Tag Archives: Tidbits for this day in history

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.

July 11 is:

Cheer up the Lonely Day
World Population Day
Slurpee Day
National Blueberry Muffin Day
National Mojito Day – mojito is a cocktail that consists of five ingredients: white rum, sugar (traditionally sugar cane juice), lime juice, sparkling water, and mint.

England’s King Henry VIII was excommunicated on this date in 1533.

Martin Frobisher sighted Greenland in 1576.

John Quincy Adams , the sixth president of the United States, was born in Braintree, Mass on July 11, 1767.

The United States Marine Corps was re-established by an Act of Congress in 1798; it had been disbanded after the American Revolutionary War.

Vice-President Aaron Burr mortally wounded former Treasury Secretary Alexander Hamilton in a pistol duel near Weehawken, N.J. on July 11, 1804. See Burr-Hamilton Duel

Waterloo railway station in London opened in 1848.

Big Ben, the great bell inside the famous London clock tower, chimed for the first time on July 11, 1859.

1893 – The first cultured pearl was obtained by Kokichi Mikimoto.

On July 11, 1899, E. B. White, the American writer of essays and children’s books, was born. His classic children’s books, “Stuart Little”, “Charlotte’s Web” and “The Trumpet of the Swan” continue to sell in the hundreds of thousands every year.

1921 – Former President of the United States William Howard Taft was sworn in as 10th Chief Justice of the U.S. Supreme Court, becoming the only person ever to hold both offices. To Taft, the appointment to the Supreme Court was his greatest honor; he wrote: “I don’t remember that I ever was President.”

July 11, 1944, Franklin Roosevelt announced that he would run for a fourth term as President of the United States.

Anniversary of the dedication of the U.S. Air Force Academy in Lowry Air Base, Colorado in 1955.

To Kill a Mockingbird by Harper Lee was first published in 1960.

July 11,2007, former first lady Lady Bird Johnson, wife of Lyndon B. Johnson, died in Austin, Texas, at age 94.

Astronomers announce the discovery of Styx, the fifth moon of Pluto. in 2012.

From Today in Science:
In 1997, the first sequencing of pieces of DNA extracted from a Neanderthal-type specimen was published in the journal Cell, by a team of scientists led by Svent Pääbo. In the groundbreaking study, mitochondrial DNA was amplified from a sample (a small piece of the arm bone) from the first Neanderthal man found (1856). “The Neanderthal sequence falls outside the variation of modern humans.” The results suggested that from their common origin (“African Eve”), Neanderthals split off from humans a little over 550,000 years ago as a separate species and “went extinct without contributing mtDNA to modern humans.” (Using population models, Pääbo, more recently estimated that Neanderthals could have contributed up to 25% of their genetic makeup to modern human, but likely much less.)

July 9 is:

National Sugar Cookie Day

King Henry VIII of England annulled his marriage to his fourth wife, Anne of Cleves on this date in 1540.

1776 – George Washington ordered the Declaration of Independence to be read out loud to members of the Continental Army in New York, New York.

July 9 – 1816: The United Provinces of Rio de la Plata declared independence, as the predecessor state of Argentina.

Birthday of Elias Howe (July 9, 1819), American inventor of the sewing machine.

Death of Zachary Taylor, twelfth President of the United States. He died in Washington, D. C. at age 65 on July 9, 1850. He died in office of acute gastroenteritis. Millard Fillmore succeeded him as 13th President of the United States.

1868 – The 14th Amendment to the United States Constitution was ratified, guaranteeing African Americans full citizenship and all persons in the United States due process of law.

1900 – Queen Victoria of the United Kingdom gave Royal Assent to an Act creating Australia, thereby uniting separate colonies on the continent under one federal government.

Dick Clark’s 1st appearance as host of American Bandstand on July 9, 1956. It was on the air until 1989.

Donkey Kong, a video game created by Nintendo, was released in 1981. The game marks the debut of Nintendo’s future mascot, Mario.

From Today in Science
In 1872, New England sea captain, John F. Blondel of Thomaston, Maine, patented the doughnut cutter, (but can’t take credit for the hole). The origin of the doughnut as a deep-fried egg-batter pastry was from Holland with the Dutch name of olykoeks — “oily cakes.” In 1847, another New England ship captain’s enjoyed his mother’s pastries. Made using a deep-fried spiced dough, Elizabeth Gregory put hazelnuts or walnuts in the center, where the dough might not cook through – “doughnuts.” Captain Hanson Gregory claimed credit for originating the hole in the doughnut. Originally, he cut the hole using the top of a round tin pepper box. This made more uniform frying possible with increased surface area, commemorated by a bronze plaque at his hometown, Rockport, Maine.

