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April 13 is Scrabble Day

Today is Scrabble Day. It celebrates the birth in 1899 of Alfred Mosher Butts, inventor of the game the world knows as Scrabble.

scrabble day

Butts lost his job in the early 1930s; there wasn’t much call for an architect during the Great Depression. He worked to develop a board game that would emulate games of chance with its random choice of letters while testing the skill of its players with its elements of anagrams and crossword puzzles.

He called the game Lexiko and attempted to find a buyer, but was rejected by every company he visited. He later changed the name to Criss Cross Words and tried again but still had no luck. It seemed the game would remain a pastime for Butts, his wife—who he admitted was a better player than he—and their friends.

In 1948, he sold the rights to friend James Brunot in exchange for a small royalty on each set sold. Brunot made a couple of minor changes, tweaking the design and simplifying the rules. He renamed it Scrabble, trademarked it and set up a factory in an old schoolhouse.

He lost money until 1952 when, according to legend, a Macy’s executive played the game while on vacation and decided to sell it in the department store. Soon the orders grew too large for Brunot to fill and he sold the game to Selchow & Righter, a company that had passed on it years earlier.

Butts continued to receive royalties of about three cents per set for many years, telling a reporter, “One-third went to taxes. I gave one-third away, and the other third enabled me to have an enjoyable life.” He died on April 4, 1993, at the age of 93.

Happy Scrabble Day!

Copyright © 2017 Worldwide Weird Holidays

 

March 22 is International Talk Like William Shatner Day

international talk like william shatner day

Can’t talk…Spanx…too tight.

Today is International Talk Like William Shatner Day (ITLWSD). In 2009, Maurice LaMarche and Doug VanHorn bumped into each other on Facebook while each was attempting to have March 22nd–Shatner’s birthday—designated as ITLWSD. Though initially sworn enemies locked in a Lazarus-like battle over who’d thought of it first, the men eventually joined forces to promote the brash, percussive vocal stylings of Shatner.

If smooth jazz and slam poetry had a baby, then gave him up to be raised in a nunnery next door to the Playboy mansion, the conditions might be right to forge another Shatner-class individual. But in our opinion, it can’t be done. Shatner didn’t just break the mold: he smashed his way out and pulverized it with his pudgy newborn fists. Does any of this describe the man? Is the real Shatner somewhere in that bouquet of imagery? Who knows? That’s the mystery of Shatner. He runs too deep to plumb.

Maurice LaMarche is a voice actor known for his work on Futurama, The Simpsons, Pinky and the Brain, Team America: World Police and Frozen, among many others. If you play Six Degrees of Separation with him, you’ll be done after one. We’ve all heard his voice in something. (Take that, Kevin Bacon.) Mr. VanHorn’s personal Facebook page points out that Donald Trump looks alarmingly similar to an Oompa-Loompa. Look it up; the resemblance is astonishing.

In this inaugural video from 2009, LaMarche sets the stage with a lesson on the basics of talking like Shatner. A few days before the second annual ITLWSD, he and Kevin Pollak impersonate Shatner with lines from Sh*t My Dad Says, a short-lived sitcom.

Leonard Nimoy impersonated Shatner and his Star Trek 2 eulogy: “Of all the souls I have met in my travels, his was the most human.”

Here’s a fantastic standup Shatner bit by Pollak.  Seth MacFarlane does Shatner on Bill Maher’s show.  Watch  John Belushi as Shatner in this classic Saturday Night Live sketch.

Of course, it is his day, too, so we’ll let the birthday boy have the last word.

international talk like william shatner day

Happy birthday, William Shatner! Happy International Talk Like William Shatner Day!

Copyright © 2017 Worldwide Weird Holidays

February 26 is Levi Strauss Day

Levi Strauss dayToday is Levi Strauss Day. It celebrates the birthday on February 26, 1829, of the man who invented blue jeans with a little help from his friends.

Strauss, born Löb Strauß, grew up in Bavaria, Germany, where he, his family and his community faced discrimination because they were Jewish. They paid extra taxes and were only allowed to live in certain areas.

In 1847, after his father died of tuberculosis, 18-year-old Strauss and his mother and two sisters traveled to the U.S. and joined his two older brothers in New York City, where they had opened a dry goods business. He worked there through 1852.

