February

National Heart Month -- Black History Month -- Library Lovers' Month

1 Anniversary of Greensboro, NC first lunch counter sit-in, 1960
2 Groundhog Day
Candlemas Day or Presentation of the Lord
3 Sixteenth Amendment ratified, grants Congress authority to levy income tax, 1913
6 Accession of Queen Elizabeth II, 1952
100 Billionth Crayola Crayon produced, 1996
7 First untethered space walk by Challenger astronauts, 1984
First ballet in U.S. by French danseuse Madame Francisquy Hutin in New York, 1827
8 Boy Scouts of America founded, 1910
Mardi Gras (Fat Tuesday)
9 Ash Wednesday, Lent begins
Chinese New Year – Year of the Rooster
10 First computer chess victory over human by IBM’s Deep Blue vs. Garry Kasparov,
1996
Islamic New Year, calendar date: Muharram 1, 1426
Treaty of Paris signed ending French and Indian War, 1763
11 Anniversary of Nelson Mandela’s Prison Release, 1990
14 Valentine’s Day
18 Jefferson Davis unanimously chosen president of the Confederacy, 1861
Pluto discovered, 1930
21 Presidents’ Day
23 Researchers in Scotland announce first adult animal cloning, Dolly, 1997
26 Grand Canyon National Park established 1919

Thirty days hath November,
April, June, and September;
February hath twenty-eight alone,
And all the rest have thirty-one.
-- Richard Grafton (Chronicles of England; 1562)

Blow, blow, thou winter wind,
Thou art not so unkind
As man’s ingratitude.
-- William Shakespeare (As you Like It)

Antiphanes said merrily that in a certain city the cold was so intense that words were congealed as soon as spoken, but that after some time they thawed and became audible; so that the words spoken in winter were articulated next summer.
-- Plutarch

O farmers, pray that your summers be wet and your winters clear.
-- Virgil


BIRTHDAYS

1 Langston Hughes, 1902
4 Charles Lindbergh, 1902
Rosa Lee Parks, 1913
6 Babe Ruth, 1895
7 Laura Ingalls Wilder, 1867
Charles Dickens, 1812
8 William Tecumseh Sherman, 1820
Jules Verne, 1828
11 Thomas Alva Edison, 1847
12 Charles Darwin, 1809
Abraham Lincoln, 1809
15 Galileo Galilei, 1564
19 Nicholas Copernicus, 1473
20 Ansel Adams, 1902
22 George Washington, 1732
23 W.E.B. Du Bois, 1868
George Frederick Handel, 1685
25 Pierre Auguste Renoir, 1841
26 Levi Strauss, 1829
William Frederic “Buffalo Bill” Cody, 1846
27 Henry Wadsworth Longfellow, 1807

We had a report somewhere around 4 o’clock in the afternoon before that the weather would be fine, so we thought we would try it. -- Charles Lindbergh

I had felt for a long time, that if I was ever told to get up so a white person could sit, that I would refuse to do so. -- Rosa Parks

Genius is one percent inspiration and ninety-nine percent perspiration.
-- Thomas Edison

Important principles may and must be inflexible.
-- Abraham Lincoln

But it does move! -- Galileo Galilei

The cost of liberty is less than the price of repression. -- W.E.B. Du Bois