Maybe you never heard of Ole Kirk Christiansen, but you’ve handled thousands of his inventions and seen the smash hit The Lego Movie, so this is your day too, NATIONAL LEGO DAY! Ole Kirk Christiansen (April 7, 1891 – March 11, 1958) was a maker of wooden toys […]
Read more →No, he didn’t invent the flush toilet, as is often claimed. Worse. It was the ballcock he invented, making today NATIONAL CRAPPER DAY! As in Thomas Crapper, master plumber and proprietor of Thomas Crapper & Company in London, England, a brass foundry and plumbing supply operation. Crapper […]
Read more →Today we salute the Land Down Under. 233 years ago today, on January 26, 1788, a British fleet entered Sydney Cove in what is now New South Wales, Australia, and Captain John Hunter declared it a great place to build a futuristic opera house someday, making today […]
Read more →Whatever you do, do not celebrate today’s National Day or wish anyone a happy holiday, both of which would defeat the purpose of NATIONAL OPPOSITE DAY! There’s no one way to uncelebrate Opposite Day. You can go with the George Costanza approach, who told women the exact […]
Read more →They called it the “Gold Rush of ’49,” but it really started 173 years ago today, on January 24, 1848, when a huge gold ingot was found by James W. Marshall at Sutter’s Mill, in the American River near Caloma, California. John Sutter was trying to build […]
Read more →He wasn’t an insurance man, but a wealthy Boston merchant and community leader who, along with his childhood friend John Adams, came of age at a time of increasing conflict with the British Crown, with Boston as the center of revolutionary thought, making today NATIONAL JOHN HANCOCK […]
Read more →This comes at a good time for much of the United States, currently buried in a frosty coating of The Most Wonderful Time of The Year on NATIONAL GO FOR A SLEIGH RIDE DAY! Too bad there’s so few horse-drawn sleighs around on days like today, knee deep […]
Read more →It wasn’t the Great American Novel, or even a very popular American novel, but “The Power of Sympathy” by William Hill Brown was the first American novel, published by Isaiah Thomas in Boston on January 21, 1789, making today NATIONAL GREAT AMERICAN NOVEL DAY! With a subtitle like […]
Read more →If America always acted like America should, we wouldn’t need them, but, like any other great idea, there are kinks to be worked out, and wrongs to be righted. There are people who make it their jobs to ensure that America acts like America to everybody, and […]
Read more →Once upon a midnight dreary in Boston Massachusetts, actress Elizabeth Poe went into labor, and on January 19, 1809, America’s favorite Dark Traveler was born, and so we celebrate NATIONAL EDGAR ALLEN POE DAY! When Edgar Poe was a year old, his actor father David Poe, Jr. […]
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