Monthly Archives: May 2014
HISTORY CARTOON: SUMMER SCHOOL
* Authorized Reproduction, Rex May: http://baloocartoons.com/
HISTORY TIDBIT: OTHER NAMES FOR MOUNT EVEREST
On May 29th, 1953, Edmund Hillary and Tenzing Norgay became the first people to successfully climb Mount Everest, the Himalayan mountain that stands 29,028 feet /8,847 metres above sea level and is thus considered the world’s tallest mountain. Before 1865, however, there was no Mount Everest for them to climb. Oh, it was there, but […]
HISTORIC OBSERVANCE: MEMORIAL DAY (U.S.A.)
Originally called Decoration Day because of the tradition of decorating military graves with flowers, Memorial Day honours all who died while serving in the U.S. military since the end of the Civil War in 1865. It became an official day of remembrance in 1868 and is held on the last Monday of May.
TRIVIA TRAIL: TRADITIONAL DANCE
Question: What kind of dancers wear bells and bright sashes and jump about waving handkerchiefs or banging sticks to the accompaniment of lively music? Answer: Morris dancers. This form of traditional English dance was believed to bring communities luck, prosperity, and fertility (the agricultural variety). The earliest records of it come from the fifteenth century, […]
HISTORIC CELEBRATION: VICTORIA DAY
England’s Queen Victoria was born on May 24th, 1819. In 1845, Canada (then a British colony) became the first country in the Empire to give official recognition to her birthday and is the only one that still officially celebrates it, although nowadays it is more often viewed as simply the May Long Weekend. Victoria Day […]
HISTORIC FESTIVAL: CANNES FILM FESTIVAL
In addition to being a fashionable beach resort on the French Riviera, the city of Cannes has another claim to fame – its annual film festival. Designed to be France’s answer to the Venice Film Festival, this one did not get off to a good start. France’s Minister of Education and Fine Arts, Jean Zay, […]
HISTORIC CELEBRATION: WESAK / VESAK
Held on the first full moon in May, the Buddhist festival of Wesak (also known as Vesak) celebrates the birth of the spiritual leader, Siddhartha Gautama (the Buddha), who was born in Nepal around 566 BC and abandoned the life of a prince to become a wandering holy man. On Wesak, people clean their houses, […]
HISTORIC ANIMALS: LIPIZZANER HORSES
Despite its name, the Spanish Riding School is located in Vienna, Austria. The oldest riding academy in the world comes by the ‘Spanish’ part of its name through its famous white horses. The Lipizzaner breed is descended from one that originated on Spain’s Iberian Peninsula in the sixteenth century, and is a cross mixture of […]
HISTORIC CELEBRATION: MOTHER’S DAY
Well, isn’t that nice? He’s giving his mother a tasty fish. I’ve always told my offspring, forget fish (or flowers) – I want chocolates! https://www.britannica.com/topic/Mothers-Day
Time Travelling With Kids 