Tag Archives: Tidbits for this day in history

February 20 is the 51st day of the year in the Gregorian calendar.

Presidents’ Day Originally Washington’s birthday (Feb 22, 1732) was a federal holiday. About half of the states officially renamed their Washington’s Birthday observances as “Presidents’ Day” to include Lincoln’s birthday (Feb 12, 1809). The holiday was moved as part of 1971’s Uniform Monday Holiday Act, an attempt to create more three-day weekends for the nation’s workers. It is now celebrated on the third Monday of February. Federal and state government services are closed.
There were four presidents born during February; besides Washington and Lincoln, William Henry Harrison was born February 9, 1773 and Ronald Reagan was born February 6th, 1911.

National Muffin Day

Publication of Federalist Paper #58: Objection That The Number of Members Will Not Be Augmented as the Progress of Population Demands Considered. written by James Madison in 1788. Madison argues that the initial number would be temporary and would be adjusted according to the Census conducted every 10 years. The House of Representatives was designed to represent the people whereas the Senate was designed to represent the States.

The Postal Service Act, establishing the United States Post Office Department, was signed by President George Washington in 1792.

1809 – The U.S. Supreme Court ruled the power of the federal government was greater than that of any individual state.

1816 – Rossini’s opera The Barber of Seville premiered at the Teatro Argentina in Rome. Also called The Useless Precaution. Written by Gioachino Rossini, it is based on Pierre Beaumarchais’s French comedy Le Barbier de Séville (1775). Rossini’s opera recounts the events of the first of the three plays by Beaumarchais that revolve around the clever and enterprising character named Figaro, the barber of the title. (Mozart’s opera The Marriage of Figaro, composed 30 years earlier in 1786, is based on the second part of the Beaumarchais trilogy.)

Familiar to Bugs Bunny fans, the music is from the Overture of the Barber of Seville:

1872 – In New York City the Metropolitan Museum of Art opened.

1877 – Tchaikovsky’s ballet Swan Lake premièred at the Bolshoi Theatre in Moscow.

February 20, 1927 Golfers in South Carolina arrested for violating Sabbath.

1933 – The Congress of the United States proposed the Twenty-first Amendment to the United States Constitution that will end Prohibition in the United States.

1943 – The Saturday Evening Post published the first of Norman Rockwell’s Four Freedoms in support of United States President Franklin Roosevelt’s 1941 State of the Union address theme of Four Freedoms.

Mercury program: In 1962, while aboard Friendship 7, John Glenn became the first American to orbit the earth, making three orbits in 4 hours, 55 minutes.

In a highly controversial vote on February 20, 1985, the Irish government defied the powerful Catholic Church and approves the sale of contraceptives.

1998-Tara Lipinski, 15, became the youngest Olympic figure skating gold medalist.

February 19 is the 50th day of the year in the Gregorian calendar.

National Chocolate Mint Day

Birthday of Nicolaus Copernicus (February 19, 1473), Prussian astronomer, mathemetician. His theory of the sun, rather than the earth, being at the center of the solar system was one of the most important scientific hypotheses in history. It was the beginning of modern astronomy.

Publication of Federalist Paper #57: The Alleged Tendency of the New Plan to Elevate the Few at the Expense of the Many Considered in Connection with Representation. written by Madison in 1788. Since it was assumed that Representatives would be elected from the “aristocracy” of each state, what was to prevent them from favoring their own class to the detriment of the rest of the society. Madison reminds critics that no law could be passed which did not apply to everyone, including the members of Congress. He said: “The house of representatives…can make no law which will not have its full operation on themselves and their friends, as well as the great mass of society. This has always been deemed one of the strongest bonds by which human policy can connect the rulers and the people together. It creates between them that communion of interest, and sympathy of sentiments, of which few governments have furnished examples; but without which every government degenerates into tyranny.”

1846 – In Austin, Texas the newly formed Texas state government was officially installed. The Republic of Texas government officially transferred power to the State of Texas government following the annexation of Texas by the United States.

1847 – The first group of rescuers reached the Donner Party, a group of American pioneer migrants who set out for California in a wagon train. Delayed by a series of mishaps, they spent the winter of 1846–47 snowbound in the Sierra Nevadas. Some of the migrants resorted to cannibalism to survive, eating those who had succumbed to starvation and sickness.

