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November 26 is National Cake Day

Today is National Cake Day. One of the most delicious things ever invented, cake has earned every one of the fifteen holidaysNational Cake Day dedicated to different variations. Whet your appetite with the story of how it all got started.

A Brief History of Cake

Cake dates back to ancient Egypt, where it was often flavored with nuts and honey. In Greece, it evolved into the pastry known as baklava. Ancient Romans added eggs and butter to honey-sweetened bread dough.

The Oxford English Dictionary traces the term cake back to the 13th century Old Norse word kaka. Fruitcakes and gingerbread baked in medieval Europe were dense and remained edible for several months.

Early English cakes were round, flat and hardened on both sides from being turned over during baking. Icing made of boiled sugar and egg whites was poured onto a finished cake, forming a hard glossy coating as it cooled.

Baking changed as oven reliability improved and ingredients such as refined sugar became widely available in the mid-17th century. By the mid-19th century, the use of refined white flour and baking powder instead of yeast created cake as we know it. Frostings using butter, cream and confectioner’s sugar began to replace boiled icings in the first few decades of the 20th century.

During the Great Depression, the need for easy, relatively inexpensive foods spurred the introduction of boxed cake mix. It was a hit with millions of housewives in the U.S. and soon caught on around the globe. Its popularity has endured ever since.

How to Celebrate Cake Day

That’s easy: eat some cake! Angel food, babka, Black Forest, bundt, carrot, cheesecake, chocolate, Devil’s Food, German chocolate, kugelhopf, layer, marble, panettone, Pear William, pound, red velvet, sacher torte, sponge cake, stollen, streusel, trés lêches, upside-down—the choice is up to you. Or have one of each: we’ll never tell!

Copyright 2016 Worldwide Weird Holidays

November 7 is National Notary Public Day

Today is Notary Public Day, created in 1975 to “recognize notaries for their public service and their contributions to national and international commerce.” Today’s date was selected because the first American notary public, Thomas Fugill, was appointed on November 7, 1639, by the Colony of New Haven.
notary public day

Today, nearly 4.8 million notaries public in the United States carry on the tradition of service. Let’s take a look at a few of these trusted public officials who’ve witnessed American history.

New World
When Christopher Columbus sailed in 1492, King Ferdinand of Spain sent a notary to keep track of any treasure that might be picked up by the Niña, the Pinta and the Santa Maria. When Columbus landed in the New World on October 12, 1492, notary Rodrigo de Escobedo was there to document the momentous event.

American Revolution
Thomas McKean served as Delaware’s delegate to the Continental Congress and voted to support the colonies’ bid for independence from England. He also was a notary and the last person to sign the Declaration of Independence.

Nathaniel Gorham, a Massachusetts notary and businessman, served as a delegate to the Constitutional Convention, and his signature appears alongside those of John Hancock, Alexander Hamilton and others on that historical document.

19th Century Notaries
Charles Bellinger Tate Stewart became a notary in 1841 and served in the fledgling Republic of Texas government when it declared independence from Mexico. He also designed the iconic Lone Star flag.

Another Texas notary well-known in Western folklore was the eccentric Judge Roy Bean, who founded the town of Langtry in 1882 and was notorious for holding court in a saloon he owned. He called himself the “Law West of the Pecos” and offered notary services along with ice-cold beer.

national notary public roy bean

In 1864, author Samuel Clemens, also known as Mark Twain, was appointed a notary public in Virginia City, Nevada by his brother, acting Nevada governor Orion Clemens. He resigned a few months later and left for California. Clemens later claimed he’d left town to avoid legal trouble after challenging a local man to a duel following their argument over one of Clemens’ newspaper articles.

The Civil War
The American Civil War ended in 1865 when Robert E. Lee, commanding general of the Confederate forces, surrenders at Appomattox. Lee took an amnesty oath, swearing to remain loyal to the United States and abide by its laws. C.A. Davidson, a West Virginia notary,  witnessed and certified Lee’s oath.

The document was misplaced and Lee never received a pardon or regained his citizenship. In 1975, Lee’s citizenship was posthumously restored by Congress, following the discovery of the notarized oath in State Department records.

Swearing in the President
When President Warren Harding died in 1923, Vice President Calvin Coolidge was staying with family in Vermont. Upon receiving word of Harding’s death, Coolidge took the oath of office before the nearest qualified official, his father (and notary) John.

21st Century Notaries
Many modern-day celebrities have served as notaries. Humorist writer Dave Barry became a Florida notary in 1994 to officiate a friend’s wedding. Actor Stanley Tucci and singer Jennifer Lopez also have served as notaries.

If you’d like to join them, learn how to become a notary in your state. And don’t forget to thank a notary public today.

