tomorrow's food holiday is 'National Plum Pudding Day'. a.k.a. Christmas pudding.
From Wikipedia: 'Christmas pudding is a type of pudding traditionally served as part of the Christmas dinner in Britain, Ireland and in some other countries where it has been brought by British emigrants. It has its origins in medieval England, and is sometimes known as plum pudding or just "pud", though this can also refer to other kinds of boiled pudding involving dried fruit. Despite the name "plum pudding," the pudding contains no actual plums due to the pre-Victorian use of the word "plums" as a
term for raisins. The pudding is composed of many dried fruits held together by egg and suet, sometimes moistened by treacle or molasses and flavoured with cinnamon, nutmeg, cloves, ginger, and other spices. The pudding is aged for a month, months, or even a year; the high alcohol content of the pudding prevents it from spoiling during this time'.
[The Hankster says] No, I only have an idea why Christmas pudding is eaten in February. From the prep, it sounds like it might rival Fruit Cake for longevity. And pleas, don't task me with an explanation of how Little Jack Horner could pick out a raisin with this thumb, a big plum, yes, but a little raisin.
Other celebrations/observances tomorrow:
- 'Lincoln's Birthday'. Born February 12, 1809.
From Wikipedia: 'Lincoln's Birthday is a legal, public holiday in some U.S. states, observed on the anniversary of Abraham Lincoln's birth on February 12, 1809. Arizona, California, Connecticut, Illinois, Indiana, Missouri, and New York observe the holiday. New Jersey observed the holiday until September 29, 2008 when New Jersey enacted The Public Employee Pension and Benefits Reform Act of 2008, which eliminated the holiday.'
'In other states, Lincoln's birthday is not celebrated separately, as a stand-alone holiday. Instead Lincoln's Birthday is combined with a celebration of President George Washington's birthday (also in February) and celebrated either as Washington's Birthday or as Presidents' Day, and on the third Monday of February, simultaneously with the Federal holiday, instead on Washington's or Lincoln's actual birthday'.
- 'Darwin day'. To highlight Darwin's contributions to science on his birthday in 1809.
From Wikipedia: 'Darwin Day is a celebration to commemorate the anniversary of the birth of Charles Darwin on 12 February 1809. The day is used to highlight Darwin's contribution to science and to promote science in general. Darwin Day is celebrated around the world'.
- 'Lost Penny Day'. First Lincoln Penny minted in 1909.
[The Hankster says] An exhaustive search of my piggy bank has only uncovered an old tiddly-wink, a paper clip and a Canadian dime.
- 'Oglethorpe Day'. British General James Edward Oglethorpe founded the Colony of Georgia in 1733.
From Wikipedia: 'James Edward Oglethorpe (22 December 1696 – 30 June 1785) was a British general, Member of Parliament, philanthropist, and founder of the colony of Georgia. As a social reformer, he hoped to resettle Britain's poor, especially those in debtors' prisons, in the New World'.
- 'Paul Bunyan Day'. A Banger ME claim of his birthplace in 1834.
From Wikipedia: 'Paul Bunyan is a giant lumberjack in American folklore. His exploits revolve around the tall tales of his superhuman labors, and he is customarily accompanied by Babe the Blue Ox. The character originated in the oral tradition of North American loggers, and was later popularized by freelance writer William B. Laughead (1882–1958) in a 1916 promotional pamphlet for the Red River Lumber Company. He has been the subject of various literary compositions, musical pieces, commercial works,
and theatrical productions. His likeness is displayed in several statues across North America'.
[The Hankster says] I just wish he would stop that Ho, Ho, Ho. No, wait a minute. That is someone, big and green and jolly. Anyway, have you ever tried to clean up after a big blue ox?
Awareness / Observance Days on: February 12
o Health
- 'Sexual and Reproductive Health Awareness Day'. Mainly observed in Canada by Public Health Agency of Canada .
- 'Safetypup (tm Day) '. Focus on child safety.
o Other
- 'Red Hand Day'. Awareness of 'children soldiers', children, who are used in wars and armed conflicts.
Historical events in the past on: February 12
- In 1851, Edward Hargraves announces that he has found gold in Bathurst, New South Wales, Australia, starting the Australian gold rushes.
