Category: Our Universe

The Thing About Today – February 21

Michael FalknerLeave a comment

February 21, 2020
Day 52 of 366

 

February 21st is the fifty-second day of the year. It marks the ancient Roman festival of Ferālia, a celebration of the Manes (Roman spirits of the dead, particularly the souls of deceased individuals), which fell on 21 February as recorded by Ovid in Book II of his Fasti. It’s the end of Parentalia, a nine-day festival honoring the dead ancestors.

In the United States, it is “celebrated” as National Grain-Free Day, National Sticky Bun Day, and National Caregivers Day. That last one is typically observed on the third Friday in February.

 

Historical items of note:

  • In 1804, the first self-propelling steam locomotive debuted at the Pen-y-Darren Ironworks in Wales.
  • In 1808, Russian troops crossed the border to Sweden at Abborfors in eastern Finland, without a previous declaration of war, thus beginning the Finnish War. In the end, Sweden lost the eastern half of the country to Russia.
  • In 1828, the initial issue of the Cherokee Phoenix was published. It was the first periodical to use the Cherokee syllabary invented by Sequoyah.
  • In 1842, John Greenough was granted the first U.S. patent for the sewing machine.
  • In 1848, Karl Marx and Friedrich Engels published The Communist Manifesto.
  • In 1866, Lucy Hobbs Taylor became the first American woman to graduate from dental school.
  • In 1885, the newly completed Washington Monument was dedicated.
  • In 1916, the Battle of Verdun began. The longest confrontation of World War I, the battle was fought from February to mid-December on the Western Front in France. It was the most costly battle in human history, totaling over 714,000 casualties in 302 days.
  • In 1925, The New Yorker published its first issue.
  • In 1927, American journalist and author Erma Bombeck was born.
  • In 1933, singer-songwriter and pianist Nina Simone was born.
  • In 1937, actor Gary Lockwood was born.
  • In 1946, actor and producer Anthony Daniels was born. He portrayed C-3PO in loads of Star Wars media.
  • Also in 1946, actor and director Alan Rickman was born.
  • Also in 1946, actress Tyne Daly was born.
  • In 1947, Edwin Land demonstrated the first “instant camera”, the Polaroid Land Camera, to a meeting of the Optical Society of America in New York City.
  • In 1955, Kelsey Grammer was born.
  • In 1972, President Richard Nixon went to the People’s Republic of China to normalize relations between the two countries.
  • In 1987, actress Ellen Page was born.
  • In 1996, actress Sophie Turner was born.

 

In 1964, Mark and Scott Kelly were born. The twin brother shared similar career trajectories: They were both United States Navy captains, pilots, and astronauts.

Sons of two retired police officers, the brothers were both inspired to join the military. Mark graduated from the United States Merchant Marine Academy with a bachelor of science degree in marine engineering and nautical science. Scott attended the Naval Reserve Officers Training Corps (NROTC) at State University of New York Maritime College (SUNY Maritime) and graduated with a bachelor of science degree in electrical engineering.

Both brothers became naval aviators – Mark flew with Attack Squadron 115 (VA-115) in Atsugi, Japan while Scott was assigned to Strike Fighter Squadron 143 (VFA-143) in NAS Oceana, Virginia – before reuniting at the U.S. Naval Test Pilot School at Naval Air Station Patuxent River, Maryland. Their classmates included future astronauts Alvin Drew, Lisa Nowak, and Stephen Frick.

After being selected for the NASA Astronaut Corps, both brothers worked on the Space Shuttle program. Mark started with STS-108 (Endeavour) and Scott with STS-103 (Discovery).

Mark Kelly’s final mission was STS-134 (Endeavour), after which he retired from NASA and the Navy. His wife, Congresswoman Gabrielle Giffords, survived an assassination attempt and he retired in order to help with her recovery. In February 2019, he launched his campaign for election to the Senate.

Scott Kelly’s final mission was a year-long study on the International Space Station to better understand the effects of spaceflight on the human body. His brother was used as an Earth-bound control. He retired from NASA after returning home, having retired from the Navy four years earlier.

The Kelly brothers are the only known siblings to have both traveled in space.

 

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

For more creativity with a critical eye, visit Creative Criticality.

 

 

The Thing About Today – February 20

Michael FalknerLeave a comment

February 20, 2020
Day 51 of 366

 

February 20th is the fifty-first day of the year. It is the World Day of Social Justice, also known as Social Justice Equality Day, which recognizes the need to promote social justice. That includes efforts to tackle issues such as poverty, exclusion, gender equality, unemployment, human rights, and social protections.

