Music

19
Aug
2024

Must be MONDAY

Today is St. Stephen’s Day, a public holiday in Hungary. It is also known as Foundation Day and Constitution Day. This is the official state holiday of Hungary. This is a ‘bridge day’ allowing a four day holiday including the official St. Stephen’s Day on the 20th.

St. Stephen of Hungary (Szent István király) was the first king of Hungary and he laid the foundation of the state by converting the Magyar people to Christianity.

After a serious military loss in 955 AD, Hungarian tribal leaders decided to abandon their nomadic existence. Stephen, the Grand Prince of the Hungarians, realized that conversion to Christianity would be a way of strengthening the idea of Hungarian nationhood.

St. Stephen’s Day may be called “the day of the new bread” as it is a tradition to cut bread on this day to celebrate the arrival of the harvest.

Stephen received the “Sacred Crown” from Pope Sylvester II becoming Hungary’s first king on Christmas Day in 1000 AD, ruling until his death on August 15th 1038. Stephen was buried next to his son, Imre in St. Mary’s Church in Székesfehérvár. His remains were later transferred to Buda. His Holy Crown has survived the centuries since and it is now Hungary’s most precious treasure.

August 20th was first celebrated in 1092, when another saint king, Ladislaus I declared it a sacred day.

Until 1687, August 20th was St. Stephen’s feast day and thus became Hungary’s national day, even after the feast day itself has switched around in the calendar a few times. August 20th has been a national holiday since 1771 when Queen Maria Theresia changed it from a church feast to an official national holiday. 

In 1945 Communist leaders prohibited celebrations due to its religious nature and in 1950 it was changed to Constitution Day. It was reinstated as a celebration of St. Stephen in 1990 by the Hungarian Parliament.

Today is the birthday, in 1940, of American singer-songwriter Johnny Nash, who had the 1972 US No.1 single ‘I Can See Clearly Now’, and the 1975 UK No.1 single ‘Tears On My Pillow’. Nash died of natural causes on 6 October 2020 age 80. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=LDNKOblg3gs

Posted by Tom in Humor, Music, sixties and seventies
16
Aug
2024

It is the dawning of FRIDAY!!!!

Today is Restoration Day, a public holiday in Dominican Republic. Known in Spanish as ‘el día de la Restauración Dominicana’, this holiday commemorates the start of the Dominican Restoration War on this day in 1863.In 1844, the Dominican Republic had regained independence from Haiti.

For political and economic reasons, Pedro Santana, the then President of the Dominican Republic signed a pact with Spain in 1861 to revert the status of the Dominican Republic to that of a colony of Spain.

The move led almost immediately to a failed rebellion and Santana realised his decision to impose Spanish rule had reduced his power, and he resigned in January 1862.

On August 16th 1863, 15 men under the leadership of Santiago Rodríguez made a daring raid from the city of Dajabon and raised the Dominican flag on the Capotillo hill. This action, known as the ‘grito de Capotillo’, was the beginning of the Dominican Restoration War which was fought until 1865 between nationalist Dominicans and Spain.

The war ended when a decree of Queen Isabel II of Spain, on March 3rd 1865, repealed the Dominican Republic’s reinstatement to the Spanish Monarchy. The last Spanish troops left on July 15th 1865.

School starts soon!!

Today is the birthday, in 1972, of Emily Robison, singer-songwriter with The Chicks. With sales of 27.2 million albums in the US alone, they have become one of the top-selling all-female bands and biggest selling country groups in America. Robinson also formed Court Yard Hounds with her sister and fellow Chicks member, Martie Maguire. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Gw7gNf_9njs

Posted by Tom in eighties music, Humor, Music
14
Aug
2024

Could be WEDNESDAY, but…

Today is Independence Day, a public holiday in Pakistan. On this day in 1947, Pakistan gained independence from British rule. Pakistan had been part of the colony of India since the 18th century, firstly as part of the East India Company and then as part of the British Indian Empire.

In 1946, Britain, exhausted by World War II, realized that it had neither the mandate at home, the support internationally, nor the reliability of the British Indian Army for continuing to control an increasingly restless British India. plans began to end British rule.

the Indian National Congress, being a secular party, demanded a single state. The All India Muslim League, who disagreed with the idea of single state, stressed the idea of a separate Pakistan as an alternative. On 3 June 1947, the British government announced that the principle of division of British India into two independent states was accepted.

The partition was accompanied by violent riots and mass casualties, and the displacement of nearly 15 million people due to religious violence across the subcontinent; millions of Muslim, Sikh and Hindu refugees trekked the newly drawn borders to Pakistan and India respectively in the months surrounding independence.

On 14 August 1947, the new Dominion of Pakistan became independent and Muhammad Ali Jinnah was sworn in as its first governor general in Karachi.

Sometimes we find irony in the wild

Today is the birthday, in 1941, of American singer-songwriter and guitarist David Crosby, a founding member of both the Byrds and Crosby, Stills & Nash. With CS&N he had the 1969 UK No.17 single ‘Marrakesh Express’, 1970 US No.11 single with Crosby, Stills Nash & Young plus the 1970 US No.1 album ‘Deja Vu’ and the 1975 US No. 6 solo album ‘Wind On The Water’. Crosby died on 18 January 2023 age 81. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=iuLBhxZUkmU

Posted by Tom in Humor, Music, sixties and seventies
13
Aug
2024

just TUESDAY

Today is Independence Day, a public holiday in the Central African Republic. This is the National Day of the Central African Republic (CAR)CAR is a state in the heart of the African continent with a territory of about 622,400 square km and a population of 4.6 million people.

