Today is:

Blue and Pink Day -- Fairy Calendar

Bocuse D'Or -- Lyon, France (dating back to 1985, this biennial celebration is France's answer to chef competitions on TV, with the best in the world pitted against each other in front of a jury of their peers; through tomorrow)

Bubblegum Sculpture Day -- commonly listed on ecard sites, and not to be confused with National Bubble Gum Day, coming in February

Carnation Day -- in honor of William McKinley; also on the date of his assassination each year, Sept. 14

Curmudgeons' Day -- W.C. Field's birth anniversary

National Corn Chip Day

National Puzzle Day -- because they are just fun

Sahid Diwash -- Nepal (Martyrs' Day)

St. Constantius of Perugia (Patron of Perugia, Italy)

St. Gildas the Wise's Day (one of the earliest British historians)

Thomas Paine Day/Freethinkers' Day -- birth anniversary of Thomas Paine

Up-Helly-AA Day -- Lerwick, Shetland (the largest fire festival in Europe, with tomorrow as a day off so everyone can recover)



Anniversaries Today:

Kansas becomes the 34th US state, 1861


Birthdays Today:

Adam Lambert, 1982
Jonny Lang, 1981
Andrew Keegan, 1979
Sara Gilbert, 1975
Heather Graham, 1970
Greg Louganis, 1960
Oprah Winfrey, 1954
Teresa Teng, 1953
Ann Jillian, 1950
Tom Selleck, 1945
Katharine Ross, 1942
John Forsythe, 1918
Victor Mature, 1913
Huddie William "Leadbelly" Ledbetter, 1885
W.C. Fields, 1880
Anton Chekhov, 1860
William McKinley, 1843
Henry Morton Stanley, 1841
Thomas Paine, 1737
Emanuel Swedenborg, 1688


Today in History:

The first performance of Shakespeare's Romeo and Juliet, 1595
John Beckley of Virginia is appointed the first Librarian of Congress, 1802
Edgar Allen Poe's "The Raven" is first published, 1845
The Victoria Cross is established to acknowledge bravery, 1856
Karl Benz patents the first successful gasoline-driven automobile, 1886
Liliuokalani is proclaimed Queen of Hawaii, its last monarch, 1891
Walt Disney starts his first job as an artist, earning $40/week with the KC Slide Co, 1920
North America's first guide dog school, The Seeing Eye, is incorporated in Nashville, Tennessee, 1929
The first inductees into the Baseball Hall of Fame are announced, 1936
The first inductees into the Pro Football Hall of Fame are announced, 1963
Hungary establishes diplomatic relations with South Korea, making it the first Eastern Bloc nation to do so, 1989
President Jacques Chirac announces a "definitive end" to French nuclear weapons testing, 1996
La Fenice, Venice's opera house, is destroyed by fire, 1996
The first direct commercial flights from mainland China (from Guangzhou) to Taiwan since 1949 arrived in Taipei. Shortly afterwards, a China Airlines flight lands in Beijing, 2005