In the United States, it is “celebrated” as National Cherry Pie Day and National Love Your Pet Day. Not that we need a special day for that in our household…

 

Historical items of note:

  • In 1792, the Postal Service Act was signed by President George Washington, thus establishing the United States Post Office Department.
  • In 1816, Rossini’s opera The Barber of Seville premiered at the Teatro Argentina in Rome.
  • In 1872, the Metropolitan Museum of Art opened in New York City.
  • In 1877, Tchaikovsky’s ballet Swan Lake premiered at the Bolshoi Theatre in Moscow.
  • In 1925, director and screenwriter Robert Altman was born.
  • In 1927, actor Sidney Poitier was born. He was the first black actor to win an Academy Award for Best Actor.
  • In 1931, the United States Congress approved the construction of the San Francisco–Oakland Bay Bridge by the state of California.
  • In 1933, the United States Congress approved the Blaine Act to repeal federal Prohibition in the United States. This sent the Twenty-First Amendment to the United States Constitution (which would repeal the Eighteenth Amendment) to state ratifying conventions for approval.
  • In 1935, Caroline Mikkelsen became the first woman to set foot in Antarctica.
  • In 1944, the Batman & Robin comic strip premiered in newspapers.
  • In 1954, actor and musician Anthony Stewart Head was born.
  • In 1956, the United States Merchant Marine Academy became a permanent Service Academy.
  • In 1962, John Glenn becomes the first American to orbit the earth, making three orbits in four hours, 55 minutes while aboard Friendship 7.
  • In 1984, comedian and actor Trevor Noah was born.
  • In 1986, the Soviet Union launched the Mir spacecraft. It remained in orbit for fifteen years and was occupied for ten.

 

In 1962, John Glenn becomes the first American to orbit the earth, making three orbits in four hours, 55 minutes while aboard Friendship 7.

Formally known as the Mercury-Atlas 6 (MA-6), it was the fifth human spaceflight after Vostoks 1 and 2 (both orbital flights by the Soviets) and Mercury-Redstones 3 and 4 (both sub-orbital flights by the Americans). After Mercury-Atlas 5 successfully took Enos the Chimp to orbit and back, Marine Corps aviator John Glenn was chosen to pilot Friendship 7. Glenn was a distinguished fighter pilot in World War II, China, and Korea. He shot down three MiG-15s and was awarded six Distinguished Flying Crosses and eighteen Air Medals. In 1957, he made the first supersonic transcontinental flight across the United States, during which the first continuous, panoramic photograph of the country was taken.

The mission was first announced for a January 16 launch but was postponed for over a month due to various issues. Once the capsule was launched, Glenn witnessed dust storms on the planet below, twilight and sunset over the Indian Ocean, and the “fireflies” of ice crystals venting from spacecraft systems.

Friendship 7 splashed down in the North Atlantic and was retrieved by the destroyer USS Noa. The spacecraft was preserved and is currently displayed at the National Air and Space Museum in Washington, D.C.

The mission is portrayed from different points of view in the films The Right Stuff and Hidden Figures.

John Glenn went on to receive the NASA Distinguished Service Medal in 1962, the Congressional Space Medal of Honor in 1978, and the Presidential Medal of Freedom in 2012. He was inducted into the U.S. Astronaut Hall of Fame in 1990. After leaving NASA in January 1964, he served in the United States Senate from 1974 to 1999, returning to space in 1998 on the Space Shuttle Discovery (STS-95). At the age of 77, he was the oldest person to fly into space.

John Glenn was the oldest and last surviving member of the Mercury Seven. He died in 2016 at the age of 95.

 

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

For more creativity with a critical eye, visit Creative Criticality.

 

 

The Thing About Today – February 19

Michael FalknerLeave a comment

February 19, 2020
Day 50 of 366

 

February 19th is the fiftieth day of the year. It is Armed Forces Day in Mexico.

In the United States, it is “celebrated” as National Chocolate Mint Day, National Lash Day, and National Vet Girls RISE Day.

 

Historical items of note:

  • In 1473, Nicolaus Copernicus, the Polish mathematician and astronomer, was born.
  • In 1674, England and the Netherlands ended the Third Anglo-Dutch War by signing the Treaty of Westminster. One provision of that agreement transferred the Dutch colony of New Amsterdam to England. The British renamed it New York.
  • In 1878, Thomas Edison patented the phonograph.
  • In 1940, singer-songwriter and producer Smokey Robinson was born.
  • In 1953, the State of Georgia became the first to approve a literature censorship board in the United States.
  • In 1960, Bill Keane’s Family Circus premiered.
  • In 1963, Betty Friedan’s The Feminine Mystique was published. It reawakened the feminist movement in the United States.
  • In 1967, Benicio del Toro was born.
  • In 2004, Millie Bobbie Brown was born.

