Generations Pass

Just a couple of days ago, the last of a generation passed. The news was confirmed yesterday.

Florence Green, former member of the Women's Royal Air Force, and the last confirmed surviving WWI veteran, died at age 110. She was only two weeks short of her next birthday.

Florence served on the home front, as a steward of the officers' mess on an airbase in England, a reminder that war affects everyone, everywhere, not just those fighting on the front lines.

Many women served then as mechanics, drivers, and in other non combat roles to free up men to go to the front.

Though we have no more veterans from then with us, may we never forget the sacrifice of that generation.


Today is:

Boy Scout Day -- celebrates the birthday of Scouting in the US

Cowtown's Last Old West Gunfight -- White Elephant Saloon, Fort Worth, TX, US (annual reenactment of the last gunfight in what was then Cowtown, between White Elephant Saloon owner Luke Short and former marshal T.I. “Longhaired Jim” Courtright on this date in 1887)

Hari Kuyo -- Japan (Festival of Broken Needles, in which all of the worn or broken sewing needles from the previous year are put in a sacred resting place.)

Hold Onto Your Head Day -- invented by someone for people like me, because heaven knows i'm losing mine!

Laugh and Get Rich Day -- a day to recognize the power of laughter

Love May Make the World Go 'round, But Laughter Keeps US from Getting Dizzy Week -- annually, the week before and including Valentine's Day; dedicated to Victor Borge’s notion that “Laughter is the shortest distance between two people” and Joel Goodman’s notion that “Seven days without laughter makes one weak.”

National Molasses Bar Day

Preseren Day -- Slovenia (Honors their national poet, France Preseren, a Culture Day.)

St. Jerome Emilani's Day (patron of orphans)

Tako-ichi -- Kita-ku, Tokyo, Japan (kite fair dating back to the Edo period)

Tu BiShvat -- Judaism


Anniversaries Today:

Founding of Universiteit Leiden, with the motto Praesidium Libertatis, 1575


Birthdays Today:

Josh Keaton, 1979
David "Phoenix" Farrell, 1977
Seth Green, 1974
Gary Coleman, 1968
Claudette Pace, 1968
Vince Neil, 1961
Robert Klein, 1942
Nick Nolte, 1941
Ted Koppel, 1940
John Williams, 1932
James Dean, 1931
Jack Lemmon, 1925
Audrey Meadows, 1924
Freddie Blassie, 1921
Lana Turner, 1921
Lyle Talbot, 1902
Jules Verne, 1828
Samuel Butler, 1612


Today in History:

Mary, Queen of Scots, is executed on suspicion of having been involved in the Babington Plot to murder her cousin, Queen Elizabeth I, 1587
Isaac Newton reads his first optics paper before the Royal Society in London, 1672
French and Indian troops set Schenectady, NY, afire, 1690
A doctor in Salem Village, Massachusetts Bay Colony suggests that two girls in the family of the village minister may be suffering from bewitchment, leading to the Salem witch trials, 1692
The Supreme Privy Council is established in Russia, 1726
The first opera in the US, "Flora," opens in South Carolina, 1735
A minor earthquake shakes London, 1750
The strange phenomenon called the "Devil's Footprints" mysteriously appear in Devon, England, 1855
Martin Robinson Delany becomes the first black major in the US Army, 1865
The Boy Scouts of America is incorporated by William D. Boyce, 1910
D.W. Griffith's controversial film The Birth of a Nation premieres in Los Angeles, 1915
The Stars and Stripes newspaper is published for the first time, 1918
Swiss men vote against women's suffrage, 1920
Radio arrives at the White House, 1922
Allende meteorite falls near Pueblito de Allende, Chihuahua, Mexico, 1969
The NASDAQ stock market index opens for the first time, 1971
After 84 days in space, the crew of the first American space station Skylab returns to Earth, 1974
The Melbourne dust storm hits Australia's second largest city. The result of the worst drought on record and a day of severe weather conditions, a 320 metres (1,050 ft) deep dust cloud envelops the city, turning day to night, 1983
The massive Internet collaboration "24 Hours in Cyberspace" takes place, 1996
A freak storm in the Hindukush mountains of Afghanistan triggers a series of at least 36 avalanches, 2010