From Wikipedia: 'The first gold rush in Australia began in May 1851 after prospector Edward Hargraves claimed to have discovered payable gold near Orange, at a site he called Ophir. Hargraves had been to the Californian goldfields and had learned new gold prospecting techniques such as panning and cradling. Hargraves was offered rewards by the Colony of New South Wales and the Colony of Victoria. Before the end of the year, the gold rush had spread to many other parts of the state where gold had been
found, 'not just to the west, but also to the south and north of Sydney'.
'The Australian gold rushes changed the convict colonies into more progressive cities with the influx of free emigrants. These hopefuls, termed diggers, brought new skills and professions, contributing to a burgeoning economy. The mateship that evolved between these diggers and their collective resistance to authority led to the emergence of a unique national identity. Although not all diggers found riches on the goldfields, many decided to stay and integrate into these communities'.
- In 1879, At New York City's Madison Square Garden the first artificial ice rink in North America opens.
From Wikipedia: 'Madison Square Garden (sometimes called MSG or The Garden) is a multi-purpose indoor arena in the New York City borough of Manhattan, New York. Located in Midtown Manhattan between 7th and 8th Avenues from 31st to 33rd Streets, it is situated atop Pennsylvania Station. It is the fourth venue to bear the name "Madison Square Garden", the first two (1879 and 1890) of which were located on Madison Square, on East 26th Street and Madison Avenue, with the third Madison Square Garden further
uptown at Eighth Avenue and 50th Street. The Garden is used for professional basketball and ice hockey, as well as boxing, concerts, ice shows, circuses, professional wrestling and other forms of sports and entertainment'.
- In 1909, The National Association for the Advancement of Colored People (NAACP) is founded.
From Wikipedia: 'The National Association for the Advancement of Colored People (NAACP) is an African-American civil rights organization in the United States, formed in 1909 by Moorfield Storey, Mary White Ovington and W. E. B. Du Bois. Its mission is "to ensure the political, educational, social, and economic equality of rights of all persons and to eliminate racial hatred and racial discrimination". Its name, retained in accordance with tradition, uses the once common term colored people.
The NAACP bestows the annual Image Awards for achievement in the arts and entertainment, and the annual Spingarn Medals for outstanding positive achievement of any kind, on deserving Black Americans. It has its headquarters in Baltimore, Maryland'.-2
- In 1924, Calvin Coolidge makes the first ever U.S. presidential radio address.
- In 1924, Rhapsody In Blue, by George Gershwin, is performed for the first time.
From Wikipedia: 'Rhapsody in Blue is a 1924 musical composition by American composer George Gershwin for solo piano and jazz band, which combines elements of classical music with jazz-influenced effects.'
'Commissioned by bandleader Paul Whiteman, the composition was orchestrated by Ferde Grofé several times, including the original 1924 scoring, "theater orchestra" setting published in 1926, and the symphony orchestra scoring published in 1942, though completed earlier. The piece received its premiere in the concert, An Experiment in Modern Music, which was held on February 12, 1924, in Aeolian Hall, New York, by Whiteman and his band with Gershwin playing the piano.
The editors of the Cambridge Music Handbooks opined that "The Rhapsody in Blue (1924) established Gershwin's reputation as a serious composer and has since become one of the most popular of all American concert works"'.
- In 1924, The radio show, The Eveready Hour, became radio’s first sponsored network program.
From Wikipedia: 'The Eveready Hour was the first commercially sponsored variety program in the history of broadcasting. It premiered December 4, 1923 (or, according to other sources, February 12, 1924) on WEAF Radio in New York. Radio's first sponsored network program. it was paid for by the National Carbon Company, which at the time owned Eveready Battery. The host for many years was the banjo-playing vocalist Wendell Hall, "The Red Headed Music Maker," who wrote the popular "It Ain't Gonna Rain No
Mo'" (Victor Records). Hall was married on The Eveready Hour in 1924'.
- In 1914, Construction begins on the Lincoln Memorial in Washington D.C.
From Wikipedia: 'The Lincoln Memorial is an American national monument built to honor the 16th President of the United States, Abraham Lincoln. It is located on the western end of the National Mall in Washington, D.C., across from the Washington Monument. The architect was Henry Bacon; the designer of the primary statue – Abraham Lincoln, 1920 – was Daniel Chester French; the Lincoln statue was carved by the Piccirilli Brothers; and the painter of the interior murals was Jules Guerin. Dedicated in
1922, itis one of several monuments built to honor an American president.'