 

In 1946, Karen Silkwood was born.

Karen Silkwood was a chemical technician and labor union activist who worked at the Kerr-McGee Cimarron Fuel Fabrication Site in Oklahoma. After being hired at the site, she joined the local Oil, Chemical & Atomic Workers Union and took part in a strike at the plant. Afterward, she was elected to the union’s bargaining committee, becoming the first woman to achieve that position at the plant.

During her assignment to investigate health and safety issues, she discovered what appeared to be numerous violations of health regulations, including exposure of workers to contamination, faulty respiratory equipment and improper storage of samples. Additionally, she believed that the lack of sufficient shower facilities could increase the risk of employee contamination. She eventually testified to the Atomic Energy Commission about her concerns.

Months after her testimony, she performed a routine self-check and found that her body contained nearly 400 times the legal limit for plutonium contamination. She was decontaminated on-site and sent home with a kit to collect bodily samples for later analysis. The odd part was that plutonium was discovered inside her gloves, but the gloves were intact, suggesting that the contamination had come from somewhere else.

The next morning, she tested positive again despite having only done administrative paperwork in the interim and was more vigorously decontaminated in what has become colloquially known as the “Silkwood shower”. The next day, she was tested positive again, and a health physics team followed her home and found plutonium on several surfaces. Her home was intensively decontaminated and Silkwood, her boyfriend, and her roommate were sent to Los Alamos National Laboratory for in-depth testing.

Questions arose about the incident and Silkwood eventually decided to go public with her claims against the site, including extensive documentation. While driving to meet with New York Times journalist David Burnham, she died in a car crash under unclear circumstances. The documents were missing from her car and the police report stated that she fell asleep at the wheel. Rumors suggested that drugs were involved, though forensic evidence at the scene pointed toward foul play.

Her family sued Kerr-McGee for the plutonium contamination, and the company settled out of court for $1.38 million while not admitting liability.

Karen Silkwood’s story was told in the Academy Award-nominated film Silkwood from 1983, in which she was portrayed by Meryl Streep.

 

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

For more creativity with a critical eye, visit Creative Criticality.

 

 

The Thing About Today – February 18

Michael FalknerLeave a comment

February 18, 2020
Day 49 of 366

 

February 18th is the forty-ninth day of the year. It is Wife’s Day (Konudagur) in Iceland, which traditionally falls on the first day of Góa according to the old Icelandic calendar.

In the United States, it is “celebrated” as National Battery Day (honoring the storage device, not beating on someone), National Crab Stuffed Flounder Day, and National Drink Wine Day.

 

Historical items of note:

  • In 1791, Congress passed a law admitting the state of Vermont to the Union, effective on March 4th. Of course, the state had already existed for fourteen years as a de facto independent largely unrecognized state.
  • In 1861, Jefferson Davis was inaugurated as the provisional President of the Confederate States of America in Montgomery, Alabama.
  • In 1878, the Lincoln County War began in Lincoln County, New Mexico after John Tunstall was murdered by the outlaw Jesse Evans.
  • In 1885, Adventures of Huckleberry Finn by Mark Twain was published.
  • In 1930, Elm Farm Ollie became both the first cow to fly in a fixed-wing aircraft and the first cow to be milked in an aircraft.
  • In 1931, Toni Morrison was born. She was an American novelist, editor, and Nobel Prize laureate.
  • In 1950, Cybill Shepherd was born.
  • In 1954, John Travolta was born.
  • In 1968, Molly Ringwald was born.
  • In 1977, the Space Shuttle Enterprise test vehicle was ferried on its maiden “flight” on top of a Boeing 747.

 

In 1950, filmmaker John Hughes was born.

John Hughes began his career by selling jokes to performers like Rodney Dangerfield and Joan Rivers. After several copywriting jobs, he landed as an author of satirical essays for National Lampoon magazine. His first story was “Vacation ’58”, which was inspired by his family trips as a child and became the basis for the film National Lampoon’s Vacation.

His first credited screenplay, National Lampoon’s Class Reunion, was written while he was at the magazine, and it became the second major flop that tried to duplicate the success of National Lampoon’s Animal House. Undaunted, Hughes wrote Vacation and Mr. Mom, earning him a three-film deal with Universal Pictures.

His directorial debut was Sixteen Candles in 1984 and was considered a refreshing look at adolescence and high school life in comparison to raunchier Porky’s-inspired films. He continued his “teen movie” style with The Breakfast Club, Pretty in Pink, Weird Science, Ferris Bueller’s Day Off, and Some Kind of Wonderful. All of these films became iconic of the early to mid-1980s.