On February 19, 1859, Daniel E. Sickles, a New York Congressman, was acquitted of murder on grounds of temporary insanity. This is the first time this defense was successfully used in the United States. In Lafayette Square, across the street from the White House, Sickles shot and killed his wife’s lover, the district attorney of the District of Columbia, Philip Barton Key II, son of Francis Scott Key.

Sickles’s career was replete with personal scandals. He was censured by the New York State Assembly for escorting a known prostitute, Fanny White, into its chambers. He also reportedly took her to England, leaving his pregnant wife at home, and presented White to Queen Victoria, using as her alias the surname of a New York political opponent.

The defense argued that “Sickles had been driven insane by his wife’s infidelity, and thus was out of his mind when he shot Key.” Following his acquittal, Sickles then publicly forgave his wife, and “withdrew” briefly from public life, although he did not resign from Congress. The public was apparently more outraged by Sickles’ forgiveness and reconciliation with his wife, whom he had publicly branded a harlot and adulteress, than by the murder and his unorthodox acquittal.

1942 – World War II: President Franklin D. Roosevelt signed the executive order 9066, allowing the United States military to relocate Japanese-Americans to internment camps. Over 110,000 people of Japanese heritage were relocated. 11,000 people of German ancestry and 3,000 of Italian ancestry were also targeted. Internment ended in January, 1945 and the last internment camp was closed in 1946. The executive order was rescinded by President Gerald Ford in 1976.

February 18 is the 49th day of the year.

National “Drink Wine” Day

1546 – Martin Luther, leader of the Protestant Reformation, died in Eiselben, Germany.

The artist Michelangelo died in Rome in 1564. Several scholars have described Michelangelo as the greatest artist of his age and even as the greatest artist of all time. Examples of his work can be found at Wikiart.org including painting (the Sistine Chapel) and sculptures (David).

In 1678, John Bunyan’s “Pilgrim’s Progress” was published.

1885 – The Adventures of Huckleberry Finn by Mark Twain was published in the United States. Now in public domain and available at Nextdoorestore.com

1913 – Pedro Lascuráin becomes President of Mexico for 45 minutes; this is the shortest term to date of any person as president of any country. President Madero of Mexico was overthrown in a coup by General Victoriano Huerta. Under the 1857 Constitution of Mexico, the vice-president, the attorney general, the foreign minister and then the interior minister stood next in line to the presidency. As well as Madero, Huerta had ousted Vice-President José María Pino Suárez and Attorney General Adolfo Valles Baca. To give the coup d’état some appearance of legality, he had Lascuráin, as foreign minister, assume the presidency, appoint him (Huerta) as his interior minister – making Huerta next in line to the presidency. Pedro Lascuráin then resigned, Huerta became president.

February 18, 1930 – Clyde Tombaugh discovered the dwarf planet Pluto.

Seven-time NASCAR Sprint Cup Series champion Dale Earnhardt died in an accident during the Daytona 500, on February 18, 2001.

February 17 is the 48th day of the year in the Gregorian calendar.

National Indian Pudding Day

National Cafe’ Au Lait Day

1621 – Myles Standish was appointed as first commander of Plymouth colony.

1801 – An electoral tie between Thomas Jefferson and Aaron Burr was resolved when Jefferson was elected President of the United States and Burr Vice President by the United States House of Representatives. The Twelfth Amendment, ratified in 1804, was added to the United States Constitution. It called for electors to make a distinct choice between their selections for president and vice-president.

The United States House of Representatives passed the Missouri Compromise for the first time on this day in 1819.

1863 The International Red Cross was founded in Geneva.

Madame Butterfly premiered at La Scala in Milan in 1904. It is an opera in three acts by Giacomo Puccini. The story takes place in Japan.
Synopsis from Wikipedia:

A U.S. naval officer named Pinkerton rents a house on a hill in Nagasaki, Japan, for himself and his soon-to-be wife, “Butterfly”. Her real name is Cio-Cio-san (from the Japanese word for “butterfly”) She is a 15-year-old Japanese girl whom he is marrying for convenience, and he intends to leave her once he finds a proper American wife, since Japanese divorce laws are very lax. The wedding takes place at the house.

