Today is...

[IceWizard]

14 May 2017


MOTHER’S DAY



Mother’s Day is a holiday honoring motherhood that is observed in different forms throughout the world. The American incarnation of Mother’s Day was created by Anna Jarvis in 1908 and became an official U.S. holiday in 1914. Jarvis would later denounce the holiday’s commercialization and spent the latter part of her life trying to remove it from the calendar. While dates and celebrations vary, Mother’s Day most commonly falls on the second Sunday in May and traditionally involves presenting mothers with flowers, cards and other gifts.

HISTORY OF MOTHER’S DAY

Celebrations of mothers and motherhood can be traced back to the ancient Greeks and Romans, who held festivals in honor of the mother goddesses Rhea and Cybele, but the clearest modern precedent for Mother’s Day is the early Christian festival known as “Mothering Sunday.”

Once a major tradition in the United Kingdom and parts of Europe, this celebration fell on the fourth Sunday in Lent and was originally seen as a time when the faithful would return to their “mother church”—the main church in the vicinity of their home—for a special service.

Over time the Mothering Sunday tradition shifted into a more secular holiday, and children would present their mothers with flowers and other tokens of appreciation. This custom eventually faded in popularity before merging with the American Mother’s Day in the 1930s and 1940s.

More phone calls are made on Mother’s Day than any other day of the year. These holiday chats with Mom often cause phone traffic to spike by as much as 37 percent.

ANN REEVES JARVIS AND JULIA WARD HOWE

The origins of Mother’s Day as celebrated in the United States date back to the 19th century. In the years before the Civil War, Ann Reeves Jarvis of West Virginia helped start “Mothers’ Day Work Clubs” to teach local women how to properly care for their children.

These clubs later became a unifying force in a region of the country still divided over the Civil War. In 1868 Jarvis organized “Mothers’ Friendship Day,” at which mothers gathered with former Union and Confederate soldiers to promote reconciliation.

Another precursor to Mother’s Day came from the abolitionist and suffragette Julia Ward Howe. In 1870 Howe wrote the “Mother’s Day Proclamation,” a call to action that asked mothers to unite in promoting world peace. In 1873 Howe campaigned for a “Mother’s Peace Day” to be celebrated every June 2.

Other early Mother’s Day pioneers include Juliet Calhoun Blakely, a temperance activist who inspired a local Mother’s Day in Albion, Michigan, in the 1870s. The duo of Mary Towles Sasseen and Frank Hering, meanwhile, both worked to organize a Mothers’ Day in the late 19th and early 20th centuries. Some have even called Hering “the father of Mothers’ Day.”

ANNA JARVIS

The official Mother’s Day holiday arose in the 1900s as a result of the efforts of Anna Jarvis, daughter of Ann Reeves Jarvis. Following her mother’s 1905 death, Anna Jarvis conceived of Mother’s Day as a way of honoring the sacrifices mothers made for their children.

After gaining financial backing from a Philadelphia department store owner named John Wanamaker, in May 1908 she organized the first official Mother’s Day celebration at a Methodist church in Grafton, West Virginia. That same day also saw thousands of people attend a Mother’s Day event at one of Wanamaker’s retail stores in Philadelphia.

Following the success of her first Mother’s Day, Jarvis—who remained unmarried and childless her whole life—resolved to see her holiday added to the national calendar. Arguing that American holidays were biased toward male achievements, she started a massive letter writing campaign to newspapers and prominent politicians urging the adoption of a special day honoring motherhood.

By 1912 many states, towns and churches had adopted Mother’s Day as an annual holiday, and Jarvis had established the Mother’s Day International Association to help promote her cause. Her persistence paid off in 1914 when President Woodrow Wilson signed a measure officially establishing the second Sunday in May as Mother’s Day.

JARVIS DECRIES COMMERCIALIZED MOTHER’S DAY

Anna Jarvis had originally conceived of Mother’s Day as a day of personal celebration between mothers and families. Her version of the day involved wearing a white carnation as a badge and visiting one’s mother or attending church services. But once Mother’s Day became a national holiday, it was not long before florists, card companies and other merchants capitalized on its popularity.

While Jarvis had initially worked with the floral industry to help raise Mother’s Day’s profile, by 1920 she had become disgusted with how the holiday had been commercialized. She outwardly denounced the transformation and urged people to stop buying Mother’s Day flowers, cards and candies.

Jarvis eventually resorted to an open campaign against Mother’s Day profiteers, speaking out against confectioners, florists and even charities. She also launched countless lawsuits against groups that had used the name “Mother’s Day,” eventually spending most of her personal wealth in legal fees. By the time of her death in 1948 Jarvis had disowned the holiday altogether, and even actively lobbied the government to see it removed from the American calendar.