He branched out in 1987 with a wider style, including Planes, Trains, and Automobiles, Uncle Buck, National Lampoon’s Christmas Vacation, and Curly Sue. That last film was his final directorial effort, capping an era of filmmaking that wasn’t nearly as popular as his teen films. I’m in the minority in that regard.

He also served as writer and/or producer on a long list of films, including The Great Outdoors, the first three Home Alone films, Career Opportunities, the first two Beethoven films, Miracle on 34th Street, Maid in Manhattan, 101 Dalmatians, and Flubber.

John Hughes retired in 1994. He died of a heart attack on August 5, 2009, at the age of 59.

 

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

For more creativity with a critical eye, visit Creative Criticality.

 

 

The Thing About Today – February 17

Michael FalknerLeave a comment

February 17, 2020
Day 48 of 366

 

February 17th is the forty-eighth day of the year. It is Presidents Day in the United States.

In the United States, it is “celebrated” as National Random Acts of Kindness and National Cabbage Day.

 

Historical items of note:

  • In 1753, February 17th was followed by March 1st in Sweden when the country moved from the Julian Calendar to the Gregorian Calendar.
  • In 1801, an electoral tie between Thomas Jefferson and Aaron Burr was resolved when Jefferson was elected President of the United States by the House of Representatives. Burr became Vice President due to the convention of the time.
  • In 1819, the United States House of Representatives passed the Missouri Compromise for the first time. The Missouri Compromise provided for the admission of Maine to the Union as a free state and Missouri as a slave state, thus maintaining the balance of power between North and South in the United States Senate.
  • In 1864, during the American Civil War, the Confederate H. L. Hunley became the first submarine to engage and sink a warship. Its target was the Union’s USS Housatonic.
  • In 1881, Mary Carson Breckinridge was born. An American nurse-midwife, she founded the Frontier Nursing Service.
  • In 1904, Madama Butterfly premiered at La Scala in Milan.
  • In 1925, actor Hal Holbrook was born.
  • In 1936, the world’s first superhero made his first appearance in comics as Lee Falk’s The Phantom debuted.
  • In 1963, American basketball legend Michael Jordan was born.
  • In 1964, a decision in Wesberry v. Sanders by the Supreme Court of the United States ruled that congressional districts have to be approximately equal in population.
  • In 1965, The Ranger 8 probe launched on its mission to photograph the Mare Tranquillitatis region of the Moon. The Sea of Tranquility would later be chosen as the site for the Apollo 11 lunar landing.
  • In 1991, actress, director, and screenwriter Bonnie Wright was born.

 

It is Presidents Day in the United States.

The federal holiday was originally called Washington’s Birthday, observed on the third Monday of February in honor of George Washington. Washington was the first President of the United States and was born on February 22, 1732 by the Gregorian Calendar. When he was born, his Virginia home was still under British rule, and thus under the Julian calendar, so his “old style” birthdate was February 11, 1731. In 1752, the British Empire converted to the Gregorian Calendar and subjects born before then had their birthdates converted to the “new style” dates.

The holiday coincides with state holidays across the country that celebrate George Washington, Abraham Lincoln, and other United States Presidents. The observation as it stands today honors all who have served as President of the United States.

The federal holiday honoring Washington was originally implemented by an Act of Congress in 1879 for government offices and expanded in 1885 to include all federal offices. It was originally celebrated Washington’s birthday, but was shifted to the third Monday in February in 1971.

The first attempt to create a Presidents Day occurred in 1951. Harold Stonebridge Fischer founded the “President’s Day National Committee” with the purpose of honoring the office of the presidency. It was first thought that March 4, the original inauguration day, should be deemed Presidents Day, but the bill recognizing March 4 stalled in the Senate Judiciary Committee. While the Senate stalled out, a majority of state governors issued proclamations declaring the March date as Presidents’ Day in their respective jurisdictions.

While an early draft of the 1971 Uniform Monday Holiday Act contained the name “Presidents’ Day” for the February celebration, it didn’t stick when the bill was signed into law. The term finally surfaced in the mid-1980s with a push from advertisers.

The traditional food of the holiday is cherry pie, based around the legend surrounding Washington and the cherry tree. The holiday is also a tribute to the first military badge of merit for the common soldier, the Purple Heart, which bears Washington’s image and is awarded to soldiers wounded in battle.

 

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

For more creativity with a critical eye, visit Creative Criticality.

 

 

The Thing About Today – February 16

Michael FalknerLeave a comment

February 16, 2020
Day 47 of 366

 

February 16th is the forty-seventh day of the year. It is Restoration of Lithuania’s Statehood Day, celebrating the independence of Lithuania from Russia and Germany in 1918.

In the United States, it is “celebrated” as National Almond Day and National Do A Grouch a Favor Day.