Three years later, Butterfly is still waiting for Pinkerton to return, as he had left shortly after their wedding. Her maid, Suzuki, keeps trying to convince her that he is not coming back, but Butterfly will not listen to her. The American consul, Sharpless, comes to the house with a letter which he has received from Pinkerton which asks him to break some news to Butterfly: that Pinkerton is coming back to Japan, but Sharpless cannot bring himself to finish it because Butterfly becomes very excited to hear that Pinkerton is coming back. Sharpless asks Butterfly what she would do if Pinkerton were not to return. She then reveals that she gave birth to Pinkerton’s son after he had left and asks Sharpless to tell him.

From the hill house, Butterfly sees Pinkerton’s ship arriving in the harbour. She and Suzuki prepare for his arrival, and then they wait. Suzuki and the child fall asleep, but Butterfly stays up all night waiting for him to arrive.

Suzuki wakes up in the morning and Butterfly finally falls asleep. Sharpless and Pinkerton arrive at the house, along with Pinkerton’s new American wife, Kate. They have come because Kate has agreed to raise the child. But, as Pinkerton sees how Butterfly has decorated the house for his return, he realizes he has made a huge mistake. He admits that he is a coward and cannot face her, leaving Suzuki, Sharpless and Kate to break the news to Butterfly. Agreeing to give up her child if Pinkerton comes himself to see her, she then prays to statues of her ancestral gods, says goodbye to her son, and blindfolds him. She places a small American flag in his hands and goes behind a screen, killing herself with her father’s seppuku knife. Pinkerton rushes in, but he is too late, and Butterfly dies.

1933 – The Blaine Act initiated the repeal of Prohibition in the United States. The 21st Amendment which formally ended Prohibition was adopted Dec 5th, 1933.

Also in 1933, Blondie Boopadoop married Dagwood Bumstead three years after Chic Young’s popular strip first debuted. (Bet you didn’t know Blondie’s maiden name!) According to The Blondie Story by the son of Chic Young, Dagwood was the “playboy son of billionaire railroad tycoon, J. Bolling Bumstead.” Dagwood was disinherited by his parents for marrying “that gold digger blonde.”

February 16 is the 47th day of the year in the Gregorian calendar.

National Almond Day
From: National Days Today.com

Almond hulls are used to feed cattle.
The word Almond is derived from Greek word “amygalda” meaning an almond shaped neuron in humans brain.
Almond flowers are not wind pollinated. Instead, it undergoes cross-pollination(one variety pollinates with another.) Honey bees play crucial role in transferring pollens between different varieties.
California cultivates eighty percentages of almonds in the world. It produces nearly six varieties of almonds.
Almonds are pasteurised to prevent salmonella bacterial growth.
Almond milk is lactose and cholesterol free which is best suited for vegans.
Almonds are one of the members of rose family. It is also called as “queen of rose family.”

Birthday of Elizabeth Kortright Monroe (February 16, 1786), wife of James Monroe; First Lady 1817-1825. When James Monroe was named U. S. Minister to France in 1794 :
From: First Ladies Biographies

During the last days of the French Revolution, Elizabeth Monroe made a name for herself by her courageous visit to Adrienne de Noiolles de Lafayette, the imprisoned wife of the Marquis de Lafayette – the great personal friend of George Washington and many other revolutionary era patriots and France’s most prominent supporter of American independence. Elizabeth Monroe, in the American Embassy’s carriage, made it a point to visit the woman in prison; it was as clear a message as could be made unofficially by the U.S. government. Not wishing to offend their ally, the French government used Elizabeth Monroe’s “unofficial” interest in Adrienne de Lafayette to release her on January 22, 1795 without any official provocation and thus maintain their alliance with the U.S. yet save face for the imprisonment.

Publication of Federalist Paper #56: The Total Number of the House of Representatives written by James Madison in 1788. Madison continues to discuss the number of Representatives needed and concludes that the number in the Constitution of one per thirty thousand is justified.

1874 – Silver Dollar became legal US tender.

The nation’s first 911 emergency telephone system was inaugurated in Haleyville, Alabama in 1968.

1985 – Hezbollah was founded. The ideology of Hezbollah has been summarized as Shi’i radicalism. Hezbollah was largely formed with the aid of the Ayatollah Khomeini’s followers in the early 1980s in order to spread Islamic revolution and follows a distinct version of Islamic Shi’a ideology.

February 15 is the 46th day of the year in the Gregorian calendar.

