with chocolate.
Although it is called a Boston cream pie, it is in fact a cake, and not a pie.
Boston cream pie was created by Armenian-French chef M. Sanzian at Boston’s Parker House Hotel in 1856,
The Boston cream pie is the official dessert of Massachusetts, declared as such in 1996.
A Boston cream doughnut is a name for a Berliner filled with vanilla custard or crème pâtissière and topped with icing made from chocolate.

National Mole Day,an unofficial holiday celebrated among chemists, chemistry students and chemistry enthusiasts on October 23, between 6:02 AM and 6:02 PM, making the date 6:02 10/23 in the American style of writing dates. The time and date are derived from Avogadro’s number, which is approximately 6.02×10²³, defining the number of particles (atoms or molecules) in one mole of substance, one of the seven base SI (System of Units) units.

TV Talk Show Host Day : Comedian and talk show host Johnny Carson was born on October 23, 1925 in Corning, Iowa.

Feast Day of St. John of Capistrano: Swallows of Capistrano Day, the traditional day for swallows to leave the San Juan Capistrano Mission in California, to return on March 19. The American cliff swallow (Petrochelidon pyrrhonota) is a migratory bird that spends its winters in Goya, Argentina, but makes the 6,000-mile (10,000 km) trek north to the warmer climes of the American Southwest in springtime. According to legend, the birds, who have visited the San Juan Capistrano area every summer for centuries, first took refuge at the Mission when an irate innkeeper began destroying their mud nests (the birds also frequent the Mission San Carlos Borromeo de Carmelo). The Mission’s location near two rivers made it an ideal location for the swallows to nest, as there was a constant supply of the insects on which they feed, and the young birds are well-protected inside the ruins of the old stone church.

U.S. President Abraham Lincoln in 1861 suspended the writ of habeas corpus in Washington, D.C., for all military-related cases. Definition of habeas corpus = Medieval Latin meaning literally “that you have the body”) is a recourse in law through which a person can report an unlawful detention or imprisonment to a court and request that the court order the custodian of the person, usually a prison official, to bring the prisoner to court, to determine whether the detention is lawful.

1935 – Dutch Schultz, his accountant and two bodyguards were fatally shot at a saloon in Newark, New Jersey in what will become known as The Chophouse Massacre. Dutch Schultz (born Arthur Flegenheimer) was a New York City-area mobster of the 1920s and 1930s who made his fortune in organized crime-related activities, including bootlegging alcohol and the numbers racket. Weakened by two tax evasion trials led by prosecutor Thomas Dewey, Schultz’s rackets were also threatened by fellow mobster Lucky Luciano. In an attempt to avert his conviction, Schultz asked the Commission (governing body of the Mafia) for permission to kill Dewey, which they refused. When Schultz disobeyed them and attempted to kill him anyway, the Commission ordered his murder in 1935.

1941: The Disney animated classic Dumbo had its world premiere.

All 12 passengers and crewmen aboard an American Airlines DC-3 airliner were killed when it was struck by a U.S. Army Air Forces bomber near Palm Springs, California on this date in 1942. Among the victims was award-winning composer and songwriter Ralph Rainger (“Thanks for the Memory”, “Love in Bloom”, “Blue Hawaii”).

The United Nations General Assembly convened for the first time, at an auditorium in Flushing, Queens, New York City in 1946.

2001 Apple Computer Inc. introduced the iPod portable digital music player.

October 20 is:

World Osteoporosis Day

World Statistics Day

National Brandied Fruit Day
Foodimentary.com says:

Brandy is distilled from fruits such as grape, apple, blackberry, apricot and so on.
Based on the region and the fruit, brandy can be divided into several categories: Cognac, Armagnac, American Brandies, and fruit brandies.
The word brandy originally comes from the Dutch word brandewijn, which means burnt wine.
Long before the 16th century, wine was a popular product for trading in European region. In the early 16th century, a Dutchman trader invented the way to ship more wine in the limited cargo space by removing water from the wine. Then he could add the water back to the concentrated wine at the destination port in Holland.
Most brandy is 80 proof (40% alcohol/volume) and has been enjoyed for centuries as a cocktail and cooking ingredient.

Birthday of Sir Christopher Wren (October 20, 1632), English architect.

His greatest public building was Saint Paul’s Cathedral. Its construction, completed in Wren’s lifetime, was part of a major rebuilding program in the City after the Great Fire of London. It serves as the mother church of the Diocese of London for the Anglican Church. Services held at St Paul’s have included the funerals of Admiral Nelson, the Duke of Wellington, Winston Churchill and Margaret Thatcher; jubilee celebrations for Queen Victoria; peace services marking the end of the First and Second World Wars; the wedding of Prince Charles and Lady Diana Spencer; the launch of the Festival of Britain; and the thanksgiving services for the Silver, Golden and Diamond Jubilees and the 80th and 90th birthdays of Queen Elizabeth II.

1803 – The U.S. Senate ratified the Louisiana Purchase with a vote of twenty-four to seven The Louisiana Territory was vast, stretching from the Gulf of Mexico in the south to Rupert’s Land in the north, and from the Mississippi River in the east to the Rocky Mountains in the west. Acquiring the territory doubled the size of the United States, at a sum of less than 3 cents per acre.

The Convention of 1818 signed between the United States and the United Kingdom which, among other things, settled the Canada – United States border on the 49th parallel for most of its length.

Birthday of John Dewey (October 20, 1859), American educator and philosopher whose watchword was “learn by doing”. He self-identified as a “democratic socialist”.