 

Historical items of note:

  • In 1646, the Battle of Torrington occurred in Devon. It was the last major battle of the first English Civil War.
  • In 1881, the Canadian Pacific Railway was incorporated by an Act of Parliament at Ottawa.
  • In 1937, Wallace H. Carothers received a United States patent for nylon.
  • In 1948, the first newsreel telecast was shown on NBC.
  • In 1952, William Katt was born. He was The Greatest American Hero.
  • In 1957, actor, director, producer, and educator LeVar Burton was born.
  • In 1964, Christopher Eccleston was born. He was the Ninth Doctor and a Marvel Cinematic Universe villain.
  • In 1974, actor Mahershala Ali was born.
  • In 1978, the first computer bulletin board system was created. It was called CBBS.
  • In 1989, actress Elizabeth Olson was born.
  • In 2006, the last Mobile Army Surgical Hospital (MASH) was decommissioned by the United States Army.

 

In 1960, the U.S. Navy submarine USS Triton (SSRN/SSN-586) began Operation Sandblast.

The Triton was a United States Navy radar picket submarine, designed to increase the radar detection range around a force to protect it from a surprise attack. Triton was the only ship of its class and was commissioned on November 10, 1959. It was the second submarine and the fourth ship in the U.S. Navy to be named for that particular Greek god, which was unique for an era when submarines were named for types of fish.

Under the command of Captain Edward L. Beach Jr., a World War II veteran submariner, the Triton completed the first submerged circumnavigation of the globe during Operation Sandblast. Spanning 60 days and 21 hours, a 26,723 nautical mile route was followed that began and ended at the St. Peter and Paul Rocks in the middle of the Atlantic Ocean near the Equator. The track was similar to the route followed by Ferdinand Magellan’s circumnavigation of the world from 1519 to 1522.

The intent was to increase American technological and scientific prestige before the 1960 Paris Summit between President Eisenhower and Soviet Premier Nikita Khrushchev, as well as demonstrating the longevity of the nuclear submarine platform. Triton earned the Presidential Unit Citation for the operation, and Captain Beach was awarded the Legion of Merit.

The radar picket mission was made obsolete when the carrier-based WF-2 Tracer early warning aircraft was introduced, at which time the Triton was converted to standard attack submarine service (changing the ship from an SSRN to an SSN) in 1962. She was decommissioned in 1969, becoming the first United States nuclear submarine to be taken out of service.

 

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

For more creativity with a critical eye, visit Creative Criticality.

 

 

The Thing About Today – February 15

Michael FalknerLeave a comment

February 15, 2020
Day 46 of 366

February 15th is the forty-sixth day of the year. It is National Flag of Canada Day, commemorating the inauguration of the national flag in 1965.

In the United States, it is “celebrated” as National Gumdrop Day, Singles Awareness Day, and National Wisconsin Day.

Historical items of note:

  • In 1564, astronomer, physicist, and mathematician Galileo Galilei was born.
  • In 1835, the first constitutional law in modern Serbia was adopted.
  • In 1870, Stevens Institute of Technology was founded in New Jersey. The school offered the first Bachelor of Engineering degree in Mechanical Engineering.
  • In 1879, President Rutherford B. Hayes signed a bill allowing female attorneys to argue cases before the Supreme Court of the United States.
  • In 1898, the battleship USS Maine exploded and sank in Havana, Cuba. The event, during which 274 people were killed, prompted the United States to declare war on Spain.
  • In 1907, Cesar Romero was born. He played the Joker in the 1966 Batman series.
  • In 1927, Harvey Korman was born.
  • In 1935, American astronaut Roger B. Chaffee was born.
  • In 1946, ENIAC, the first electronic general-purpose computer, was formally dedicated at the University of Pennsylvania in Philadelphia.
  • In 1950, Disney’s Cinderella premiered in Boston.
  • In 1951, actress Jane Seymour was born.
  • In 1954, Canada and the United States agreed to construct the Distant Early Warning Line, a system of radar stations in the far northern Arctic regions of Canada and Alaska.
  • Also in 1954, Matt Groening was born. He was the creator of The Simpsons.
  • In 1971, British coinage completed the decimalization process, thus inspiring Decimal Day.
  • In 1972, sound recordings were granted U.S. federal copyright protection for the first time.
  • In 1992, serial killer Jeffrey Dahmer was sentenced to life in prison.
  • In 2001, the first draft of the complete human genome was published in Nature.

In 1820, American suffragist and activist Susan B. Anthony was born.

Susan B. Anthony was an American social reformer and women’s rights activist who played a pivotal role in the women’s suffrage movement. Her family was committed to social equality, and even as a teenager she was dedicated to fighting for social justice. At the age of 17, she collected anti-slavery petitions, and by 1856 she was the New York state agent for the American Anti-Slavery Society.

