St. Genevieve is the patron saint of Paris, France.
Saint Geneviève led a prayer marathon in Paris that saved the city from Attila’s Huns. Attila’s army went on to Orléans, 70 miles from Paris, and was defeated. In the 14th century, some 800 years after her death, she was recognized as Paris’s patron saint.
According to Catholic Online, the Catholic Church recognizes 1,776 patron saints. First on the alphabetical list by patronage is the patron saint of Abandoned Children, Saint Jerome Emilian. The last one on the list is the patron saint of Zutphen, Nederlands, Saint Walburga.
The United States will celebrate the semiquincentennial (250th anniversary) of the 1776 signing of the Declaration of Independence on July 4, 2026.
They sure aren’t making as big a deal about it as they did in 1976 for the Bicentennial.
Maybe that’s because after seeing what the country has become after four years of a NY real estate tycoon as POTUS (and the distinct possibility that this person may stage a successful return in 2024) there’s no guarantee that the United States as we currently know it will still exist by July 4, 2026.
-“BB”-
Well, in 1974, we were going through the Watergate scandal, but yeah… not getting nearly as much play.
It’s because no-one knows what “semiquincentennial” means.
Moderating
Please keep politics out of thread games.
The Semiquincentennial is also called Sestercentennial or Quarter Millennial. https://america250.org has a countdown to the date, which as of now is 2 years, 4 months, and 6 days away.
For the American Centennial in 1876, the first official World’s Fair to ever be held on US soil was held in Philadelphia. Called the Centennial Exposition of 1876, the new inventions on display included the monorail, the typewriter, the telephone, the sewing machine, the telegraph, and Heinz Ketchup.
The official planning for the 1976 Bicentennial celebration began on July 4, 1966, when the US Congress created the American Revolution Bicentennial Commission. This group initially planned for an exposition to be held in one city, either Philadelphia or Boston. But the members couldn’t agree on either the location or the events, so after 6½ years of debate, the Commission recommended that there should not be a single event. Congress dissolved the Commission on December 11, 1973, and created the American Revolution Bicentennial Administration, which was charged with encouraging and coordinating locally sponsored events.
John Adams wrote to his wife Abigail how he imagined Independence Day would be celebrated
I am apt to believe that it will be celebrated, by succeeding Generations, as the great anniversary Festival. It ought to be commemorated, as the Day of Deliverance by solemn Acts of Devotion to God Almighty. It ought to be solemnized with Pomp and Parade, with Shews, Games, Sports, Guns, Bells, Bonfires and Illuminations from one End of this Continent to the other from this Time forward forever more.
But what day did he think was Independence Day?
The Second Day of July 1776, will be the most memorable Epocha, in the History of America.
The musical 1776 won three Tony awards in 1969: Best Musical, Best Direction of a Musical, and Best Featured Actor in a Musical.
The musical 1776 is all about the Declaration of Independence, and the musical Hamilton is all about the first U.S. Secretary of the Treasury, but there has never been a musical about the Constitutional Convention of 1787 (although I’ve long thought someone ought to write one!).
That convention ran for 4 months(!). It started on 14 May 1787 and ended on 17 September. Rhode Island did not participate in it.
Edward Jenner gave the first smallpox vaccination on 14 May 1796.
Acknowledged.
In 2016 Caitlyn Jenner became the first person to appear on the cover of the same publication (Sports Illustrated) as opposite genders, after appearing on the cover in 1976 (as Bruce Jenner).
Lebrix and Le Brix are French variations of the surname Bruce. In winemaking, brix (°Bx) is a measure of the sugar level content in grapes, must and wine and is used to indicate the degree of the grapes’ ripeness for harvest readiness.
Edward Lear is best known today for his nonsense verse, but his first book was Illustrations of the family of Psittacidæ, or parrots. Published when he was only 20, it established him as one of the finest natural history painters of his day, and he was much in demand.
A few years later, Lear’s failing eyesight made the detailed work difficult, and he switched to landscape painting. He travelled in the Mediterranean, including southern France, and published books such as Illustrated Excursions in Italy. He gave Queen Victoria lessons in painting, and the inscription on his grave reads “Landscape painter in many lands.”
(ninja’d; I was playing off “Illustrated” and had to add “France” to play off Bullitt’s post.)
With 5.1 million issues sold, the 1989 25th anniversary Swimsuit issue of Sports Illustrated magazine is the top-selling issue ever. On the cover? None other than Kathy Ireland.
Kathy Ireland, born in 1963, is 60 years old today. She’ll turn 61 in two weeks from Thursday.
