This is Take Your Cat to Work Day. Something of a wild and crazy idea, especially if it results in multiples of cats in an open office layout. I imagine a room full of data entry people "assisted" by a large number of cats and find myself grinning.
It is also World Refugee Day. As a US citizen, it would be preposterous for me to even think of writing upon upon such a subject. It says nothing about "some" or "wealthy" or "highly skilled or educated" refugees. There is nothing that implies one should be more accepting of tyrants fleeing their populace than of people fleeing their tyrants or any of the other hallmarks of the US approach to refugees, so I'll just take a pass on the subject.
By all means also by aware of Nystagmus and enjoy some Kouign Amann.
On this day in history:
1180 – The first Battle of Uji, which started the Genpei War in Japan 1756 – A British garrison was imprisoned in the Black Hole of Calcutta. 1782 – The U.S. Congress adopted the Great Seal of the United States. 1789 – Deputies of the French Third Estate took the Tennis Court Oath. 1819 – The SS Savannah arrived at Liverpool, becoming the first steam-propelled vessel to cross the Atlantic 1840 – Samuel Morse received a patent for the telegraph. 1863 – West Virginia was admitted as the 35th U.S. state . 1877 – Alexander Graham Bell installed the world's first commercial telephone service 1893 – Lizzie Borden was acquitted of the murders of her father and stepmother. 1895 – The Kiel Canal was officially opened. 1900 – The Imperial Chinese Army began a 55-day siege of the Legation Quarter in Beijing, China. 1921 – Workers of Buckingham and Carnatic Mills in India, begin a four-month strike. 1940 – The Soviet Union occupied Bessarabia and Northern Bukovina under the Molotov–Ribbentrop Pact. 1943 – The Detroit race riot broke out 1944 – The Battle of the Philippine Sea aka the "Great Marianas Turkey Shoot" ended. 1944 – The experimental MW 18014 V-2 rocket reached an altitude of 176 km, becoming the first man-made object to reach outer space. 1945 – The United States Secretary of State approved the transfer of Wernher von Braun and his team of Nazi rocket scientists to the U.S. under Operation Paperclip. 1948 – The Deutsche Mark was introduced in Western Allied-occupied Germany. The Soviet Military Administration in Germany responded by imposing the Berlin Blockade four days later. 1963 – The Soviet Union and the US signed an agreement to establish the so-called "red telephone" link between Washington, D.C. and Moscow. 1972 – An 18½-minute gap appeared in the tape recording of the conversations between President Nixon and his advisers regarding Watergate 1973 – The Ezeiza massacre of left-wing Peronists in Buenos Aires went down 1979 – ABC News correspondent Bill Stewart was shot dead by a Nicaraguan National Guard soldier under the regime of Anastasio Somoza Debayle 1990 – Asteroid Eureka was discovered. 1991 – The German Bundestag voted to move seat of government from to Berlin. 2003 – The Wikimedia Foundation was created in St. Petersburg, Florida.
Some people who were born on this day:
Since when do we have to agree with people to defend them from injustice?
~~ Lillian Hellman
1717 – Jacques Saly, sculptor and painter 1723 – (O.S.) Adam Ferguson, philosopher and historian 1756 – Joseph Martin Kraus, composer and educator 1761 – Jacob Hübner, entomologist and author 1763 – Wolfe Tone, rebel leader 1786 – Marceline Desbordes-Valmore, poet and author 1819 – Jacques Offenbach, cellist and composer 1847 – Gina Krog, suffragist and women's rights activist 1858 – Charles W. Chesnutt, novelist and short story writer 1859 – Christian von Ehrenfels, philosopher 1861 – Frederick Gowland Hopkins, biochemist and academic 1865 – George Redmayne Murray, biologist and physician 1867 – Leon Wachholz, scientist and medical examiner 1870 – Georges Dufrénoy, painter and academic 1875 – Reginald Punnett, geneticist, statistician, and academic 1884 – Mary R. Calvert, astronomer and author 1887 – Kurt Schwitters, painter and illustrator 1889 – John S. Paraskevopoulos, astronomer and academic 1894 – Lloyd Hall, chemist and academic 1896 – Wilfrid Pelletier, pianist, composer, and conductor 1897 – Elisabeth Hauptmann, author and playwright 1899 – Jean Moulin, soldier