Alongside Elizabeth Cady Stanton, her lifelong friend and co-worker in social reform, Anthony fought for women’s rights. Together, the women found the New York Women’s Temperance Society after Anthony was prevented from speaking at a conference because of her gender. They worked together on several other projects and organizations over the following twenty years, fighting for both women’s rights and racial equality.

In 1872, Anthony was arrested for voting in her hometown of Rochester, New York. After being convicted in a very public trial, she refused to pay the fine and the government refused to escalate matters any further. This prompted Anthony and Stanton to present an amendment before Congress to grant women the right to vote. This amendment was ratified as the Nineteenth Amendment to the United States Constitution in 1920.

The right of citizens of the United States to vote shall not be denied or abridged by the United States or by any State on account of sex.

Congress shall have power to enforce this article by appropriate legislation.

When she first began campaigning for women’s rights, Susan B. Anthony was harshly ridiculed. In fact, she was accused of trying to destroy the institution of marriage.

Doesn’t that sound familiar nearly two hundred years later?

Public perception of her changed radically during her lifetime. Her 80th birthday was celebrated at the White House with President William McKinley, and she became the first female citizen depicted on coinage in the United States when her portrait was added to the dollar coin in 1979.

Susan B. Anthony died on March 13, 1906, at the age of 86.

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

For more creativity with a critical eye, visit Creative Criticality.

Culture on My Mind – Every Storm Runs Out Of Rain

Michael FalknerLeave a comment

Culture on My Mind
Every Storm Runs Out of Rain
February 14, 2020

This week’s “can’t let it go” is a simple tweet that I recently stumbled across.

As part of Alex Banayan’s book, The Third Door: The Wild Quest to Uncover How the World’s Most Successful People Launched Their Careers, he interviewed the late Dr. Maya Angelou and received a great deal of good advice. Among it was this standout that she wished that she had penned:

I asked what someone should do when they’re searching for rainbows, but all they see are clouds.

“What I know is that it’s going to be better,” she said. “If it’s bad, it might get worse, but I know that it’s going to be better. And you have to know that. There’s a country song out now, which I wish I’d written, that says, ‘Every storm runs out of rain.’ I’d make a sign of that if I were you. Put that on your writing pad. No matter how dull and seemingly unpromising life is right now, it’s going to change. It’s going to be better. But you have to keep working.”

(Source: Maya Angelou’s Most Empowering Lessons)

It’s nothing elaborate, but it’s advice that has special meaning for me of late.

Tangentially, the song that she mentioned is Gary Allan’s “Every Storm (Runs Out Of Rain)” from 2012.

cc-break

Culture on My Mind is inspired by the weekly Can’t Let It Go segment on the NPR Politics Podcast where each host brings one thing to the table that they just can’t stop thinking about.

For more creativity with a critical eye, visit Creative Criticality.

The Thing About Today – February 14

Michael FalknerLeave a comment

February 14, 2020
Day 45 of 366

 

February 14th is the forty-fifth day of the year. It is Statehood Day in both Arizona and Oregon. It is also Valentine’s Day.

In the United States, it is “celebrated” as National Cream-Filled Chocolates Day, National Ferris Wheel Day, National Organ Donor Day, and No One Eats Alone Day. That last one changes days every year but is typically observed on a Friday in February.

 

Historical items of note:

