02-08 Boy Scout Day
February 8th, 2010
Boy Scout Day:
(excerpted from http://holidayinsights.com/moreholidays/February/boyscoutday.htm)
Boy Scout Day celebrates the birthday of Scouting in America. On February 8, 1910, Chicago publisher William Dickson Boyce filed incorporation papers in the District of Columbia to create the Boy Scouts of America.
Scouting groups across the country celebrate this day. Often a cake will be served at the weekly meeting or on a campout. Scout Sunday, the Sunday nearest the 8th of February, will often be marked with a church service, followed by a pancake breakfast.
Cub Scouts and Boy Scouts offer a tremendously valuable program of life skills and values for millions of boys. It has been popular ever since Lord Baden-Powell founded Boy Scouts in the early 1900s in Great Brittain. The top award of Eagle Scout, is an accomplishment that reaps recognition, rewards, and benefits for a young man throughout his life.
Parinirvana Day:
(excerpted from http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Parinirvana_Day)
Parinirvana Day, or Nirvana Day is a Mahayana Buddhist holiday celebrated in East Asia. By some it is celebrated on 8th of February, but by most on 15th of February. It celebrates the day when the Buddha is said to have achieved Parinirvana, or complete Nirvana, upon the death of his physical body. Buddhists celebrate the death of the Buddha because they believe that since he was Enlightened, he was free from the pain of physical existence.
Passages from the Nirvana Sutra describing the Buddha’s last days of life are often read on Parinirvana Day. Other observances include meditation and visits to Buddhist temples and monasteries. Also, the day is a time to think about one’s own future death and on the deaths of loved ones. This thought process reflects the Buddhist teachings on transience.
Prešeren Day:
(excerpted from http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Prešeren_Day)
The Slovenian Cultural Holiday, known unofficially as the Prešeren Day (Slovene: Prešernov dan), is a national holiday celebrated in Slovenia marking the anniversary of the death of the poet France Prešeren on February 8, 1849. Since Prešeren is generally considered as the greatest poet in the Slovenian language, the holiday was established to honour the achievements in Slovenian culture.
The anniversary of Prešeren’s death first became a prominent date during World War II in 1942, when the so-called “cultural silence” was imposed by the Liberation front, banning all Slovenian artists from further public appearances under occupation. It was first commemorated as a holiday in 1944. It remained a public holiday during the era of the Socialist Republic of Slovenia within Yugoslavia and it was celebrated also by the Carinthian Slovenes and the Slovenians in Italy. It was marked with many cultural festivals and remembrances, with school excursions to cultural significant institutions.
In 1991, it was declared a work-free day. Many opposed this gesture, claiming it would bring to the banalisation of a holiday designed to be dedicated to cultural events. As a result, December 3, the anniversary of the poet’s birth, has also become widely celebrated as an alternative holiday. Today both days are almost equally celebrated, with no antagonism between the two, although only the Prešeren Day in February is officially recognized as a national holiday.
Clean Out Your Computer Day:
(excerpted from http://holidayinsights.com/moreholidays/February/cleancomputerday.htm)
Clean Out Your Computer Day is a day to logically review, and delete old files and programs.
Most of us add programs and files to our computer with reckless abandon. After all, computers have huge storage capacity. Many of these files and programs are forgotten over time. Overtime they clog memory and cause confusion during retrieval and use of other files. And, some may slow down your computer.
Somewhere along the way, a (most likely) computer geek or service person, created this day as an opportunity for us to remember to cleanup and delete old and unused files.
Kite Flying Day:
(excerpted from http://holidayinsights.com/moreholidays/February/kiteflyingday.htm)
Today is Kite Flying Day, a great time to go fly a kite. People have enjoyed flying kites for thousands of years. Its an ever popular activity for children, and enjoyed by many adults.
Ben Franklin was perhaps the most well known kite flyer. He flew a kite in a thunderstorm and discovered electricity. He got a charge out of flying kites!
We are amazed that Kite Flying Day is held in the middle of winter. Chances are few people in the northern areas of the country will brave the snow and cold today to go outdoors and fly a kite.
Did you know? Kites were first used by the military in ancient China over 3,000 years ago.
If the weather is good in your area, we have one thing to say to you…. Go fly a Kite!
(1837) The Senate selected Richard Mentor Johnson of Kentucky as vice president:
(excerpted from http://www.senate.gov/artandhistory/history/common/generic/VP_Richard_M_Johnson.htm)
The United States Senate elected Richard Mentor Johnson of Kentucky the nation’s ninth vice president on February 8, 1837. His selection marked the first and only time the Senate has exercised its prerogative under the U.S. Constitution’s Twelfth Amendment, which provides, “if no person have a majority, then from the two highest numbers on the list, the Senate shall choose the Vice-President.” Johnson became Martin Van Buren’s running mate after three decades in the House and Senate, a congressional career spanning the administrations of five presidents from Thomas Jefferson through Andrew Jackson. Detractors alleged, however, that he owed his nomination solely to the dubious claim that he killed the Shawnee chieftain Tecumseh in 1813 at the Battle of the Thames.
Celebrity Birthdays:
(excerpted from http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Jules_Verne)
Jules Gabriel Verne (8 February 1828 – 24 March 1905) was a French author who helped pioneer the science-fiction genre. He is best known for his novels A Journey to the Centre of the Earth (1864), From the Earth to the Moon (1865), Twenty Thousand Leagues Under the Sea (1869–1870), Around the World in Eighty Days (1873) and The Mysterious Island (1875). Verne wrote about space, air, and underwater travel before navigable aircraft and practical submarines were invented, and before any means of space travel had been devised. Consequently he is often referred to as the “Father of science fiction”, along with H. G. Wells. Verne is the second most translated author of all time, only behind Agatha Christie, with 4223 translations, according to Index Translationum. Some of his works have been made into films.
(excerpted from http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/James_Dean)
James Byron Dean (February 8, 1931 – September 30, 1955) was an American film actor. Dean’s status as a cultural icon is best embodied in the title of his most celebrated film, Rebel Without a Cause, in which he starred as troubled Los Angeles teenager Jim Stark. The other two roles that defined his star were as loner Cal Trask in East of Eden, and as the surly farmer Jett Rink in Giant. His enduring fame and popularity rests on only these three films, his entire output in a starring role. His death at an early age cemented his legendary status.
He was the first actor to receive a posthumous Academy Award nomination for Best Actor and remains the only person to have two posthumous acting nominations. In 1999, the American Film Institute ranked Dean the 18th best male movie star on their AFI’s 100 Years…100 Stars list.