He moved to San Francisco in 1853 to capitalize on the influx of miners hoping to strike it rich. The California Gold Rush, begun in 1849 after a nugget was found during construction of Sutter’s Mill, was in full swing. Levi Strauss & Company became a thriving business, selling fabric, clothing and other goods.

In 1872, Strauss received a letter from Jacob Davis, a tailor who had found a way to make pants constructed from Strauss’ sturdy cloth even more durable, by affixing metal rivets on the pockets and the fly seam. He couldn’t afford the patent application fee. Strauss covered it and they received the patent the following year.levi strauss day

Strauss never doubted their “waist overalls” would be a huge success. They offered two options: pants made of heavy “duck” canvas or blue denim. By 1911, the company phased out canvas altogether.

Why did miners overwhelmingly choose what would come to be known as blue jeans? According to Jude Stewart, author of ROY G. BIV: An Exceedingly Surprising Book About Color, it has a lot to do with the dye process.She posted on Slate, “Unlike most natural dyes that, when heated, penetrate cloth fibers directly, indigo binds externally to the cloth’s threads, coaxed by a chemical agent called a mordant.

“With each washing some of these dye molecules are stripped away, taking bits of the threads with them. The process softens rough fabrics and individualizes the color. This extreme customization––plus the fact that jeans could be ‘shrunk to fit’––made every pair a second skin.”

Historian Lynn Downey added: “Once someone had worn a pair of denim pants, experiencing its strength…and how the denim became more comfortable with every washing…he never wanted to wear duck again; because with cotton duck, you always feel like you’re wearing a tent.”

Strauss helped finance the first synagogue in San Francisco and contributed to various charities, especially those benefitting orphans. As his company grew more successful, Strauss was able to expand his generosity even further by funding many scholarships for students applying to the University of California.

Strauss brought his nephews into the company—he had no children—and groomed them to take over for him. He stayed on as president until his death on September 26, 1902, at the age of 73. The basic jeans that bear his name have changed little since.*

*You may have noticed the rivet beneath the fly is gone. According to legend, cowboys squatting near campfires got crotch burns when the metal overheated. In reality, it was eliminated due to the World War II mandate to conserve metal. The back pocket rivets were removed in the 1950s after complaints they scratched furniture.

Levi’s are arguably the most famous pants on the planet. Happy Levi Strauss Day, everybody!

Copyright © 2017 Worldwide Weird Holidays

 

February 15 is Susan B. Anthony Day

Susan B. Anthony DayToday is Susan B. Anthony DaySusan Brownell Anthony, born February 15, 1820,  was an American abolitionist and feminist who fought for women’s rights, including the right to vote, until her death in 1906.

The only weird thing about this holiday is that it is officially observed in only five states: Wisconsin, Florida, West Virginia, New York and California.

Anthony’s father believed his daughters should get a good education and sent her away to study. When she returned at age 14—women weren’t allowed to attend college—she took one of the few jobs deemed acceptable: teaching. She earned $2.50 a week while her male counterparts earned $10.00. She felt equal work deserved equal pay.

At that time, married women were required to give their wages to their husbands. Wives were property, as were their children. Any inheritance a wife received automatically belonged to her husband as well. Only single women could enter into contracts. Women, regardless of marital status, were not allowed to vote on social and political issues that affected their lives.

In 1840, Elizabeth Cady Stanton and Lucretia Mott, two women who would later become Anthony’s compatriots, were turned away and not allowed to speak against slavery at the World Anti-Slavery Convention in London — because they were women.

In 1848,  Mott, Stanton and others held a historic meeting in Seneca Falls, NY, where they issued a Declaration of Sentiments and Resolutions, detailing the disenfranchisement of women. It’s widely believed that Anthony met Stanton and Mott there.

In fact, she was not introduced to the two women until 1851. According to Lisa Tetrault, author of The Myth of Seneca Falls: Memory and the Women’s Suffrage Movement, 1848-1898, this misperception was encouraged by Anthony and Stanton to depict a unified movement, with the 1840 incident leading directly to the Seneca Falls “watershed moment” for the cause of women’s equality.

In actuality, there were many divisive issues. Some wanted to prioritize African-American male suffrage above white women’s suffrage. Splinter groups formed in support of free love, tax resistance, temperance and social purity. Many African-American women participated while also fighting to improve working conditions for freedwomen.