  • In 1349, the Strasbourg Massacre occurred in France. As part of the ongoing Black Death persecutions, several hundred Jews were burned to death by mobs while the remaining Jews were forcibly removed. It was one of the first and worst pogroms in pre-modern history.
  • In 1778, the United States flag was formally recognized by a foreign naval vessel for the first time. French Admiral Toussaint-Guillaume Picquet de la Motte rendered a nine gun salute to USS Ranger, commanded by John Paul Jones.
  • In 1838, Margaret E. Knight was born. Among other things, she invented the flat-bottomed paper bag.
  • In 1847, Anna Howard Shaw was born. She was a physician and one of the first ordained female Methodist ministers in the United States. She was also a leader in the American women’s suffrage movement.
  • In 1849, James Knox Polk became the first serving President of the United States to have his photograph taken. The event occurred in New York City.
  • In 1859, George Washington Gale Ferris Jr. was born. An American engineer, he was the inventor of the Ferris wheel. Hence, National Ferris Wheel Day.
  • In 1876, Alexander Graham Bell and Elisha Gray both applied for a patent for the telephone.
  • In 1899, voting machines were approved by the United States Congress for use in federal elections.
  • In 1903, the United States Department of Commerce and Labor was established. It was later split into the Department of Commerce and the Department of Labor.
  • In 1912, The United States Navy commissioned the E-class submarine, its first class of diesel-powered submarines.
  • In 1921, journalist, game show host, and producer Hugh Downs was born.
  • In 1927, Lois Maxwell was born. She portrayed Miss Moneypenny in the first fourteen Eon-produced James Bond films.
  • In 1929, the Saint Valentine’s Day Massacre occurred. Seven people, six of them gangster rivals of Al Capone’s gang, were murdered in Chicago.
  • In 1931, Dracula starring Bela Lugosi was released.
  • In 1942, Andrew Robinson was born. He played Garak in Star Trek: Deep Space Nine.
  • In 1944, journalist Carl Bernstein was born. Along with Bob Woodward, he did much of the original reporting on the Watergate scandal.
  • In 1951, journalist and radio host Terry Gross was born.
  • In 1961, Lawrencium, element 103 on the periodic table, was first synthesized at the University of California. It was later named in honor of Ernest Lawrence, inventor of the cyclotron, a device that was used to discover many artificial radioactive elements.
  • In 1963, actor Zach Galligan was born.
  • In 1970, actor Simon Pegg was born.
  • In 1990, the Voyager 1 spacecraft took the famous Pale Blue Dot photo at a record distance of six billion kilometers.
  • In 1991, Silence of the Lambs was released.
  • In 2005, YouTube was launched by Chad Hurley, Steve Chen, and Jawed Karim, each former employees of PayPal. The service was eventually sold to Google for $1.65 billion.

 

February 14th is Valentine’s Day.

Valentine’s Day originated as a Western Christian feast day honoring one or two early saints named Valentinus. Today it is recognized more as a cultural, religious, and commercial celebration of romance and romantic love.

There are many martyrdom stories that connect various Valentines to February 14. One account is that of Saint Valentine of Rome, who was imprisoned for performing forbidden weddings for soldiers and ministering to Christians persecuted under the Roman Empire. According to the legend, Saint Valentine restored sight to the blind daughter of his judge, and he wrote her a letter signed “Your Valentine” as a farewell before execution. In his honor as a martyr, the Feast of Saint Valentine was established by Pope Gelasius I in AD 496 to be celebrated on February 14.

Another is Valentine of Terni, a bishop of Interamna, supposedly martyred during the persecution under Emperor Aurelian in 273.

Romantic love entered the picture courtesy of Geoffrey Chaucer in the 14th century, a period of courtly love by tradition. In honor the first anniversary of the engagement of King Richard II of England to Anne of Bohemia, Chaucer wrote of love birds in Parlement of Foules (1382):

For this was on seynt Volantynys day
Whan euery bryd comyth there to chese his make.

The earliest description of February 14 as an annual celebration of love appears in the Charter of the Court of Love. The charter, allegedly issued by Charles VI of France in 1400, describes lavish festivities attended by members of the royal court, including a feast, amorous song, poetry competitions, jousting, and dancing.

Shakespeare mentioned Valentine’s Day in Hamlet (Act IV, Scene 5), circa 1600:

To-morrow is Saint Valentine’s day,
All in the morning betime,
And I a maid at your window,
To be your Valentine.
Then up he rose, and donn’d his clothes,
And dupp’d the chamber-door;
Let in the maid, that out a maid
Never departed more.

John Donne was inspired by the legend of the marriage of the birds when he wrote his epithalamion – a poem for the bride as she heads to her marital chamber – celebrating the marriage of Elizabeth, daughter of James I of England, and Frederick V, Elector Palatine.

Hayle Bishop Valentine whose day this is

All the Ayre is thy Diocese
And all the chirping Queristers
And other birds ar thy parishioners
Thou marryest every yeare
The Lyrick Lark, and the graue whispering Doue,
The Sparrow that neglects his life for loue,
The houshold bird with the redd stomacher
Thou makst the Blackbird speede as soone,
As doth the Goldfinch, or the Halcyon
The Husband Cock lookes out and soone is spedd
And meets his wife, which brings her feather-bed.
This day more cheerfully than ever shine

This day which might inflame thy selfe old Valentine.

The roses are red cliché has two strong historical anchors. First, The Faerie Queene (1590) by Edmund Spenser:

She bath’d with roses red, and violets blew,
And all the sweetest flowres, that in the forrest grew.

Second, Gammer Gurton’s Garland (1784) by Joseph Ritson:

The rose is red, the violet’s blue,

The honey’s sweet, and so are you.
Thou art my love and I am thine;
I drew thee to my Valentine:
The lot was cast and then I drew,

And Fortune said it shou’d be you.