Also from Today in Science
In 1878, an improved corncob pipe was patented by Henry Tibbe in Washington, Missouri, which he assigned to himself and Anton Tibbe, his son. (No.205,816). In 1869, Tibbe, Dutch immigrant woodworker, began manufacture of the corncob pipe, and founded what became the Missouri Meerschaum Company in 1907. The pipe was made from a special type of white kernel corn with smaller kernels on the cob (the kind used to make taco and tortilla flour). Famous corncob smokers included Presidents Ford and Eisenhower, Gen. Douglas MacArthur, Mark Twain (Samuel Clemens) and of course, Popeye, Mammy Yokum and Frosty the Snowman.

July 7 is the 189th day of 2020.

Chocolate Day – In 1550, Europe introduced the first chocolate.
National Strawberry Sundae Day
National Macaroni Day

On July 7, 1456, a retrial verdict acquitted Joan of Arc of heresy. Unfortunately, this was 25 years after her death.

Mexican–American War: American troops occupied Monterey and Yerba Buena (now called San Francisco) on July 7, 1846, thus beginning the U.S. acquisition of California.

From Today in Science
Nettie Maria Stevens born 7 July 1861
American geneticist who was born in the year that the Civil War began, and despite difficult times and limited women’s educational opportunities, became one of the first American women to achieve recognition for her contributions to scientific research. As a cell biologist and geneticist, her great contribution to science was as one of the first scientists to find that sex is determined by a single difference between two classes of sperm – the presence or absence of an X chromosome.

United States begins its first military draft in 1863; exemptions cost $300.

Execution by hanging of Mary Surratt, Lewis Powell, David Herold, and George Atzerodt on July 7, 1865, at Fort McNair in Washington City; they had been convicted of conspiracy in the assassination of President Abraham Lincoln.

1907 – Birth of Robert A. Heinlein, American science fiction writer (d. 1988); author of “Stranger in a Strange Land”, “Starship Troopers”, etc.
A couple of quotes:

Reason is poor propaganda when opposed by the yammering, unceasing lies of shrewd and evil and self-serving men.
My old man claimed that the more complicated the law the more opportunity for scoundrels.
Specialization is for insects.
Love is the condition in which the happiness of another person is essential to your own.
Progress isn’t made by early risers. It’s made by lazy men trying to find easier ways to do something.

Sir Arthur Conan Doyle died on July 7, 1930 at age 71 (born 22 May 1859). Scottish author and physician whose fictional detective, Sherlock Holmes, emulates the scientist, diligently searching through data and to make sense of it. “It is a capital mistake to theorize before one has data. Insensibly one begins to twist facts to suit theories, instead of theories to suit facts.” Later in life Doyle was a spiritualist.

The Roswell incident, the (supposed) crash of an alien spaceship near Roswell in New Mexico on July 7, 1947.

Elvis Presley made his radio debut in 1954 when WHBQ Memphis played his first recording for Sun Records, “That’s All Right.”

1981 –U.S. President Ronald Reagan appointed Sandra Day O’Connor to become the first female member of the Supreme Court of the United States. She was confirmed by the U.S. Senate with a vote of 99–0.

July 6 is the 188th day of the year.

International Kissing Day
National Fried Chicken Day

1535 – Sir Thomas More was executed for treason against King Henry VIII of England.

Birthday of John Paul Jones (July 6, 1747), American naval office of the Revolutionary period and founder of the American Navy.

1785 – The dollar was unanimously chosen as the monetary unit for the United States.

Mexican-American War ended with the Treaty of Guadaloupe Hidalgo on July 6, 1848

From: Today in Science
In 1885, French scientist Louis Pasteur and his colleagues injected the first of 14 daily doses of rabbit spinal cord suspensions containing progressively inactivated rabies virus into 9-year-old Joseph Meister, who had been severely bitten by a rabid dog 2 days before. The immunization was successful. This was the beginning of the modern era of immunization, which had been presaged by Edward Jenner nearly 100 years earlier. Pasteur’s rabies immunization procedure was rapidly adopted throughout the world. The boy grew up and became caretaker of the Pasteur Institute.

Horlick’s of Wisconsin offered the first malted milk to the public on July 6, 1886. It was patented as an artificial infant food.

In 1887 – David Kalakaua, monarch of the Kingdom of Hawaii, was forced at gunpoint by Americans to sign the Bayonet Constitution giving Americans more power in Hawaii while stripping Hawaiian citizens of their rights.

Birthday of Nancy Reagan (July 6, 1921), wife of Ronald Reagan; first lady 1981-1989

The first Major League Baseball All-Star Game was played in Chicago’s Comiskey Park in 1933. The American League defeated the National League 4–2.

Birthday of George W Bush (July 6, 1946), 43rd president of the United States.

The AK-47 went into production in the Soviet Union in 1947.

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