There’s no arguing that Susan B. Anthony was an essential part of the movement. She traveled around the country, rallying women with her rousing speeches. She was known to say, “The Constitution says, ‘We the people,’ not, ‘We the male citizens.'”

In January 1868, she and Stanton started a weekly newspaper called The Revolution in New York City. It focused primarily on women’s rights and suffrage, but also covered topics such as politics, finance and the labor movement. Its motto was “Principle, not Policy—Men, their rights and nothing more: Women, their rights and nothing less.”

Susan B Anthony Day

The Fifteenth Amendment to the U.S. Constitution was ratified on February 3, 1870. It states, “The right of citizens of the United States to vote shall not be denied or abridged by the United States or by any State on account of race, color, or previous condition of servitude.”

Although it made no mention of women, Anthony decided to vote in the 1872 presidential election, with the justification that she qualified as a “citizen” and was protected by the amendment. She and a group of other women were arrested after voting in her hometown of Rochester, NY. A trial was scheduled for early the following year.

Prior to 1878, federal courts barred criminal defendants from testifying or addressing the jury in their own trials. Before the trial, however, they were allowed to attempt to “educate” anyone who might be selected as a juror.

According to the Federal Judicial Center, “Anthony spoke in twenty-nine villages and towns of Monroe County, asking ‘Is It a Crime for a U.S. Citizen to Vote?’ When she delivered her lecture in Rochester, the county seat, a daily newspaper printed her speech in full, circulating it further.

In May, after many delays, U.S. Attorney Richard Crowley successfully petitioned to have the trial moved to a neighboring county, negating Anthony’s efforts to persuade the jury pool. She immediately drew up a schedule to visit every town she could in the month before her trial on June 17, 1783.

A jury of twelve men and Justice Ward Hunt listened to Crowley’s prosecutorial arguments for the better part of the day. Anthony’s defense attorney Henry Selden presented his case during the latter part of the afternoon.

The following day was devoted to Crowley’s recitation of the government’s case. At the end of the day, Justice Hunt declared that Anthony had knowingly violated the law and as a result, there was nothing for the jury to determine and it must return a verdict of guilty.

Selden argued for the jury’s right to decide guilt or innocence and its need to determine Anthony’s intent when voting. Hunt again told the jury it must deliver a guilty verdict and the clerk refused to allow Selden to poll the jury.

Selden returned to court the next day to file a motion for a new trial. In circuit courts, a motion was heard by the same judge whose actions had caused an attorney to file that motion. In other words, Justice Hunt would be asked to decide whether he had violated the Constitution by denying Anthony a trial by jury.

Unsurprisingly, Hunt denied the motion, stating that the right to a trial by jury “exists only in respect of a disputed fact,” and no facts were in dispute. Before sentencing her, Hunt asked Anthony if she had anything to say.

She responded with perhaps the most impassioned speech in the history of the fight for women’s rights, offering a blistering indictment of everything from the trial to male sovereignty to the responsibility to disobey unjust laws, such as those that had made it illegal to give a cup of water to a fleeing slave. (Transcript here.)

She condemned the proceedings she said “trampled under foot every vital principle of our government.” She had not received justice under “forms of law all made by men,” “failing, even, to get a trial by a jury not of my peers.”

Sentenced to pay a $100 fine and the costs of the prosecution, she swore to “never pay a dollar of your unjust penalty.” In a move calculated to preclude an appeal to a higher court, Hunt ended the trial by announcing, “Madam, the Court will not order you committed until the fine is paid.”

She continued to agitate, traveling to almost every state, speaking publicly at each stop. It’s been estimated that, in 60 years of tireless effort to win women the right to vote, she gave 75 to 100 speeches per year.  She served as president of the National American Women’s Suffrage Association (NAWSA) from 1892 to 1900 and kept battling until her death on March 13, 1906, at the age of 86.

The Nineteenth Amendment to the U.S. Constitution was ratified on August 18, 1920. It states, “The right of citizens of the United States to vote shall not be denied or abridged by the United States or by any state on account of sex.”

In 1979, the U.S. Mint introduced the Susan B. Anthony dollar, the first coin to bear the likeness of an American woman. We think she would have found it funny to be enshrined on federal money…

 Susan B. Anthony Day

…since she never paid that fine.

Copyright © 2017 Worldwide Weird Holidays