May 6 - International No Diet Day

International No Diet Diet was created by Mary Evans Young - director of the British group "Diet Breakers" - in 1992. After personally experiencing anorexia, she worked to help people appreciate themselves for what they are, and to appreciate the body they have.

The first International No Diet Day was celebrated in the UK in 1992. International No Diet Day is an annual celebration of body acceptance, including "fat acceptance" and body shape diversity. This day is dedicated to promoting a healthy lifestyle, with a focus on health at any size, while raising awareness of the potential dangers of dieting and its unlikelihood of success.

The Institution of Medicine states, "Those who complete weight loss programs lose approximately 10 percent of their body weight, only to regain two-thirds within a year, and almost all of it within five years."

Since 1998, the International Size Acceptance Association and the National Organisation for Women have sponsored similar days: International Size Acceptance Day on April 24th, and and Love Your Body Day in the fall.

Today is also Melanoma Monday, National No Homework Day, Joseph Brackett Day, and National RN Recognition Day.

Here are some interesting things that happened on this day in history:

- Louis XIV of France moved his court to Versailles in 1682.

- Charles Douglas arrived at Québec with a British relief force in 1776, causing the Americans to abandon the siege of Québec.
- Haiti, under Toussaint L'Ouverture, revolted against France in 1794.
- John Deere made the 1st steel plow in 1833.

- Wyatt Eaton, portrait, genre and landscape painter, illustrator, founding member of the American Art Association and the Society of Canadian Artists, was born in Philipsburg, Québec in 1849.
- Dr. John Gorrie patented a "refrigeration machine" in 1851.
- Thomas Henry Burke and Lord Frederick Cavendish were stabbed and killed during the Phoenix Park Murders in Dublin in 1882.
- The Yukon Field Force, consisting of 203 volunteers, left Vancouver for Dawson in 1898 to maintain order during the Klondike Gold Rush.
- Sherlock Holmes began his "Adventure of Shoscombe Old Place" in 1902.
- The British House of Lords rejected women suffrage in 1914.
- John Steinbeck received the Pulitzer prize in 1940 for Grapes of Wrath.
- The last broadcast of "I Love Lucy" on CBS-TV happened in 1957.
- Also in 1957, the Pulitzer prize was awarded to John F. Kennedy for Profiles in Courage.
- The Canada Council announced R. Murray Schafer as the first recipient of the Glenn Gould Prize in Music and Communication in 1987.

- During a trip to Syria in 2001, Pope John Paul II became the first pope to enter a mosque.
- The season finale of the sitcom Friends aired in 2004.

Check out what happened last week in science:

Stay tuned for our next, "On This Day in History"!

May 5 - World Laughter Day

 

World Laughter Day - always the first Sunday in May - was created in 1998 by D. Madan Kataria, founder of the worldwide Laughter Yoga Movement. World Laughter Day is celebrated with the intention of building up global consciousness of brotherhood and friendship through laughter; the hope that for at least one day, the world will be at peace.

The first World Laughter Day gathering occurred in Mumbai, India in 1998, when 12 000 members of local and international laughter clubs joined together in a mega laughter celebration.

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!

May 4 - Intergalactic Star Wars Day

Star Wars fans know this day as the "May Fourth Movement", an anti-imperialist, cultural, and political movement, and a major theme of the original films.

In 2005, George Lucas was asked so say the famous line, "May the Force be with you" during an interview with German news TV channel N24. The interpreter relayed it as "Am 4. Mai sind wir bei Inhen" - translated to, "On May 4 we are with you". This was captured by TV Total and aired on May 18, 2005. Since then, "May the Fourth be with you" has trended amongst fans everywhere.

Today is also Free Comic Book Day, International Firefighters Day, International Space Day, International Respect for Chickens Day, National Scrapbooking Day, and World Give Day!

Here are some interesting things that happened on this day in history:

- The American Academy of Arts & Science was founded in 1780.
- The territory of Assiniboia was transferred to the Hudson's Bay Company by Lord Selkirk's family in 1836.
- The phonograph was shown for the 1st time at the Grand Opera House in 1878.
- Franklin Carmichael, painter, founding member of the Group of Seven, was born in Orillia, Ontario in 1890.
- The first prospectors arrived in Portland Canal, from Seattle in 1898. The first gold stakes were claimed the following year, which ultimately led to the establishment of the town of Stewart, BC.
- Tel Aviv was founded in 1910.
- Also in 1910, the Canadian Navy began as the Canadian Naval Service when the Naval Service Act was passed in. Canada has sent over 850 warships to sea since its creation.

