This Day in History
February 20th
1872 – Toothpick manufacturing machine patented by Silas Noble and J.P. Cooley. And this led to, From en.wikipedia.org: “In September 2012 a world record was set in Ireland for the most toothpicks in a beard. 3,107 toothpicks were placed in Ed Cahill's beard in just under three hours.”
Mankind marches forward.
1943 – Paracutin Volcano erupts in farmer’s cornfield in Mexico. Dionisio Pulido was readying his field for planting when he heard the sound of thunder and then the ground began to shake. The ground grew to six feet in height and ash rose from a crack. From unmuseum.org: "Immediately more smoke began to rise with a hiss or whistle, loud and continuous; and there was a smell of sulfur," Pulido later told witnesses.” The volcano grew rapidly and by June the lava flow forced the town of Paracutin to evacuate. The life of the volcano was brief, by 1952 it was dormant. Because of the lava fields and ruined landscape, the villagers and farmers had to relocate. As Pulido departed he posted a sign: “This volcano is owned and operated by Dionisio Pulido.”
Not every day a volcano erupts in your cornfield, good thing he could still have some fun with it.
1962 – John Glenn orbits the earth. In the capsule Friendship 7 Glenn took three trips around the planet. He was in space 4 hours and 56 minutes. Flying 17,000 miles an hour he was the third American in space and the first to orbit the earth. At the time the U.S. was losing the space race against the Soviet Union who already had two astronauts who had circled the earth. So Glenn’s successful flight was met with relief when he splashed down into the Atlantic Ocean 800 miles southeast of Bermuda. This is from the New York Times the next day: “No flier since Lindbergh had received such a cheering welcome. Bands played. People cried with relief and joy. Mr. Glenn was invited to the White House by President John F. Kennedy and paraded up Broadway and across the land.”
It pales in comparison to what’s taking place in space now but at the time it was a tremendous achievement. I remember people looking up into the sky, thinking they might see something. I may have looked up once or twice myself.
Birthdays:
1844 – Joshua Slocum. He was the first man to sail solo around the world. Beginning in 1895, the voyage took three years. He wrote a book about his adventure entitled “Sailing Around the World Alone.” The book received rave reviews. One reviewer, Arthur Ransome, wrote "Boys who do not like this book ought to be drowned at once."
I’m not sure that’s a good way to get kids to read.
1924 – Gloria Vanderbilt. Heiress, model actress, fashion designer. Great-great granddaughter of railroad and shipping magnate Cornelius Vanderbilt. Wealthy from birth on, she remained in the limelight her whole life with well-financed ventures into the arts and fashion world and also marrying four times and dating a number of well-known men. Her date book included such luminaries as Errol Flynn, Howard Hughes and Frank Sinatra. Vanderbilt lived to age 95, dying in 2019. Newscaster Anderson Cooper is her son.
Our paths never crossed for she lived a world away from anything I ever known in my life.
1941 – Buffy Sainte-Marie. Singer, songwriter, activist. Born to Canadian Cree parents, she was adopted and raised by a Native American couple in Massachusetts. After graduating in the top ten of her class at Amherst College, she began a career in music.
Sainte-Marie played her guitar and sang in coffee houses in Toronto and New York and was friends with Joni Mitchell, Leonard Cohen and Neil Young. Buffy’s most well-known song is “Universal Soldier.” Sainte-Marie won an Academy Award for Best Original Song, “Up Where We Belong” for the movie “An Officer and a Gentleman.” She became an activist, fighting for the rights of Native people in North America. She believed that she, along with other Indians, were blacklisted and kept off the airwaves in the 1970’s. From muskatmagazine.com: “She was blacklisted by the American government for her outspoken views on the Vietnam War and Indigenous rights. “Recognizing the power of her songwriting and activism, the Lyndon Johnson and Richard Nixon administrations considered her an ‘artist to be suppressed,’ and Sainte-Marie all but disappeared from the US music industry.” In her own words she said, "I was put out of business in the United States”. In 2022 Sainte-Marie was living in Hawaii.
I was a huge fan and wondered, at the time, why I wasn’t hearing her anymore. Our paths never crossed either but her world doesn’t seem that far from mine.
Sources:
www.unmuseum.
todayinhistory.tumblr.com
https://en.wikipedia.org
https://en.wikipedia.org
muskratmagazine.com