Today is Monday January 17, 2011
Martin Luther King Day
This day serves to honor and commemorate the life of Martin Luther King Jr. It is also one of three federal holidays in the U.S. that celebrates an individual person.
Though it is a well-received holiday today, it took over 15 years for the government to approve Martin Luther King Jr. Day as a federal holiday. Congressman John Conyers of Michigan first introduced legislation for a commemorative holiday in King's name just four days after he was assassinated in 1968.
As Congress debated over the bill, they received petitions containing over six million signatures of support. Public pressure for the holiday reached its peak during the civil rights marches in 1982 and Congress finally passed the holiday into legislation in 1983.
Today, Martin Luther King Jr. Day is a celebrated holiday across the nation. Take the day and reflect on King's life and accomplishments and acknowledge all that he did for the Civil Rights Movement in our nation.
Today is also Hot-Buttered Rum Day & Kid Inventors' Day
This week is Cuckoo Dancing Week
"Images and text courtesy of MyPunchbowl.com" -- http://www.mypunchbowl.com/
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On this day in History:
| 1806 - James Madison Randolph, grandson of U.S. President Thomas Jefferson, was the first child born in the White House. 1912 - English explorer Robert Falcon Scott reached the South Pole. Norwegian Roald Amundsen had beaten him there by one month. 1945 - Soviet and Polish forces liberated Warsaw during World War II. 1997 - A court in Ireland granted the first divorce in the Roman Catholic country's history. 1998 - U.S. President Clinton gave his deposition in the Paula Jones sexual harassment lawsuit against him. He was the first U.S. President to testify as a defendant in a criminal or civil lawsuit. |
Quote of the Day:
"The only true happiness comes from squandering ourselves for a purpose."
--William Cowper
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