- The Battle of Coral Sea begun in 1942, the 1st sea battle fought solely in the air.
- The Pulitzer prize was awarded to Ernest Hemingway in 1953 for Old Man & The Sea.
- Kathy Kreiner, alpine skier, who won Canada's only 1976 Olympic gold medal in the giant slalom, was born in Timmins, Ontario in 1957.
- During the night, the worst landslide in Quebec’s history destroyed 40 houses in the small city of Saint-Jean-Vianney, Saquenay in 1971. 31 died, and hundreds were left homeless.

Stay tuned for our next, "On This Day in History"!

Greatest Books of All Time Week 14

Greatest Books of All Time
Week 14

100 Greatest Books
of All Time.

What is your favourite book of all time? Cast your vote by commenting here at the bottom of this post, posting a note on our facebook page or adding it to our in-house ballot box.

This week's nominees: 

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Curious_George_%28book%29

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Atlas_shrugged

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Animal_farm

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Once_Upon_a_Time_%28novel_series%29

 http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Harry_Potter_and_the_Prisoner_of_Azkaban

 

 

Each Friday we will tabulate the votes and post them on our
Facebook, Twitter and Blog accounts.

One vote per visit please.

The final Top 100 will be announced at the end of December.

 Still in the Lead...

The Stand
by Stephen King

 http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Stand

May 3 - World Press Freedom Day

 

The United Nations General Assembly declared May 3rd to be World Press Freedom Day to raise awareness of the importance of freedom of the press, and to remind governments of their duty to respect and uphold the right to freedom of expression enshrined under Article 19 of the Universal Declaration of Human Rights, and marking the anniversary of the Declaration of Windhoek, a statement of free press principles put together by African newspaper journalists in 1991.

 

In 1997, the UNESCO/Guillermo Cano World Press Freedom Prize was created to honour a deserving individual, organization, or institution that has made an outstanding contribution to the defense and/or promotion of press freedom anywhere in the world, especially when this has been achieved in the face of danger. The prize is named in honour of Guillermo Cano Isaza, a Colombian journalist whose writings had offended Columbia's powerful drug barons; he was assassinated in front of the offices of his newspaper, El Espectador in Bogota on December 17, 1986.

Guillermo Cano Isaza 

World Press Freedom Day serves as an occasion to inform citizens of violations of press freedom - a reminder that in dozens of countries around the world, publications are censored, fined, suspended, and closed down, while journalists, editors, and publishers are harassed, attacked, detained, and even murdered. World Press Freedom Day is a day to encourage and develop initiatives in favour of press freedom, and to assess the state of press freedom worldwide.

Learn more about this year's themes and events here: http://www.unesco.org/new/en/unesco/events/prizes-and-celebrations/celebrations/international-days/world-press-freedom-day/2013-themes/

Today is also Garden Mediation Day, Hug Your Cat Day, Lumpy Rug Day, National Two Different Coloured Shoes Day, No Pants Day, Public Radio Day, and Tuba Day!

Here are some interesting things that happened on this day in history:

- Jamaica was discovered by Columbus in 1494; he named it "St Iago".
- The Constitution of May 3 (the first modern constitution in Europe) was proclaimed by the Sejm of Polish-Lithuanian Commonwealth in 1791.
- Francisco Goya's painting, "Executions of Third of May 1808".

- The University of Athens was founded in 1837.
- An explosion and fire at a Nanaimo, BC coal mine killed 150 men in 1887, the worst mining disaster in BC history.
- Johan "John" Helders, one of Canada's leading fine-art photographers of his time, was born in Rhenen, Netherlands in 1888.
- John McCrae of Guelph, Ontario, wrote the famous poem In Flanders Fields in 1915. It was composed in 20 minutes at Ypres and first published in December 1915 in the English magazine Punch.

- Léopold Simoneau, tenor, teacher, administrator, widely regarded as the most elegant Mozart tenor of his time, noted for his clear and precise tone, was born in St-Flavien in 1916.
- Prince Edward Island women won the rights to vote and to hold provincial office in 1922.
- New York Yankee Joe DiMaggio made his major-league debut in 1936, getting 3 hits.
- Margaret Mitchell won a Pulitzer Prize for "Gone With the Wind" in 1937.