In 18th-century England, the day grew into expressions of love by presenting flowers, offering confectionery, and sending greeting cards (giving birth to the term “valentines”). Handwritten valentines evolved into mass-produced greeting cards.

Today, symbols include heart-shaped outlines, doves, and Cupid. In Europe, Saint Valentine’s Keys are given to lovers as romantic symbols and invitations to unlock the giver’s heart, as well as to children to ward off epilepsy, which is called Saint Valentine’s Malady.

Saint Valentine’s Day is an official feast day in the Anglican Communion and the Lutheran Church. In the Eastern Orthodox Church, it is celebrated on July 6th and July 30th, the former date in honor of Saint Valentine, and the latter in honor of the Bishop of Interamna.

It is currently celebrated in various means and traditions around the world.

 

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

For more creativity with a critical eye, visit Creative Criticality.

 

 

The Thing About Today – February 13

Michael FalknerLeave a comment

February 13, 2020
Day 44 of 366

 

February 13th is the forty-fourth day of the year. It is World Radio Day.

In the United States, it is “celebrated” as National Break Up With Your Carrier Day, National Cheddar Day, National Tortellini Day, and National Giving Hearts Day. The last one is typically observed on the second Thursday in February.

 

Historical items of note:

  • In 1880, Thomas Edison first observed Thermionic emission. In simpler terms, that is the liberation of electrons from an electrode by virtue of its temperature, such as light emitted by the filament in a light bulb.
  • In 1910, William Shockley Jr. was born. He was the manager of a research group at Bell Labs that included John Bardeen and Walter Brattain. The three scientists were jointly awarded the 1956 Nobel Prize in Physics for research on semiconductors and the discovery of the transistor effect.
  • In 1932, actress Susan Oliver was born. She was Vina in the first Star Trek pilot, “The Cage”.
  • In 1933, actress Caroline Blakiston was born. She was Mon Mothma in Star Wars: Return of the Jedi.
  • In 1935, a jury in Flemington, New Jersey found Bruno Hauptmann guilty of the 1932 kidnapping and murder of Charles Lindbergh’s son.
  • In 1944, actress Stockard Channing was born.
  • In 1950, English singer-songwriter and musician Peter Gabriel was born.
  • In 1958, actress Pernilla August was born. She portrayed Shmi Skywalker in Star Wars: The Phantom Menace.
  • In 1960, black college students staged the first of the Nashville sit-ins at three lunch counters in Nashville, Tennessee.
  • In 1966, actor and producer Neal McDonough was born.
  • In 1990, an agreement was reached on a two-stage plan to reunite Germany.
  • In 2004, the Harvard–Smithsonian Center for Astrophysics announced the discovery of the universe’s largest known diamond. It was white dwarf star BPM 37093, christened “Lucy” after “Lucy in the Sky with Diamonds” by The Beatles.
  • In 2011, the American Indian Umatilla tribe were able to hunt and harvest a bison just outside Yellowstone National Park. This event, the first of its kind in more than 100 years, restored a centuries-old tradition guaranteed by a treaty signed in 1855.

 

In 1923, Chuck Yeager was born. He was the first test pilot to break the sound barrier.

A native of Myra, West Virginia, Yeager enlisted as a private in the U.S. Army Air Forces (USAAF) on September 12, 1941. He was not eligible for flight training due to his age and education, but he served as an aircraft mechanic at George Air Force Base in California. After the attack at Pearl Harbor and the United States entered World War II, the USAAF changed its recruiting standards and Yeager was accepted for flight training.

He received his wings at Luke Field in Arizona. His initial fighter pilot training was on Bell P-39 Airacobras, and he later flew P-51 Mustangs in combat with the 363d Fighter Squadron out of RAF Leiston. He was shot down on March 5, 1944 and escaped to Spain with help from the Maquis French resistance. He was later awarded a Bronze Star for helping B-24 navigator “Pat” Patterson during the escape attempt.

He continued to fly during World War II, being promoted to captain before the end of his tour. He was assigned to Wright Field with his wife where he served as a test pilot. He later transferred to Muroc Army Air Field (now Edwards Air Force Base) where he broke the sound barrier on October 14, 1947, flying the X-1 Glamorous Glennis. That plane is on permanent display at the Smithsonian Institution’s National Air and Space Museum.

After breaking several other speed and altitude records, Yeager continued his career, eventually promoting to brigadier general and retiring in 1975. He continued to fly on occasion for the United States Air Force and NASA as a consultant. He was inducted into the National Aviation Hall of Fame in 1973 and has several other awards and honors to his name. His legacy in aviation is unmistakable.

His wife Glennis, after whom he named his plane as a good luck charm, died of ovarian cancer in 1990. They had four children together.

 

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

For more creativity with a critical eye, visit Creative Criticality.