MOTHER’S DAY AROUND THE WORLD

While versions of Mother’s Day are celebrated worldwide, traditions vary depending on the country. In Thailand, for example, Mother’s Day is always celebrated in August on the birthday of the current queen, Sirikit.

Another alternate observance of Mother’s Day can be found in Ethiopia, where families gather each fall to sing songs and eat a large feast as part of Antrosht, a multi-day celebration honoring motherhood.

In the United States, Mother’s Day continues to be celebrated by presenting mothers and other women with gifts and flowers, and it has become one of the biggest holidays for consumer spending. Families also celebrate by giving mothers a day off from activities like cooking or other household chores.

At times, Mother’s Day has also been a date for launching political or feminist causes. In 1968 Coretta Scott King, wife of Martin Luther King Jr., used Mother’s Day to host a march in support of underprivileged women and children. In the 1970s women’s groups also used the holiday as a time to highlight the need for equal rights and access to childcare.




And




National Chicken Dance Day



We’ve all seen it, it’s utterly ridiculous and usually performed in a bout of intoxicant driven lunacy. You tuck your hands into your arm-pits to make ‘wings’, and then you flap like an idiot in time with some particularly unfortunate music. All that aside, you’re having complete giggle fits with a bunch of your friends while you behave in a fashion that has the local sanitarium eyeballing you for membership. What are we talking about? The Chicken Dance of course! Chicken Dance Day commemorates this dance and its origins, and even gives you a chance to learn WHY anyone would do this terrible, terrible thing.

History of Chicken Dance Day

“Der Ententanz” was the name of the song that inspired all of this, and while the dance has come to be called “The Chicken Dance”, the song itself is called The Duck Dance. At least that was its original name, and now it has spread all over the world, undergoing multiple name changes in the process. It has been known as everything from The Little Bird Dance to De Vogeltjesdans, or “The dance of the little birds.”

This rendition was actually the B-Side of a single released by a band called “De Electornica’s”. The A-Side simply wasn’t being well received by the radio stations audiences, so they flipped it over. At that moment, history was made and it rocketed to the Dutch charts and stayed there for nearly a year. So much has its popularity exploded that it has been recorded in no less than 140 versions with over 40,000,000 records published over its lifetime.

In 1981 the dance brought to Oktoberfest in the United States, and due to a complete lack of duck costumes anywhere near the event, they had to settle for chicken costumes instead. The result of which is the name by which it is now known. The song responsible gets new covers done almost every year, with new lyrics added all the time.

That’s right, there’s lyrics. You’re welcome.

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May 14 Birthdays



George Lucas - 73




Mark Zuckerberg - 33




David Byrne - 65




Jack Bruce - (1943 - 2014) (71)




IceWizard - ????









May 14th

2004: Phil Spector and his chauffer were arrested in Los Angeles after getting into a scuffle over their “business relationship”.

2002: Chuck Berry, Bo Diddley & Little Richard were honored with the inaugural BMI ICON Awards at the BMI’s 50th Annual Pop Awards in Beverly Hills.

1993: At Christie’s Rock and Pop Memorabilia auction in London, four costumes worn by Kiss sold for $26,000 & the guitar that Elvis Presley used to record “That’s All Right” & “Blue Moon of Kentucky” sold for $152,000.

1988: Atlantic Records’ 40th anniversary party at Madison Square Garden saw the surviving members of Led Zeppelin reunited with Jason Bonham on drums. Other acts performing include Foreigner, Crosby, Stills & Nash, Genesis & Emerson, Lake & Palmer.

1977: Heart released their second album Little Queen which went on to peak at number nine on the Billboard 200 Album Chart & sell three million copies in the U.S.

1976: Keith Relf, former lead singer for the Yardbirds was electrocuted while tuning his guitar in his bathtub. He was 33 years old.

1969: Neil Young released his second solo album Everybody Knows This is Nowhere, his first album with backing band Crazy Horse. The songs “Cinnamon Girl”, “Down by the River” and “Cowgirl in the Sand” were written when Young had a 103 degree fever.

1968: John Lennon & Paul McCartney appeared on The Tonight Show to announce the formation of Apple Corps, that they just returned from India for meditation and that The Beatles would begin recording The White Album when they returned to the U.K.

1956: Buddy Holly got fitted for contact lenses. He didn’t like them & he stuck with his trademark glasses.



Birthdays:

Jack Bruce - Bassist for Cream born in 1943

David Byrne - Vocalist & guitarist for Talking Heads born in 1952