According to the UN, the republic is among the least developed countries in Africa in socio-economic terms, however, the country has rich deposits of uranium, oil, gold and diamonds. This country’s inland location meant that it didn’t have the first wave of contact with Europeans as they rounded the coast of Africa looking for a passageway to India.

The isolation ended with the arrival of the slave trade with some local tribes becoming suppliers to the Europeans and Arab traders. The slave trade depopulated large parts of the region and shattered the sophisticated societies that had developed. To compound the chaos, at the end of the 19th century, the region couldn’t escape the so-called ‘Scramble for Africa’ as France, Germany, and Belgium all vied for control of the land.

Already controlling large swathes of surrounding Africa, the French won out and in 1894, set up a dependency called Ubangi-Shari. In 1910, Ubangi-Shari became part of the Federation of French Equatorial Africa. The history of Ubangi-Shari then runs along similar lines to the other French colonies with the French imposing and abusing harsh labour laws to exact the cost of maintaining their expensive overseas colonies

After the end of the second world war, Ubangi-Shari reached a nationalist milestone when Barthelemy Boganda, founder of the pro-independence Social Evolution Movement of Black Africa, became the first Central African to be elected to the French parliament.

The French constitutional referendum of September 1958 dissolved the French Equatorial Africa, and on December 1st of the same year the Assembly declared the birth of the autonomous Central African Republic.

Boganda died in 1959, and just one later on August 13th 1960, Ubangi-Shari gained its independence becoming the Central African Republic, with David Dacko, nephew of Boganda, as its president.

Uh oh…

BADA BING!!!!!

Cyclists repeatedly fail Captcha tests after failing to identify images with traffic lights.

I live in constant fear of being asked to share a ‘fun fact about me’.

Chicken lips went to HR and complained. Now we can’t use nicknames at work anymore.

One minute you’re young and having fun, and the next, you’re putting on your glasses to hear better.

My body’s ‘check engine light’ is on, but I’m still driving it around like, ‘nah, it’ll be okay’.

I have a mental illness that makes me think that people will change their minds if I present them with the correct facts and data.

Life is short. Make sure you spend as much time as possible on the internet arguing with strangers.

People at the front door: Have you found Jesus? Resident: WTF, you lost him again?! Next time use bigger nails!

Tim Walz is the guy who mows your lawn when you break your leg. JD Vance is the guy who reports your overgrown lawn to the HOA.

Don’t block all of your haters. Leave one or two so they can report back to headquarters.

Do you think Pavlov thought about feeding his dog every time he heard a bell ring?

I didn’t mean to gain all this weight. It happened by snaccident.

On this day in 1964, The Supremes recorded ‘Baby Love’, written and produced by Motown’s main production team Holland–Dozier–Holland, the song went on to be the group’s first UK No.1 and second US chart-topper. It was also the second of five Supremes songs in a row to go to No.1 in the United States. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=9_y6nFjoVp4

Posted by Tom in Humor, Music, sixties and seventies
12
Aug
2024

MONDAY…’nuf said

Today is Victory Day, a public holiday in Rhode Island, observed on the second Monday of August. It commemorates the end of second world war when Japan’s surrender was announced on August 14th 1945.

Days after the US dropped atomic bombs on two Japanese cities, Hiroshima and Nagasaki, Imperial Japan surrendered bringing World War II to an end. The announcement of the surrender was made by the Japanese in the afternoon of August 15th 1945, though due to time differences it was received when it was still August 14th in the US. The official surrender ceremony took place on September 2nd 1945 on the deck of the battleship USS Missouri.

In 1946, President Harry S. Truman declared 14th August as Victory Day. Victory Day was established in Rhode Island by lawmakers in the spring of 1948, three years after World War II ended when the General Assembly passed a bill sponsored by Rep. Richard Windsor, a long-serving East Providence Republican.

New York observed V-J Day a few times in the late 1940s, and in 1949, Arkansas adopted a new state holiday – “World War II Memorial Day”. Arkansas dropped this holiday in 1955, leaving Rhode Island as the only state that marks the end of World War II with a legal holiday.

Rhode Island’s continuation of this holiday is said to have been reinforced due to the high number of veterans who retired to the state. Indeed, residents of the state suffered a higher proportion of war deaths than nearly any other state. It is also a state with strong union representation, so once a holiday made it onto the state list it is difficult to drop it.

Today is the birthday, in 1949, of Mark Knopfler British songwriter, guitarist, singer with Dire Straits who had the 1985 US No.1 single ‘Money For Nothing’, the 1986 UK No.2 single ‘Walk Of Life’, and the 1985 world-wide No.1 album Brothers In Arms. Knopfler has recorded and performed with many prominent musicians, including Chet Atkins, Eric Clapton, Bob Dylan, Bryan Ferry, Emmylou Harris, Van Morrison, Steely Dan, Sting, and James Taylor. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=wTP2RUD_cL0

Posted by Tom in eighties music, Humor, Music