Sunday 21 September 2008

21 September - Historical Events and Special Celebrations



Gemstone of the Month

Sapphire


Flower of the Month: Aster



Nomanda’s Happy Special Day blog is a celebration of events and anniversaries that have touched our lives. If today is your special day join us in looking at a few other events that have occurred on your day. Enjoy!



Everyone likes getting presents and that’s part of what Nomanda’s blog is all about celebrating happy special days, be they birthdays or other important special events in your life, and going out and giving to or receiving presents from your loved ones. Well this day in history has been a particularly special day of generosity. It was on this day in 1621 that the obviously very generous King James of England gave Canada, yes, CANADA, to one of his mates going under the name of Sir Alexander of Sterling! Now that is a hard act to follow and I bet that the not so poor Sir Alexander spent the whole of the next months fretting what he should get the King for his birthday present! I mean how do you follow that?


Some 300 years later in a gesture of not such a magnanimous kind, on this day in 1921 Pope Benedictus XV gave a million lire to feed starving Russians. It was a few years after the revolution and I guess that things weren’t going too well for the poorer classes (so what’s new?) and maybe the good old Pope thought that there was an opportunity to rustle in a few Catholic converts with an act of generosity. Now I know we don’t have Italian lire any more as they’ve all been replaced by the Euro but I can remember that you didn’t get a lot of pounds for your lire. The approximate last rate of exchange I can remember is that there were around 2,000 lire to the pound sterling. Now if you do the maths 1 million lire works out at about £500 which I’m sure didn’t go very far even back in 1921 to “feed” a starving Russian population! The latest population figures for Russia in July 2007 were estimated at, wait for this for an accurate “estimate”, 141,377,752. Now my calculator only goes to 4 decimal places and I can’t get a result, I just get a line of zeros when I apply the sterling conversion per head. However, if you go back to the lire maths the donation of the Catholic Church to the starving people of Russia works out at roughly 0.70 lire per head. That will not butter a lot of parsnips! I doubt if it would even buy one string of spaghetti per head! Pretty empty gesture all in all!


Talking of empty gestures it was on this day in 1966 that Jimmy Hendrix changed his name to Jimi Hendrix! Spot the difference! He was a great musician and I suppose as long as he though it made a difference it doesn’t really matter!



Our birthday celebrities today start with the guy who made our roads what they are today, John Loudon McAdam (1756 – 1836). He was a Scottish engineer and road builder and if it wasn’t for him we’d still all be running around on old dirt cart tracks!




Disregarding the cart tracks and climbing up Mount Fuji at the ripe old age of 99 gets the Japanese Teiichi Igarishi (1886) a mention in our birthday honours! What an achievement!


Renowned better for his back stabbing and climbing over opponents’ faces the actor Larry Hagman (1931) will be donning his cowboy boots at his Ho Down today. He got his just desserts in “Dallas” but despite being shot “JR” is still going strong today!


The quieter of the Gallagher boys, Liam (1972) will be celebrating his birthday in the traditional manner today, and why not! Great voice, pity about the brother! Let’s hear from them!




Happy Special Day to one and all!!


If you know someone who is celebrating their birthday, anniversary or a special day today or sometime soon why not send them a nice e-card so they get it as soon as they log on! Even better, why not send this page to your friend!
Don’t know what to get for a present? Think about what your special person enjoys doing and the things they like.


For Girls, I know that flowers and chocolates are a bit cliché but nevertheless they always seem to work! Of course, if your budget stretches that far, jewellery, watches, perfume and fashion items are always appreciated!

For Boys, all boys like toys! It’s just as they get older the toys get more expensive. So gadgets and gimmicky things work. Again, if you have the budget then car accessories, sporting equipment and clothes, and man type jewellery like watches and gold chains will go down very well!

And, if all else fails, you could always send them a gift voucher and they can choose whatever they want!

If you are celebrating a birthday, anniversary or other special event today I hope you got lots of cards and presents and that there is someone special in your life who will make this day a very happy and special day for you.



Happy celebrations to you from the Happy Special Day Blog!!


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