'The building is in the form of a Greek Doric temple and contains a l arge seated sculpture of Abraham Lincoln and inscriptions of two well-known speeches by Lincoln, The Gettysburg Address and his Second Inaugural Address.'
- In 1940, The radio show, The Adventures of Superman, aired for the first time.
From Wikipedia: 'The Adventures of Superman was a long-running radio serial that originally aired from 1940 to 1951 starring the DC Comics character Superman.'
'The serial came to radio as a syndicated show on New York City's WOR on February 12, 1940. On Mutual, it was broadcast from August 31, 1942, to February 4, 1949, as a 15-minute serial, running three or, usually, five times a week. From February 7 to June 24, 1949 it ran as a thrice-weekly half-hour show. The series shifted to ABC Saturday evenings on October 29, 1949, and then returned to afternoons, twice-a-week on June 5, 1950, continuing on ABC until March 1, 1951. In all, 2088 original episodes
of TheAdventures of Superman were aired on American radio'.
'Created by Jerry Siegel and Joe Shuster, the Man of Steel first appeared in Action Comics #1 in 1938. The following year, the newspaper comic strip began and four audition radio programs were prepared to sell Superman as a radio series. When Superman was first heard on radio less than two years after the comic book appearance, the character took on an added dimension with Bud Collyer in the title role. During World War II and the post-war years, the juvenile adventure radio serial, sponsored by
Kellogg's Pep, was a huge success, with many listeners following the quest for "truth and justice" in the daily radio broadcasts, the comic book stories and the newspaper comic strip. Airing in the late afternoon (variously at 5:15pm, 5:30pm and 5:45pm), the radio serial engaged its young after-school audience with its exciting and distinctive opening, which changed slightly as the series progressed'.
- In 1954, Lyons's LEO produces a payroll report. It is the first time in history a computer is used in business.
From Wikipedia: 'J. Lyons & Co. was a market-dominant British restaurant-chain, food-manufacturing, and hotel conglomerate founded in 1884.'
'The top management of Lyons, with its background in the use of mechanical adding machines, saw the necessity of new electrical computers for organising the distribution of cakes and other highly perishable goods. They, therefore, substantially financed the University of Cambridge's Electronic Delay Storage Automatic Calculator (EDSAC) which was the first electronic digital stored-program computer to go into regular service, and built their own programmable digital computers and became the first user of
these in businesses, with the LEO I digital computer: the Lyons Electronic Office I, designed and built by Dr John Pinkerton under the able leadership of John Simmons. It handled the company's accounts and logistics. Lyons also included the weather forecast to ensure goods carried by their "fresh produce" delivery vans were not wasted in large quantities. Google chairman Eric Schmidt called this "the world's first office computer", built in 1951'.
- In 1955, the song single 'Sincerely' by the McGuire Sisters' goes to #1 and stays #1 for 10 weeks.
From Wikipedia: '"Sincerely" is a popular song written by Harvey Fuqua and Alan Freed and published in 1954.
It was originally recorded by The Moonglows, who scored a #1 single on
the Billboard R&B chart and #20 on the Billboard Juke Box chart. sFuqua
was a member of the Moonglows. They were managed by Freed.
The best-selling version was a pop cover recorded by The McGuire Sisters, entering the charts in 1954 and reaching number one the next year. It became a gold record. In 1988 the country quartet Forester Sisters reached #8 on the Billboard Hot Country chart with their remake of the song'.
- In 1955, Soviets decided on a space center, 'Baikonur Cosmodrome', to be built in Baikonur, Kazachstan.
From Wikipedia:' 'Baikonur Cosmodrome (Russian: ????????´? «???????´?» Kosmodrom Baykonur; Kazakh: ???????? ????? ?????? Bayqońir garis aylagi) is the world's first and largest operational space launch facility. It is located in the desert steppe of Kazakhstan, about 200 kilometres (124 mi) east of the Aral Sea, north of the Syr Darya river, near Tyuratam railway station, at 90 metres (300 ft) above sea level.
'Both Vostok 1, the first manned spacecraft in human history, and before it, Sputnik 1, the world's first orbital spaceflight of any sort, were launched from one of Baikonur's launch pads, which is now known as Gagarin's Start, named after Yuri Gagarin.'