and engineer 1905 – Lillian Hellman, playwright and screenwriter 1907 – Jimmy Driftwood, singer, songwriter, and banjo player 1910 – Josephine Johnson, author and poet 1912 – Anthony Buckeridge, author 1914 – Muazzez İlmiye Çığ, archaeologist and academic 1916 – T. Texas Tyler, country music singer, songwriter, and guitarist 1917 – Helena Rasiowa, mathematician and academic 1920 – Danny Cedrone, guitarist and bandleader 1920 – Thomas Jefferson, trumpet player 1923 – Peter Gay, historian, author, and academic 1924 – Chet Atkins, singer, songwriter, guitarist, and producer 1924 – Fritz Koenig, sculptor and academic, designed The Sphere 1927 – Simin Behbahani, poet and activist 1928 – Eric Dolphy, saxophonist, flute player, and composer 1928 – Asrat Woldeyes, surgeon and educator 1929 – Anne Weale, journalist and author 1929 – Edith Windsor, lesbian, gay, bisexual and transgender (LGBT) rights activist 1930 – Magdalena Abakanowicz, sculptor and academic 1932 – Robert Rozhdestvensky, poet and author 1933 – Claire Tomalin, journalist and author 1936 – Billy Guy, singer 1936 – Enn Vetemaa, author and screenwriter 1937 – Jerry Keller, singer and songwriter 1938 – Mickie Most, music producer
1942 – Brian Wilson, singer, songwriter, and producer 1945 – Anne Murray, singer and guitarist 1946 - enhydra lutris, ne'er do well sixties radical, part time blogger 1946 – David Kazhdan, mathematician and academic 1946 – André Watts, pianist and educator 1947 – Dolores "LaLa" Brooks, pop singer 1948 – Alan Longmuir, bass player and songwriter 1949 – Lionel Richie, singer, songwriter, pianist, producer, and actor 1951 – Paul Muldoon, poet and academic 1952 – Vikram Seth, author and poet 1955 – E. Lynn Harris, author 1958 – Kelly Johnson, hard rock guitarist and songwriter 1960 – John Taylor, singer, songwriter, bass player, and actor 1967 – Dan Tyminski, singer and songwriter 1969 – Misha Verbitsky, mathematician and academic 1970 – Athol Williams, poet and social philosopher 1971 – Jeordie White, singer, songwriter, guitarist, and bass player 1973 – Chino Moreno, singer and songwriter 1977 – Amos Lee, singer and songwriter 1982 – Example, singer/rapper 1987 – A-fu, singer and songwriter - - -
Some people who died on this day:
Don't be afraid of poetry
~~ Clifton Fadiman
930 – Hucbald, monk and music theorist 1597 – Willem Barentsz, cartographer and explorer 1787 – Carl Friedrich Abel, viol player and composer 1840 – Pierre Claude François Daunou, historian and politician 1870 – Jules de Goncourt, historian and author 1876 – John Neal, writer, critic, editor, lecturer, and activist 1945 – Bruno Frank, author, poet, and playwright 1947 – Bugsy Siegel, businessman, Las Vegas Casino investor 1958 – Kurt Alder, chemist and academic, Nobel Prize laureate 1963 – Raphaël Salem, mathematician and academic 1966 – Georges Lemaître, priest, physicist, and astronomer 1969 – Bishnu Prasad Rabha, artist, painter, actor, dancer, writer, music composer and politician 1975 – Suzanne Comhaire-Sylvain, anthropologist 1995 – Emil Cioran, philosopher and educator 1997 – Cahit Külebi, poet and author 1999 – Clifton Fadiman, game show host, author, and critic 2001 – Gina Cigna, soprano 2002 – Erwin Chargaff, biochemist and academic 2005 – Larry Collins, journalist, historian, and author 2005 – Jack Kilby, physicist and engineer, Nobel Prize laureate 2010 – Harry B. Whittington, palaeontologist and academic (b. 1916) 2012 – LeRoy Neiman, painter 2015 – Miriam Schapiro, painter and sculptor 2017 – Prodigy, music artist
Some Holidays, Holy Days, Festivals, Feast Days, Days of Recognition, and such: National Kouign Amann Day Nystagmus Awareness Day Take Your Cat To Work Day World Refugee Day (International)
Today's Tunes
Jacques Offenbach
Jimmy Driftwood
T. Texas Tyler
Danny Cedrone
Thomas Jefferson
Chet Atkins
Eric Dolphy
Billy Guy
can't leave out Brian Wilson
Andre Watts
Dolores "Lala" Brooks
Lionel Ritchie
John Taylor
Carl Friedrich Abel
Ok, it's an open thread, so it's up to you folks now. So what's on your mind?
Cross posted from http://caucus99percent.com open thread, Cats, telegraph, telephone, NAZI scientists, Lillian Hellman, Clifton Fadiman, Offenbach, Jimmy Driftwood, Danny Cedrone, Chet Atkins, Eric Dolphy, Billy Guy, Dolores Brooks, Lionel Ritchie