The first World Laughter Day gathering outside of India took place in 2000 in Copenhagen, Denmark, where more than 10 000 people gathered at Town Hall Square for a "HAPPY-DEMIC". The event made it into the Guinness Book of World Records, being the largest ever gathering that laughed and bonded together its participants.
So, what are you waiting for? Join the happy-demic!
Today is also Cinco de Mayo, Cartoonists Day, Motorcycle Mass & Blessing of the Bikes Day, Childhood Stroke Awareness Day, and National Infertility Survival Day.
Here are some interesting things that happened on this day in history:
- Kublai Khan became ruler of the Mongol Empire in 1260.
- A Spanish expedition under Esteban José Martinez reached Nootka Sound and plundered a number of British ships in 1789, touching off the Nootka Sound Controversy.
- Robert Foulis, civil engineer, inventor of the world's first steam-operated fog alarm, was born in Glasgow, Scotland in 1796.
1862 - An 8000-strong French Army attacked a much smaller Mexican force of 4500 in Puebla, Mexico in 1862, yet the French were defeated: Cinco de Mayo.
- Sitting Bull led his band of Lakota into Canada in 1877 to avoid harassment by the United States Army under Colonel Nelson Miles.
- Carnegie Hall opened in New York in 1891, with Tchaikovsky as guest conductor.
- John T. Scopes was arrested for teaching evolution in Tennessee in 1925.
- Sinclair Lewis refused his Pulitzer Prize for "Arrowsmith" in 1926. He did not agree with contests where one book or author was praised over another. http://english.illinoisstate.edu/sinclairlewis/sinclair_lewis/faq/faq2.shtml
- Sylvia Fedoruk, physicist, educator, Lieutenant-Governor of Saskatchewan, was born in Canora, Saskatchewan in 1927.
- Postmaster General Frank C. Walker invented the Postal Zone System in 1943.
- The Pulitzer prize was awarded to Robert Penn Warren in 1947 for All the King's Men.
- George Arluk, Inuit artist/sculptor, was born in the Keewatin region, NWT in 1949.
- A flood of the Red River in Manitoba in 1950 killed one person, forced 100 000 Winnipeg inhabitants to flee their homes, and caused $100 million in damage.
- The voice of Vancouver's "underground" community, the weekly Georgia Straight, was first published by founder Dan McLeod in 1967.
- Willy Adams was appointed to the Senate for the Northwest Territories in 1977, becoming the first Inuit to hold a seat in Parliament.
- Masterpiece Radio Theater began broadcasting in 1979.
- Japan shut down its nuclear reactors in 2012, leaving the country without nuclear power for the first time since 1970.
Stay tuned for our next, "On This Day in History"!
Don't forget, this week is Children's Book Week! Children coming to the library dressed as their favourite character will get treats all week long!
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