National Gumdrop Day
National Chewing Gum Day

1493 – While on board the Niña, Christopher Columbus wrote an open letter (widely distributed upon his return to Portugal) describing his discoveries and the unexpected items he came across in the New World.

Birthday of Galileo Galilei (February 15, 1564), Italian physicist, mathematician, astronomer, and philosopher. Has been called the “father of modern observational astronomy” because of his work on the development of the telescope.

Birthday of Cyrus Hall McCormick (February 15, 1809), American inventor and founder of the McCormick Harvesting Machine Company (now part of International Harvester Company). Inventor of the mechanical reaper.

Battleship Day, observed in Maine in honor the the USS Maine which exploded in Havana harbor in 1898, killing 260 crew members thereby escalating tensions with Spain.

1903 – Morris and Rose Michtom, Russian immigrants, introduced the first teddy bear in America.

From Theodore Roosevelt site:

How did toy bears come to be named after President Theodore Roosevelt?

It all started with a hunting trip President Roosevelt took in 1902 in Mississippi at the invitation of Mississippi Governor, Andrew H. Longino. After three days of hunting, other members of the party had spotted bears, but not Roosevelt.

Now what? The President’s bear hunt would be a failure! The next day, the hunt guides tracked down an old black bear that the dogs had trailed quite a distance and attacked. The guides tied the bear to a willow tree and called for the President. Here was a bear for him to shoot!

But Roosevelt took one look at the old bear and refused to shoot it. He felt doing so would be unsportsmanlike. However, since it was injured and suffering, Roosevelt ordered that the bear be put down to end its pain. Word of this hit newspapers across the country, and political cartoonist Clifford Berryman picked up on the story, drawing a cartoon showing how President Roosevelt refused to shoot the bear while hunting in Mississippi.

The original cartoon, which ran in the Washington Post on November 16, 1902, shows Roosevelt standing in front. The guide and bear are in the background, and they’re about the same size. Later, similar cartoons appeared, but the bear was smaller and shaking with fear. This bear cub then appeared in other cartoons Clifford Berryman drew throughout Roosevelt’s career. That connected bears with President Roosevelt.

The Teddy Bear tie came when a Brooklyn, NY candy shop owner, Morris Michtom, saw Clifford Berryman’s original cartoon of Roosevelt and the bear and had an idea. He put in his shop window two stuffed toy bears his wife had made. Michtom asked permission from President Roosevelt to call these toy bears “Teddy’s bears”. The rapid popularity of these bears led Michtom to mass-produce them, eventually forming the Ideal Novelty and Toy Company.

At about the same time, a Germany company, Steiff, started making stuffed bears. Margaret Steiff earned her living by sewing, first by making stuffed elephants, then other animals. In 1903, an American saw a stuffed bear she had made and ordered many of them. These bears, which also came to be called Teddy Bears, made the international connection.

More than a century later, teddy bears have never lost popularity, and all can be traced to that one hunting trip in Mississippi.

February 15, 1965 – The Maple Leaf Flag became the Flag of Canada.

YouTube, the popular Internet site on which videos may be shared and viewed by others, is launched in the United States in 2005.

February 13 is the 44th day of the year.

National Tortellini Day
National “Italian Food” Day

The fifth wife of England’s King Henry VIII, Catherine Howard, was executed February 13, 1542.
They married on 28 July 1540 at Oatlands Palace in Surrey, just 19 days after the annulment of his marriage to Anne. He was 49, and she was still a teenager, at about 17 years old.

Catherine was stripped of her title as queen in November 1541. She was beheaded three months later on the grounds of treason for committing adultery with her distant cousin, Thomas Culpeper.

**Henry was married to Catherine of Aragon from 1509 to 1533; Anne Boleyn from 1533-1536; Jane Seymour from 1536-1537; Anne of Cleves for six months in 1540; Catherine Howard from 1540-1542; and Catherine Parr from 1543 until Henry’s death in 1547.** See the Wives of Henry VIII.

1566 St. Augustine, Florida founded. It is now the oldest continuously occupied European-established settlement and port in the continental United States.