Copyright 2016 Worldwide Weird Holidays

Columbus Day

Columbus Day might not seem to qualify as a weird holiday, but why not take a closer look?  Why do we celebrate the second Monday in October every year? How did this become a federal holiday in 1968? A Congressional Research Service report entitled Federal Holidays: Evolution and Application explains:

By commemorating Christopher Columbus’s remarkable voyage, the nation honored the courage and determination of generation after generation of immigrants seeking freedom and opportunity in America….Such a holiday would also provide “an annual reaffirmation by the American people of their faith in the future, a declaration of willingness to face with confidence the imponderables of unknown tomorrows.

christopher columbusAlthough that’s a laudable goal, most of us have outgrown the sanitized version of events we learned in school. Can we celebrate the beauty of an idea while acknowledging the ugliness beneath the surface? It’s a complex subject, worthy of impassioned debate. For our purposes, however, let’s lighten the mood and debunk a few myths about Christopher Columbus.

MYTH: Columbus set sail to prove that the world was round.

Roughly 2,000 years before Columbus’ voyage, Aristotle showed the earth’s spherical nature by pointing out the curved shadow it casts on the moon. By Columbus’ time, virtually all educated people believed that the earth was not flat.

Columbus was a self-taught man who greatly underestimated the Earth’s circumference. He also thought Europe was wider than it was and that Japan was farther from the coast of China than it was. He believed he could reach Asia by sailing west, a concept considered foolish by many—not because the Earth was flat, but because Columbus’ math was so wrong. Columbus essentially got lucky by bumping into land that, of course, wasn’t Asia.

The flat-earth myth perhaps originated with Washington Irving’s 1828 biography of Columbus; there’s no evidence of it before the book’s publication. His crew wasn’t scared of falling off the Earth. Irving’s romanticized version, however, made Columbus an enlightened hero overcoming myth and superstition and that is what became enshrined in history.

MYTH: Columbus discovered America in 1492.

The first Native Americans likely arrived in North America via a land-bridge across the Bering Sound during the last ice age, roughly 20,000 to 30,000 years ago. When Europeans arrived, there were approximately 10 million Native Americans in the area north of present-day Mexico.

If Columbus discovered America, he didn’t know it. For the rest of his life, he claimed to have landed in Asia, even though most navigators knew he hadn’t.

What Columbus “discovered” was the Bahamian archipelago and then the island that now comprises Haiti and the Dominican Republic. On subsequent voyages, he went farther south, to Central and South America. He never got close to what is now called the United States.

MYTH: Columbus did nothing of significance.

While Columbus was wrong about many things, he contributed to knowledge about trade winds, specifically the lower-latitude easterlies that blow toward the Caribbean and the higher-latitude westerlies that can blow a ship back to Western Europe. His voyages initiated the pilgrimage of Europeans to both North and South America.

News of his landing’s success spread like wildfire and set the stage for an era of European conquest. We can argue whether that was good or bad for humanity—that is, the spread of Christianity, rise of modernism, exploitation and annihilation of native cultures, and so on. But it ‘s hard to deny Columbus’ direct role in quickly and radically changing the world.

Sources:
CRS Report for Congress – senate.gov
Top 5 Misconceptions about Columbus – livescience.com
American Myths: Christopher Columbus –  teachinghistory.org

Copyright 2016 Worldwide Weird Holidays

July 14 is National Hot Dog Day

national hot dog dayToday is National Hot Dog Day, according to the National Hot Dog and Sausage Council (NHDSC), an august body created by the North American Meat Institute, which has declared July to be National Hot Dog Month.

The NHDSC serves as a clearinghouse of information about the preparation and nutritional quality of hot dogs and sausages, funded by contributions from manufacturers and their suppliers.

National Hot Dog Day was established in 1991 to coincide with the Annual Hot Dog Lunch on Capitol Hill in Washington, DC. As a result, the holiday’s date is dictated by the congressional calendar and typically occurs in the third or fourth week of July.

Because of the 2016 Republican and Democratic national conventions, the lunch was rescheduled to today. Many hot dog franchises have chosen to celebrate the holiday on July 23rd, because last year’s National Hot Dog Day fell on that date.

With the support of many holiday calendar websites, July 23rd’s observance may stick around. But hot dog lovers and NHDSC aren’t complaining. In National Hot Dog Month, does it matter?

Ten percent of all hot dogs are purchased in July, according to Janet Riley, NHDSC’s “Queen of Wien.”

Here are a few more stats:

  • In 2015, nearly 1 billion pounds of hot dogs were sold in retail stores, adding up to more than $2.5 billion in sales.
  • From Memorial Day to Labor Day, Americans consume 7 billion hot dogs. That’s 818 hot dogs eaten every second during that period.
  • The NHDSC predicts that major league ballparks will sell 18.5 million hot dogs during baseball season this year.
  • Los Angeles was last year’s top hot dog consuming city: Angelenos ate more than 34 million pounds. New York took second place, followed by Phoenix, Philadelphia, Boston, Atlanta, Detroit, Chicago, Washington, DC and Tampa.

Have a happy National Hot Dog Day!

Copyright 2016 Worldwide Weird Holidays