August 28, 2020
Day 241 of 366

 

August 28th is the 241st day of the year. It is (unofficially) National Power Rangers Day, celebrating the anniversary of the 1993 debut of Mighty Morphin Power Rangers on the Fox Kids programming block.

 

In the United States, today is “celebrated” as National Thoughtful Day, National Red Wine Day, National Bow Tie Day, National Cherry Turnovers Day, and Rainbow Bridge Remembrance Day.

 

Historical items of note:

• In 1565, Pedro Menéndez de Avilés sighted land near St. Augustine, Florida, and founded the oldest continuously occupied European-established city in the continental United States.
• In 1749, German novelist, poet, playwright, and diplomat Johann Wolfgang von Goethe was born.
• In 1789, William Herschel discovered Enceladus, a new moon of Saturn.
• In 1845, the first issue of Scientific American magazine was published.
• In 1859, the Carrington event struck the Earth. It was the strongest geomagnetic storm on record and widely disrupted electrical telegraph service.
• In 1898, Caleb Bradham’s beverage “Brad’s Drink” was renamed “Pepsi-Cola”.
• In 1917, author and illustrator Jack Kirby was born. He was one of the fathers of the modern comic book industry.
• In 1948, author Vonda N. McIntyre was born.
• In 1955, Black teenager Emmett Till was brutally murdered in Mississippi, thereby galvanizing the nascent civil rights movement.
• In 1963, the Reverend Martin Luther King, Jr. delivered his I Have a Dream speech.
• In 1965, Japanese video game developer and creator of Pokémon Satoshi Tajiri was born.
• Also in 1965, singer-songwriter Shania Twain was born.
• In 1968, singer and actor Billy Boyd was born.
• In 1973, actor J. August Richards was born.
• In 1993, the Galileo spacecraft discovered a moon, later named Dactyl, around asteroid 243 Ida. This marked the first known asteroid moon.
• In 2003, actress Quvenzhané Wallis was born.

 

August 28th is National Grandparents’ Day (Día del Abuelo) in Mexico.

National Grandparents’ Day is a secular holiday celebrated in many countries around the world. It has origins in West Virginia where, in 1956, a mother named Marian McQuade was organizing a community celebration for those over 80. In her efforts, she became aware of the many nursing home residents who were forgotten by their families. She wanted a holiday to bring attention to these forgotten individuals and to honor all grandparents.

In 1973, West Virginia became the first state to have such a day, and it became a national holiday in the United States by 1978. Most of the similar observances around the world followed suit, though Poland is notable for having celebrated “Grandma’s Day” (Dzień Babci) and “Grandpa’s Day” (Dzień Dziadka) since 1964 when they were created by the Kobieta i Życie magazine.

 

The Thing About Today is an effort to look at each day of 2020 with respect to its historical context.

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