Anniversary of the establishment of the Boston Latin School, oldest public school in America with a continuous existence since 1635

Publication of Federalist Paper #55: The Total Number of the House of Representatives written by James Madison in 1788. How many Representatives should there be? Madison argues there is no numeric formula for fixing the ratio of representatives to population because the density of population among the States differs widely. Too few members of the House was inadvisable because of the power granted to that body. Congress has the power to regulate the size of the House of Representatives, and the size of the House has varied through the years due to the admission of new states and reapportionment following a census. The House of Representatives began with sixty-five members and now, consists of 435 members. In 1911, Congress passed The Apportionment Act of 1911, also known as Public Law 62–5, which says that the United States House of Representatives can have no more than 435 members.

Birthday of Elizabeth “Bess” Truman (February 13, 1885), wife of Harry S. Truman; First Lady 1945-1953.

1935 – A jury in Flemington, New Jersey found Bruno Hauptmann guilty of the 1932 kidnapping and murder of the Lindbergh baby, the son of Charles Lindbergh. On April 3, 1936, Hauptmann was executed in “Old Smokey”, the electric chair at the New Jersey State Prison.

1961 – An allegedly 500,000-year-old rock was discovered near Olancha, California, US. It appeared to anachronistically encase a spark plug. Known as the Coso artifact, Chad Windham, President of the Spark Plug Collectors of America, identified it as a 1920s-era Champion spark plug. Credible evidence for it being 500,000 years old was and is completely lacking.

February 11 is the 42nd day of the year in the Gregorian calendar.

Don’t Cry over Spilled Milk Day
Make a Friend Day
White T-Shirt Day
National Peppermint Patty Day

1531 – Henry VIII of England was recognized as supreme head of the Church of England.

Feb 11, 1650 is the date of the death of Rene Descartes, French philosopher and mathematician. Descartes is best known for “Cogito ergo sum” (I think, therefore I am).

At the time of his death, Descartes was the guest of Queen Christina of Sweden, who helped him found an academy of arts and took private lessons from him in philosophy. Queen Christina insisted on having lessons at 5:00 a.m. It is believed that lack of sleep and the bitter Scandinavian winter damaged his health and he died of pneumonia at age 53.

Pennsylvania Hospital, the first hospital in the United States, was opened by Benjamin Franklin in 1752.

Birthday of Thomas Alva Edison (1847), American inventor. Edison is the fifth most prolific inventor in history, holding 1,084 US patents in his name including the phonograph, the electric light bulb, and the motion picture camera. (The top four prolific inventors are Kia Silverbrook of Australia (4669 utility patents); Shunpei Yamazaki of Japan (3516 utility patents); Paul Lapstun of Australia (1268 utility patents); and Gurtej Sandhu of India (1093 utility patents).

In 1942 the first gold record was presented to Glenn Miller for “Chattanooga Choo Choo“.
 
 

 
Lyrics from www.songlyrics.com

Step aside partner, it’s my day
Bend an ear and listen to my version
(Of a really solid Tennessee excursion)

Pardon me boy, is that the Chattanooga Choo Choo?
(Yes yes, track 29)
Boy, you can give me a shine
(Can you afford to board Chattanooga Choo Choo?)

I’ve got my fare
(And just a trifle to spare)

You leave the Pennsylvania station ’bout a quarter to four
Read a magazine and then you’re in Baltimore
Dinner in the diner, nothing could be finer
(Then to have your ham and eggs in Carolina)

When you hear the whistle blowin’ eight to the bar
Then you know that Tennessee is not very far
Shovel all the coal in, gotta keep it rollin’
(Whoo whoo, Chattanooga, there you are)

There’s gonna be a certain party at the station
Satin and Lace, I used to call funny face
She’s gonna cry until I tell her that I’ll never roam
(So Chattanooga Choo Choo)

Won’t you choo choo me home
(Chattanooga, Chattanooga)
Get aboard
(Chattanooga, Chattanooga)
All aboard
(Chattanooga, Chattanooga)

Chattanooga Choo Choo
Won’t you choo choo me home
Chattanooga Choo Choo

1936 Birthday of Burt Reynolds, American actor, one of the most charismatic actors to rule the silver screen. The star of movies like The Longest Yard, Boogie Nights and Best Friends was a massive box-office attraction from 1978 to 1982, with Smokey and the Bandit I and II being his biggest hits. In 1982, Reynolds was voted the most popular star in the US for the fifth year in a row. He died September 6, 2018 of a heart attack.