On This Day October 12th

 OTD

October 12 is the 285th day of the year in the Gregorian calendar; 80 days remain until the end of the year.

 

Events

1279 – The Nichiren Shōshū branch of Buddhism was founded in Japan.

1492 – Christopher Columbus's first expedition makes landfall in the Caribbean, specifically on San Salvador Island.

1692 – The Salem witch trials are ended by a letter from the Province of Massachusetts Bay Governor William Phips.

1793 – The cornerstone of Old East, the oldest state university building in the United States, is laid at the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill.

1810 – The citizens of Munich hold the first Oktoberfest to celebrate the marriage of Crown Prince Louis of Bavaria and Princess Therese of Saxe-Hildburghausen.

1901 – President Theodore Roosevelt officially renamed the "Executive Mansion" to the White House.

1933 – The military Alcatraz Citadel becomes the civilian Alcatraz Federal Penitentiary.

1960 – Soviet Premier Nikita Khrushchev pounds his shoe on a desk at the United Nations to protest a Philippine assertion.

1973 – President Nixon nominates House Majority Leader Gerald R. Ford as the successor to Vice President Spiro T. Agnew.

2017 – The United States announces its decision to withdraw from UNESCO. Israel immediately follows.

 

Birthdays

1687 – Sylvius Leopold Weiss, German lute player and composer (d. 1750)

1710 – Jonathan Trumbull, American colonel and politician, 16th Governor of Connecticut (d. 1785)

1860 – Elmer Ambrose Sperry, American engineer and businessman, co-invented the gyrocompass (d. 1930)

1891 – Edith Stein, Polish nun and martyr; later canonized (d. 1942)

1919 – Doris Miller, American cook and soldier (d. 1943)

1929 – Magnus Magnusson, Icelandic journalist and academic (d. 2007)

1935 – Sam Moore, American soul singer-songwriter

1945 – Dusty Rhodes, American wrestler (d. 2015)

1968 – Hugh Jackman, Australian actor, singer, and producer.

1983 – Katie Piper, English philanthropist, broadcaster, and acid violence survivor

 

Holiday Spotlight

National Farmers Day

Agriculture is one of the world’s oldest and most vital professions. Farmers have remained among the highest contributors to economic growth while consistently feeding the people who rely on their goods. Called initially Old Farmer’s Day, National Farmers Day was cultivated to celebrate the hard work farmers put into growing their crops. The date of October 12 came about as it lands at the end of the traditional harvesting period, allowing farmers to participate in festivities, which can sometimes last the entirety of the month. Additionally, the Harvest Moon will fall every three years in early October, preceding and leading to National Farmer’s Day on the 17th.

 

In fact, in Loranger, Louisiana, there’s an Old Farmer’s Day Festival that celebrates and showcases farming traditions and methodologies before it became the modernized and scientific venture it is today. Usually, in states in the northern US, the first frost would occur at the beginning of October, if not the middle, requiring many farmers to harvest their crops beforehand to prepare for the winter. Now, because of scientific developments in farming techniques, the traditional growing period can be prolonged to increase yield and profit, part of the reason why National Farmer’s Day tends to extend its celebrations in rural areas to National Farmer’s Month.

 

Others Include

Cookbook Launch Day

Drink Local Wine Day

Equatorial Guinea Independence Day

Free Thought Day

International Moment of Frustration Scream Day

National Gumbo Day

National Savings Day

Old Farmers Day

World Arthritis Day

World Sight Day

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