Last Day!

Last day of school for the semester! Hooray!

No more fighting the even-worse-than-usual-Christmas-traffic twice a day!

What will i do with the two hours a day this frees up?

No, that isn't rhetorical, i know where it will go. End of the year preparing for tax paperwork, here i come.

Ugh.

Still, last day! Hooray!


Today is:

Akiba Taisai Hiwatari Shinji Festival -- Nagoya, Japan

Barbie and Barney Backlash Day -- if you need an explanation, you don't have kids

Beethoven Day -- celebrate the anniversary of his birth by listening to one of his fine works

Bijoy Dibosh -- Bangladesh (Victory Day)

Day of Reconciliation -- Afrikaners of South Africa

Day of the Republic -- Kazakhstan (Independence from the USSR)

Festival of Sophia / Sapientia -- Celtic Calendar (goddess of wisdom; date approximate)

Man Will Never Fly Memorial Society Annual Meeting

National Chocolate Covered Anything Day

National Sports Day -- Thailand

Posadas Navidenas (Fiesta of the Virgin of the Lonely) -- Mexico (celebrated through the 25th, "pilgrims" go house to house seeking shelter to commemorate the search of Mary and Joseph for shelter in Bethlehem)

Reconciliation Day -- South Africa

Simbang Gabi -- Philippines (Christmas festivals that last until Three Kings Day.)

St. Adelaide's Day (Patron of abuse victims, brides, empresses, exiles, in-law problems, parenthood, parents of large families, princesses, prisoners, second marriages, step-parents, and widows)

Underdog Day -- the day to celebrate all the number two people who make the number ones what they are (as in Friday to Crusoe); day founded by by the late Peter Moeller, THE Chief Underdog

Victory Day -- Bangladesh; India


Birthdays Today:

Michael McCary, 1971
Benjamin Bratt, 1963
William "Refrigerator" Perry, 1962
Billy Gibbons, 1949
Benny Andersson, 1946
Steven Bochco, 1943
Lesley Stahl, 1941
Liv Ullmann, 1939
Arthur C. Clarke, 1917
Margaret Mead, 1901
Noel Coward, 1899
Wassily Kandinsky, 1866
George Santayana, 1863
Jane Austen, 1775
Ludwig von Beethoven, 1770
Catherine of Aragon, 1536



Today in History:

An Lushan revolts against Chancellor Yang Guozhong at Fanyang, initiating the An Shi Rebellion during the Tang Dynasty of China, 755
Mount Vesuvious, Italy erupts, destroys 6 villages & kills 4,000, 1631
Oliver Cromwell sworn in as English Lord Protector, 1653
The last recorded eruption of Mount Fuji in Japan, 1707
A big tea party in Boston harbor -- Indians welcome -- is "celebrated" (Boston Tea Party), 1773
Fire burns over 600 buildings in NYC, 1835
In New Zealand, the Charlotte-Jane and the Randolph bring the first of the Canterbury Pilgrims to Lyttelton, 1850
The Kingdom of Nepal accepts its constitution, 1862
Antonín Dvorak's Symphony No. 9 in E minor, Op. 95, From The New World is given its world première performance at Carnegie Hall, 1893
The first submarine with an internal combustion engine is demonstrated, 1897
The "Great White Fleet" sails from Hampton Downs on its round the world tour, 1907
The first credit union in the US is formed, in Manchester, New Hampshire, 1908
The first US postage stamp picturing an airplane, a 20 cent parcel post, is issued, 1912
Albert Einstein publishes his "General Theory of Relativity", 1915
The Haiyuan earthquake, magnitude 8.5, rocks the Gansu province in China, killing an estimated 200,000, 1920
Theodore Cole and Ralph Roe attempt to escape from the American federal prison on Alcatraz Island in San Francisco Bay; neither is ever seen again, 1937
Thailand joins the United Nations, 1945
William Shockley, John Bardeen and Walter Brattain build the first practical point-contact transistor, 1947
Cleveland, Ohio becomes the first post-Depression era US city to default on its loans, owing $14,000,000 to local banks, 1978
An episode of Pokemon, "Denno Senshi Porygon", aired in Japan induces seizures in 685 Japanese children, 1997
George W. Bush signs the CAN-SPAM Act of 2003 into law, 2003