On This Day April 8th

 OTD

April 8th is the Ninety-eighth Day of the year in the Gregorian calendar; 267 days remain until the end of the year.

 

Events

1232 – Mongol–Jin War: The Mongols begin their siege on Kaifeng, the capital of the Jin dynasty.

1605 – The city of Oulu, Finland, is founded by Charles IX of Sweden.

1730 – Shearith Israel, the first synagogue in continental North America, is dedicated.

1820 – The Venus de Milo is discovered on the Aegean Island of Milos.

1886 – William Ewart Gladstone introduces the first Irish Home Rule Bill into the British House of Commons.

1906 – Auguste Deter, the first person to be diagnosed with Alzheimer's disease, dies.

1908 – Harvard University votes to establish the Harvard Business School.

1911 – Dutch physicist Heike Kamerlingh Onnes discovers superconductivity.

1943 – U.S. President Franklin D. Roosevelt, to check inflation, freezes wages and prices, prohibits workers from changing jobs unless the war effort would be aided thereby, and bars rate increases by common carriers and public utilities.

1959 – A team of computer manufacturers, users, and university people led by Grace Hopper meets to discuss creating a new programming language called COBOL.

1975 – Frank Robinson manages the Cleveland Indians in his first game as major league baseball's first African American manager.

2014 – Windows XP reaches its standard End of Life and is no longer supported.

2008 – The construction of the world's first skyscraper to integrate wind turbines is completed in Bahrain.

 

Birthdays

1541 – Michele Mercati, Italian physician, and archaeologist (d. 1593)

1605 – Mary Stuart, English-Scottish princess (d. 1607)

1818 – August Wilhelm von Hofmann, German chemist and academic (d. 1892)

1842 – Elizabeth Bacon Custer, American author, and educator (d. 1933)

1917 – Winifred Asprey, American mathematician, and computer scientist (d. 2007)

1926 – Shecky Greene, American comedian.

1964 – Biz Markie, American rapper, producer, and actor (d. 2021)

1974 – Chris Kyle, American Sniper, and memoirist (d. 2013)

 

Holidays And Observance

International Feng Shui Awareness Day

It’s hard to say when feng shui originated, and there’s a lot of debate about it. Before the Chinese invented the compass as a tool for divination, feng shui was used in astronomy to try to find correlations between humans and the rest of the universe. According to the Yangshao and Hongshan cultures, the earliest known evidence of the use of feng shui was in 4000 B.C., as the doors of the houses in Banpo were aligned with the asterism ‘Yingshi,’ after the winter solstice, which made it possible for the houses to absorb heat through solar gain. Also, a grave at Puyang from around the same age that contains mosaics of a Chinese star map is oriented along a north-south axis; plus, the presence of both square and round shapes in the grave and Hongshan sites seem to suggest that the gaitian cosmography existed here before appearing in the Zhoubi Suanjing text.

 

The oldest instruments used for feng shui were liuren astrolabes (also known as ‘shi’). These two-sided boards with astronomical sightlines were used to determine the position and altitude of the stars, and for divination. The earliest shi were found inside tombs between 278 B.C. and 209 B.C. Their markings are nearly identical to those found in the first magnetic compasses.

 

The magnetic compass was first invented as early as the Han Dynasty and Tang Dynasty, around 206 B.C. The traditional feng shui compass that is still used today is known as the ‘luopan,’ though even a standard modern compass can be used as long as you understand the differences. The needle points at the south magnetic pole, not the geographical one, and a practitioner uses it to determine the precise direction of a structure, place, or item. it contains many formulas and information regarding its functions.

 

Others Include.

Buddha Day (Historical Birth Date)

Dog Farting Awareness Day

Draw a Picture of a Bird Day

International Roma Day

International Romani Day

National All is Ours Day

National Dog Fighting Awareness Day

National Empanada Day

Step Into the Spotlight Day

Trading Cards for Grown-ups Day

Zoo Lovers Day

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