1882-Birthday of Bela Lugosi, Hungarian-American actor best remembered for portraying Count Dracula in 1931.

1944 – American general Douglas MacArthur fulfilled his promise to return to the Philippines when he commanded an Allied assault on the islands, reclaiming them from the Japanese during the Second World War.

Death of Herbert Clark Hoover in 1964, thirty-first President of the United States. He died at New York City at age 90. He died of massive gastrointestinal bleeding believed to be from a malignant tumor.

Former first lady Jacqueline Kennedy married Greek shipping magnate Aristotle Onassis in 1968.

Sydney Opera House in Sydney, Australia, was officially opened in 1973.

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October 18 is:

National Chocolate Cupcake Day
Per Foodimentary.com

Cupcake liners do more than make it easy to remove them from the pan. Traditionally, sides of tins are greased for easy removal, but also floured because the batter needs to have something to cling to. A cupcake liner takes care of both.
On August 15, 2009 GourmetGiftBaskets.com broke the world record for largest cupcake ever made. The cupcake was 1,224 pounds, 4 foot tall by 10 foot wide, and had 2 million calories.
The first mention of a cupcake recipe goes as far back as 1796. Amelia Simms wrote a recipe in “American Cookery” which referenced, “a cake to be baked in small cups”.
However, it wasn’t until 1828 that the actual word cupcake was used by Eliza Leslie in her cookbook “Seventy-five Receipts for Pastry, Cakes, and Sweetmeats”.

“Persons Day” in Canada.
From Status of Women in Canada

In Canada, the British North America Act (BNA Act) of 1867 set out the powers and responsibilities of the provinces and of the federal government. The Act used the word “persons” when referring to more than one person and “he” when referring to one person. Many argued the Act implicitly stated that only a man could be a person, which prevented women from participating fully in politics or affairs of state.

Governments also used the “persons” argument to keep women out of important positions. If the word “person” applied only to men, then the stipulation that only “qualified persons” could be appointed to the Senate of Canada meant that only men could be appointed.

In 1927, five women – who have since become known as the Famous Five – launched a legal challenge that would mark a turning point for equality rights in Canada. Emily Murphy, Nellie McClung, Louise McKinney, Irene Parlby and Henrietta Muir Edwards were journalists, politicians, reformers and activists from Alberta who asked the Supreme Court of Canada to answer the following question: Does the word “person” in Section 24 of the BNA Act include female persons? After five weeks of debate, the Supreme Court decided that the word “person” did not include women.

Although shocked by the Court’s decision, the Famous Five did not give up the fight and took their case to the Judicial Committee of the Privy Council of Great Britain in London, which was then Canada’s highest court of appeal.

On October 18, 1929, Lord Sankey, Lord Chancellor of Great Britain, announced the decision:

“The exclusion of women from all public offices is a relic of days more barbarous than ours. And to those who would ask why the word ‘person’ should include females, the obvious answer is, why should it not?”

With this milestone victory, the Famous Five not only won the right for women to serve in the Senate, but also helped pave the way for women to participate equally in all aspects of life in Canada.

International Newspaper Carrier Day

The Church of the Holy Sepulchre, lies in the northwest quarter of the Old City of Jerusalem, reputed to have been built on the site of the crucifixion of Jesus. Constantine the Great first built a church on the site. It was dedicated about 336 CE, burned by the Persians in 614, restored by Modestus (the abbot of the monastery of Theodosius, 616–626), destroyed by the caliph al-Ḥākim bi-Amr Allāh about October 18, 1009, and restored by the Byzantine emperor Constantine IX Monomachus. In the 12th century the Crusaders carried out a general rebuilding of the church. Since that time, frequent repair, restoration, and remodeling have been necessary. The present church dates mainly from 1810.

United States took possession of Alaska in 1867 after purchasing it from Russia for $7.2 million. Celebrated annually in the state as Alaska Day.

The US took control of Puerto Rico on this date in 1898.
Columbus named the island San Juan Bautista, in honor of Saint John the Baptist, while the capital city was named Ciudad de Puerto Rico (“Rich Port City”). The island’s name was changed to Porto Rico by the United States after the Treaty of Paris of 1898. The anglicized name was used by the U.S. government and private enterprises. The name was changed back to Puerto Rico by a joint resolution in Congress in 1931.
During the Spanish–American War, the U.S. invaded Puerto Rico with a landing at Guánica. After the U.S. victory in the war, Spain ceded Puerto Rico, along with the Philippines and Guam, then under Spanish sovereignty, to the U.S. under the Treaty of Paris.

1919 Birthday of Pierre Elliott Trudeau, Liberal Prime Minister of Canada 1968-1979, 1980-1984 and father of current Prime Minister, Justin Trudeau.

1939 Birthday of Lee Harvey Oswald, assassin of President John F Kennedy in 1963.

1961: The acclaimed musical film West Side Story, an adaptation of a Broadway play, was released in American theaters; it won 10 Academy Awards, including that for best picture. It starred Natalie Wood, Richard Beymer, Russ Tamblyn, Rita Moreno, and George Chakiris. The music was composed by Leonard Bernstein, with lyrics by Stephen Sondheim.

In 1982, former First Lady Bess Truman died in October 1982 of congestive heart failure at the age of 97 and is the longest-lived First Lady in U.S. history. Elizabeth Virginia Wallace was born on February 13, 1885 in Independence, MO. She first met Harry S. Truman in Sunday School when she was 5 and he was 6.

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