Monday OT: 02/15/21 is Susan B Anthony Day

It's Presidents' Day.  This holiday never falls on the birthday of any actual US President.  Once upon a time, there was a federal holiday celebrating George Washington's Birthday.  In addition, in some states, like California schools and some businesses closed on Lincoln's Birthday as well.  In 1971, they decided to move most Federal Holidays to Mondays, in order to create more three day weekends and renamed Washington's birthday "Presidents' Day".  While they were at it, they gratuitously declared it to include Lincoln's birthday, not at the time a federal holiday, and thereby preempting any attempt at making it one, and shafting all the kids in places like California, though not all such states immediately eliminated poor old Abe.  Though not a Bank Holiday, it is also Susan B. Anthony Day, and given the above foofaraw, I personally prefer to celebrate it instead.  Besides, who knows who any of our Presidents would've been had not huge swaths of the populace been disenfranchised for most of the nation's history.

Remember the Maine Day.  The Maine was a somewhat slow and clumsy "battleship" that was pretty much obsolete by the time it was finished. It was eventually sent to Cuba to look after US interests.  As we know, that means to try to gain control of a nation or its resources; we have no legitimate interests in foreign country as a nation.  It blew up in Havana harbor on February 15, 1889.  The tale is confused and convoluted, and US history is very much a cloud of propaganda and disinformation, which makes things worse.  The current story seems to be that in and within the government is was initially and primarily believed to have been an accident, with some dissenters, but that the yellow press pressed and propagandized for war using it for sloganeering.  The US government might've been bothered by Spanish Human Rights violations (sure, sure we were, in 1898) and had no interest in annexing Cuba the way we had just annexed Hawaii, well, maybe a bit, perhaps.  At any rate, with that as a battle cry, wee went to war with Spain and took over Cuba, the Philippines and I forget what all else, but only because we had to.  I mean what the hell, they blew up our ship, unless it was an accident, or a pissed off sailor, or a false flag by US commercial interests.  As usual, the finger of cui bono certainly points nowhere at all near Spain, but that question is never raised in imperialist nations for a reason.

On this day in history:

1764 – The city of St. Louis was established in Spanish Louisiana (now Misery). 1870 – Stevens Institute of Technology was founded in New Jersey 1879 – Rutherford B. Hayes signed a bill allowing female attorneys to argue cases before the Supreme Court 1898 – The battleship USS Maine exploded and sank in Havana harbor 1923 – Greece became the last European country to adopt the Gregorian calendar. 1925 – The 1925 serum run to Nome 1945 – Third day of bombing in Dresden. 1946 – ENIAC, the first electronic general-purpose computer, iwas dedicated at the University of Pennsylvania  1949 – Gerald Lankester Harding and Roland de Vaux begin excavations at Cave 1 of the Qumran Caves 1954 – Canada and the United States agree to construct the DEW Line 1965 – A red-and-white maple leaf design was adopted as the flag of Canada, 1971 – The decimalisation of British coinage was completed on Decimal Day 1972 – Sound recordings were granted U.S. federal copyright protection for the first time. 1972 – José María Velasco Ibarra, serving as President of Ecuador for the fifth time, was overthrown by the military for the fourth time. 1989 – The Soviet Union officially announced that all of its troops had left Afghanistan. 2003 – Protests against the Iraq war took place in over 600 cities worldwide. It is estimated that between eight million to 30 million people participated, making this the largest peace demonstration in history. But we prevailed. USA! USA! USA! 2013 – A meteor exploded over Russia, injuring 1,500 people

Born this day in: Take your pick:

The sad truth is that it is the greatest happiness of the greatest number that is the measure of right and wrong.

Lawyers are the only persons in whom ignorance of the law is not punished.

~~ Jeremy Bentham 1471 – Piero the Unfortunate, unfortunate ruler with famous portrait 1557 – Alfonso Fontanelli, composer 1564 – Galileo Galilei, astronomer, physicist, mathematician and heretic 1705 – Charles-André van Loo, painter 1748 – Jeremy Bentham, jurist and philosopher 1797 – Henry E. Steinway, businessman who founded Steinway & Sons  1809 – Cyrus McCormick,  journalist and businessman, who co-founded International Harvester  1810 – Mary S. B. Shindler, poet, writer, and editor 1820 – Susan B. Anthony, abolitionist suffragist ,and activist 1850 – Sophie Bryant, mathematician, academic and activist 1851 – Spiru Haret, mathematician, astronomer, and politician 1861 – Charles Édouard Guillaume, physicist and academic, 1861 – Alfred North Whitehead, mathematician and philosopher 1874 – Ernest Shackleton, captain and explorer 1883 – Sax Rohmer, author 1904 – Mary Adshead, painter 1909 – Miep Gies, humanitarian, helped hide Anne Frank and her family  1910 – Irena Sendler,  nurse and humanitarian 1918 – Hank Locklin, singer, songwriter, and guitarist 1925 – Angella D. Ferguson, pediatrician 1931 – Jonathan Steele,  journalist and author 1934 – Niklaus Wirth, computer scientist, created the Pascal programming language 1935 – Susan Brownmiller, journalist and author 1937 – Gregory Mcdonald, author 1941 – Brian Holland, songwriter and producer 1944 – Mick Avory, drummer 1945 – John Helliwell, saxophonist and keyboard player 1951 – Melissa Manchester, singer, songwriter, and actress 1954 – Matt Groening, animator, producer, and screenwriter 1957 – Jake E. Lee,  guitarist and songwriter 1958 – Matthew Ward, singer and songwriter 1959 – Ali Campbell, singer, songwriter, and guitarist 1967 – Jane Child, singer, songwriter, and producer 1970 – Shepard Fairey, artist and activist 1976 – Brandon Boyd, singer and songwriter 1980 – Conor Oberst, singer, songwriter 1981 – Matt Hoopes, singer, songwriter, and guitarist 1981 – Vivek Shraya, singer and songwriter

A heretic is a man who sees with his own eyes.

 Physics is like sex: sure, it may give some practical results, but that's not why we do it

~~Richard Feynman 1781 – Gotthold Ephraim Lessing, philosopher, author, and critic 1842 – Archibald Menzies, surgeon and botanist 1849 – Pierre François Verhulst, mathematician and theorist 1857 – Mikhail Glinka, composer 1905 – Lew Wallace, author, general, and politician,  1939 – Kuzma Petrov-Vodkin, painter and author 1959 – Owen Willans Richardson, physicist and academic, 1965 – Nat King Cole, singer and pianist 1981 – Mike Bloomfield, Aguitarist and songwriter 1984 – Ethel Merman, actress and singer 1988 – Richard Feynman, physicist and academic, 1998 – Martha Gellhorn, journalist and author 1999 – Henry Way Kendall, physicist and mountaineer, 2005 – Pierre Bachelet, singer-songwriter 2007 – Ray Evans, songwriter 2014 – Thelma Estrin, computer scientist and engineer

Holidays, Holy Days, Festivals, Feast Days, Days of Recognition, and such: Presidents' Day (USA) Lupercalia National Gumdrop Day National Hippo Day National I Want Butterscotch Day Singles  Awareness Day or Singles Appreciation Day Remember the Maine Day aka Yellow Journalism Day Susan B. Anthony Day The ENIAC Day Shrove Monday, aka damn near anything you can think of Day National Flag of Canada Day