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Beans ‘n’ Franks Day

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Today is Beans ‘n’ Franks Day. July is National Hot Dog Month. July 14 is National Hot Dog Day. We’ve no idea when hot dogs and baked beans were first combined.

The 500th birthday of the frankfurter was celebrated in Frankfurt, Germany, in 1987. Citizens of Vienna (Wien), Austria, dispute Frankfurt’s claim, citing their city’s name as proof the wiener was invented there.

The dish known as baked beans is of unknown provenance. In most recipes, then as now, beans were stewed, not baked. It was one of the first canned convenience foods, eaten by soldiers during the American Civil War.

Somewhere along the way, franks were added to the beans. It was a match made in culinary heaven. Whether you enjoy them separately or together, have a happy Beans ‘n’ Franks Day!

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National Simplicity Day

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national simplicity dayJuly 12, 2025, is the 208th anniversary of author and consummate liar Henry David Thoreau’s birth. His name is held in high regard, and his work evokes a fondness and nostalgia in readers and inspirational-quote-mongers.

Thoreau’s account of his retreat into nature and the wisdom it brought him is largely fictional. At Worldwide Weird Holidays, we’re okay with that. We ask only that publishers stop classifying this stuff as memoir. Call it a novel.

Then maybe we can all stop trying to live up to an impossible standard that he didn’t even try to reach. Any pompous ass can say profound things when his mom’s on the way over to cook dinner.

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National Simplicity Day honors the birthday, on July 12, 1817, of Henry David Thoreau, author, ersatz ascetic, armchair philosopher, and navel-gazing misanthrope.

Thoreau famously went to live in a cabin in the woods, the better to ponder life without the inconvenience of other people and the irritations of everyday, well, life.

In Walden, or, Life in the Woods, he wrote, “I frequently tramped eight or ten miles through the deepest snow to keep an appointment with a beechtree, or a yellow birch, or an old acquaintance among the pines.”

Thoreau certainly could turn a phrase; many of them clog the arteries of inspirational sites and satisfy the sweet tooth of quote-mongers who reverently offer them up on posters, mousepads, and coffee mugs.

He neglected to mention that the area was always bustling with people. A commuter train passed nearby. He hosted parties. He lived a twenty-minute walk from his parents’ house and made the trip several times a week to enjoy his mother’s cooking.

The man who advised his readers to eat only one meal a day to avoid indulging base appetites was visited by his mother and sisters at least once a week to bring him food, tidy up the cabin, and clean his laundry.

Let’s be clear. We don’t fault the man for entertaining, eating well, and having the women in his family help him. The problem is that he wrote as if he were roughing it in the middle of nowhere, with no one but the trees and forest creatures for company. He then used that fictitious narrative to promote an ideology he never practiced.

If Thoreau couldn’t or wouldn’t “unplug” in the 1850s, how can we expect his philosophy to succeed for us today? And who says we should even try? After all, the Unabomber actually lived in a cabin by himself for many years, and his manifesto included instructions for living off the grid. Upon further investigation, we found that he also received support from his family.

Exhortations to simplify one’s life can be helpful, but they often mask disdain and smug superiority. Thoreau reminds us of the intrepid explorer in a documentary, ostensibly forging a path that was trodden moments before by the cameraman walking backward in front of him.

Have a happy National Simplicity Day! But if you can’t keep it simple, don’t worry – you’re in good company.

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July 8 is the Soapy Smith Wake

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Today is the 43rd annual Soapy Smith Wake. Since 1974, descendants of con man Jefferson “Soapy” Smith have held an annual wake for him on the anniversary of his murder in Skagway, Alaska, on July 8, 1898.

soapy smith's wake

Soapy Smith, image at legendsofamerica

Jefferson Smith lived to prove the axiom, “A fool and his money are soon parted.” He gained his nickname due to his prize soap scam, in which he’d set up a display of soaps, make a show of placing bills from one to one hundred dollars around several bars, wrap them to resemble the other bars, then appear to hide them in the stack.

A shill he’d plant in the crowd would pay a dollar, unwrap a seemingly random soap, pull out a bill, and start shouting about his winnings. This convinced others to clamor to buy the other bars. There were no more winners. Smith had used sleight of hand of hand to conceal the fact that he had not put the money-wrapped bars in the pile. Halfway through, he announced the hundred-dollar bill hadn’t yet been found and auctioned off the remainder.