'The Soviet government issued the decree for Scientific Research Test Range No. 5 (NIIP-5; Russian: Nauchno-Issledovatel’skii Ispytatel’nyi Poligon N.5) on 12 February 1955. It was actually founded on 2 June 1955, originally a test center for the world's first intercontinental ballistic missile (ICBM), the R-7 Semyorka. NIIP-5 was soon expandedto include launch facilities for space flights'.
- In 2001, The 'NEAR Shoemaker' spacecraft touches down in the 'saddle' region of '433 Eros', becoming the first spacecraft to land on an asteroid.
From Wikipedia:' 'The Near Earth Asteroid Rendezvous – Shoemaker (NEAR Shoemaker), renamed after its 1996 launch in honor of planetary scientist Eugene Shoemaker, was a robotic space probe designed by the Johns Hopkins University Applied Physics Laboratory for NASA to study the near-Earth asteroid Eros from close orbit over a period of a year. The mission succeeded in closing in with the asteroid and orbited it several times, finally terminating by touching down on the asteroid on 12 February 2001.'
'The primary scientific objective of NEAR was to return data on the bulk properties, composition, mineralogy, morphology, internal mass distribution and magnetic field of Eros. Secondary objectives include studies of regolith properties, interactions with the solar wind, possible current activity as indicated by dust or gas, and the asteroid spin state'.
No. 1 song
Top movie
Monthly holiday / awareness days in February
Food
Barley Month
Fabulous Florida Strawberry Month
Grapefruit Month
National Cherry Month
National Hot Breakfast Month
Health
AMD/Low Vision Awareness Month
American Heart Month
International Boost Self-Esteem Month
International Expect Success Month
International Prenatal Infection Prevention Month
Marfan Syndrome Awareness Month
National Condom Month
National Children's Dental Health Month
National Therapeutic Recreation Month
Animal / Pet
Adopt A Rescued Rabbit Month
Beat The Heat Month
Dog Training Education Month
International Hoof-care Month
National Bird Feeding Month
National Pet Dental Health Month
Responsible Pet Owner's Month
Spay/Neuter Awareness Month
Other
Cricket World Cup
International Month of Black Women in The Arts
Library Lovers Month
Love The Bus Month
National African American History / Black History Month
National African American Read-In
National Care About Your Indoor Air Month
National Parent Leadership Month
National Teen Dating Violence Awareness Month
National Time Management Month
National Weddings Month
National Women Inventors Month
North American Inclusion Month
Relationship Wellness Month
Return Shopping Carts to the Supermarket Month
Youth Leadership Month
February is:
February origin (from Wikipedia):
'The Roman month Februarius was named after the Latin term
februum, which means purification, via the purification ritual
Februa held on February 15 (full moon) in the old lunar Roman
calendar. January and February were the last two months to
be added to the Roman calendar, since the Romans originally
considered winter a monthless period. They were added by
Numa Pompilius about 713 BC. February remained the last month
of the calendar year until the time of the decemvirs (c. 450 BC),
when it became the second month. At certain intervals February
was truncated to 23 or 24 days, and a 27-day intercalary month,
Intercalaris, was inserted immediately after February to realign
the year with the seasons.
Under the reforms that instituted the Julian calendar, Intercalaris
was abolished, leap years occurred regularly every fourth year,
and in leap years February gained a 29th day. Thereafter, it
remained the second month of the calendar year, meaning the
order that months are displayed (January, February, March,
..., December) within a year-at-a-glance calendar. Even during
the Middle Ages, when the numbered Anno Domini year began
on March 25 or December 25, the second month was February
whenever all twelve months were displayed in order. The
Gregorian calendar reforms made slight changes to the system
for determining which years were leap years and thus contained
a 29-day February.'
February is the second month of the year in the Julian and
Gregorian calendars. It is the shortest month and the only month
with fewer than 30 days. The month has 28 days in common years
or 29 days in leap years.
February is the third month of meteorological winter in the
Northern Hemisphere. In the Southern Hemisphere, February
is the third month of summer (the seasonal equivalent of August
in the Northern Hemisphere, in meteorological reckoning).
February at Wikipedia: More
If you couldn't afford 90 cents for a movie ticket, 50 years ago,
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From this Wikipedia article: More
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Sites for downloading or reading free Public Domain eBooks. Available in various formats. More