At some point in Smith’s mostly successful twenty-year career, Smith was arrested for running the prize soap racket. The police officer forgot Smith’s first name and wrote “Soapy Smith” in his logbook. The name stuck.

Smith’s luck came to an end on July 8, 1898, after his crew bilked a miner out of a sack of gold in a crooked game of three-card monte. Four men, including vigilante Frank H. Reid, confronted Smith, who refused to return the gold or turn over his associates. In the ensuing gunfight, Smith and Reid exchanged fire. Smith was shot through the heart and died instantly; Reid, shot in the groin, died twelve days later of his injuries.

Soapy Smith, dead, image at legendsofamerica

Soapy Smith was buried several yards outside the Skagway city cemetery. Over the years, his reputation grew to that of a Klondike-style Robin Hood, fleecing the rich to give to the poor. There’s no evidence he did anything but line his own pockets and those of the public servants and businessmen he bribed.

Reid was painted as a villain who murdered Smith. If we assume the two men shot each other—and there are those who question that—then Smith must have shot Reid first, since he couldn’t have fired after being shot through the heart. Unless the gun went off as he was falling, but then we’re getting into grassy knoll territory.

On July 8, 1974, members of Smith’s family and their friends began the tradition of holding a wake at his gravesite, toasting him with several bottles of champagne. When the group felt nature calling, they started another tradition by entering the cemetery proper and relieving themselves on Frank H. Reid’s grave.

A reporter present at the wake dubbed it the “sprinkling of Frank.” The Smiths and many residents found it humorous at the time. The family continued to furnish champagne for years until the wake was finally banned from the cemetery and moved to the Eagles Hall in downtown Skagway.

If you can’t make it to Skagway to celebrate, The Magic Castle in Hollywood, California, has held a Soapy Smith Party every year since 2004. No matter where you are, raise a glass, if you like, and toast the cantankerous, thieving criminal known as Soapy Smith. And if you have to pee, please use a restroom.

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Nettie Stevens Day

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nettie stevens day

Nettie Stevens

Nettie Stevens Day celebrates the scientist who discovered XX and XY chromosomes determine sex. But few know of her contributions because the credit went to a man — who got it wrong.

Nettie Stevens studied mealworms and found that a male’s sperm carried both X and Y chromosomes, while a female’s eggs contained only X chromosomes. She concluded that sex determination must come from fertilization of the egg by the sperm. In 1905, she submitted a paper for publication, reporting her results.

Meanwhile, Columbia University scientist Edmund Beecher Wilson had reached the same conclusion, sort of. He was asked to review Stevens’ paper prior to its publication; his own paper had reportedly already gone to press, negating any possibility of dishonesty.

Historian Stephen Brush disputes the timeline in The History of Science Society: “It is generally stated that E. B. Wilson obtained the same results as Stevens, at the same time,” he writes. But “Wilson probably did not arrive at his conclusion on sex determination until after he had seen Stevens’ results.”

In fact, Wilson wrongly asserted that environmental factors could influence sex. Stevens insisted it was all due to chromosomes. At the time, there was no way to prove either theory. However, it has been known for decades that Stevens got it right. That should render the question of who published first irrelevant.

In spite of that, Wilson and Stevens were credited with making the fully correct discovery independently.  Wilson received the lion’s share of accolades while Stevens was often mistakenly referred to as a “lab technician.”  Brush states, “Because of Wilson’s more substantial contributions in other areas, he tends to be given most of the credit for this discovery.”

The fact that Nettie Stevens had two X chromosomes certainly contributed to the lack of recognition. Her own accomplishments refute Brush’s assertion. She published 40 papers and was about to attain full research status at Bryn Mawr when she died of breast cancer on May 4, 1912, at the age of 50.

She — and Wilson, too — have been all but forgotten since then. In 1933, fellow scientist Thomas H. Morgan received the Nobel Prize for his pioneering work in chromosomal research, even though he didn’t espouse the theory until years after Stevens and Wilson had published their papers.

Stevens once remarked to her students that their questions were always welcome “so long as I keep my enthusiasm for biology; and that, I hope, will be as long as I live.”

Let’s remember Nettie Stevens today. And tomorrow and the next day….

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