- Upton Sinclaire won a Pulitzer prize for Dragon's Teeth in 1943.
- London's Royal Festival Hall opened in 1951.
- The Anne Frank House opened in Amsterdam in 1960.
- Margaret Thatcher became the 1st female Prime Minister of Great Britain in 1979.

- The sport of geocaching began in 2000, with the first cache placed and the coordinates from a GPS posted on Usenet.
- The United States lost its seat on the U.N. Human Rights Commission in 2001, for the first time since the commission was formed in 1947.

Stay tuned for our next, "On This Day in History"!

May 2 - Hudson's Bay Company Day.

On this day in history in 1670, Charles II granted a charter to Prince Rupert and his "Company of Adventurers of England trading into Hudson's Bay". The charter granted the company a monopoly of trade in the Bay, and ownership of all lands drained by rivers flowing into the Bay.

In its 1st century of operations, the Hudson's Bay Company became firmly ensconced in a few forts and posts around the shores of the James and Hudson Bays. Natives bartered furs for manufactured goods: knives, kettles, beads, needles, blankets, etc. Late into the 18th century, competition forced HBC to expand into the interior. A string of posts grew along the great river networks of the west, foreshadowing the modern cities that would succeed them: Calgary, Edmonton, and Winnipeg.

 

In 1821, the Hudson's Bay Company merged with its most successful rival, the North West Company based in Montreal. As a result, the merged commercial enterprise spanned the continent.

The Hudson's Bay Company rose to retail and diversification, focusing on department stores and the like (Zellers, The Bay, Home Outfitters).

In July of 2008, after a series of changes of ownership, the company was eventually acquired by the American private equity firm, NRDC Equity Partners.

Today is also Martin Z. Mollusk Day, National Day of Prayer, and  (in rebuttal) National Day of Reason!

Here are some interesting things that happened on this day in history:

- John Cabot departed to North-America in 1497.
- Adam Dollard des Ormeaux, with 16 Frenchmen and 44 Hurons and Algonquins, held an Iroquois war party at bay for days before capitulating in 1660; all the French defenders were killed.
- William Herschel discovered the 1st binary star, Xi Ursae Majoris, in 1780.
- Étienne Parent, journalist, who revived Le Canadien, giving it its famous motto: "Our institutions, our language and our laws," was born in Beauport, Lower Canada in 1802.

- The Canada Committee, a British parliamentary committee, was established in 1828 to settle political disputes that were paralysing government in Lower Canada and creating difficulties in Upper Canada.
- Czar Nicolas banned the public sale of "serfs" in 1833.
- Canadians under Colonel William Otter attacked the Cree camp near Cut Knife Hill in 1885, but were forced to withdraw.
- Hannibal W. Goodwin patented celluloid photographic film in 1887.
- "Take me out to the Ball Game" was registered for copyright in 1908.
- William deWitt Hutt, actor, director, first recipient of the Governor General's Award for Lifetime Achievement in the Canadian Theatre, was born in Toronto in 1920.

- The National Film Act created the National Film Board in 1939, headed by Scots film producer John Grierson. The NFB pioneered developments in social documentary, animation, documentary drama and direct cinema. Its films have won hundreds of international awards.

- The "Battle of Alcatraz" took place in 1946, killing two guards and three inmates.
- Arthur Miller won a Pulitzer Prize for "Death of a Salesman" in 1949.
- Tennessee Williams won a Pulitzer Price for Cat on Hot Tin Roof in 1955.
- Northern Dancer became the first Canadian horse to win the Kentucky Derby in 1964.

- The federal government and Trans-Canada Telephone Systems concluded an agreement to form Telesat Canada in 1969, for the development of communications satellites.
- Also in 1969, the British liner Queen Elizabeth II departed on its maiden voyage to New York.
- Expo 86 at Vancouver, BC, was opened by the Prince and Princess of Wales. It ran to 13 October 1986 and had 20 million visitors.
- Interim leader Michael Ignatieff became the official leader of the Liberal Party during the party's leadership convention in Vancouver, BC in 2009. He had been appointed acting leader on 10 Dec 2008, replacing Stéphane Dion.
- Osama bin Laden, the suspected mastermind behind the September 11 attacks and the FBI's most wanted man, was killed by the United States special forces in Abbottabad, Pakistan in 2011.

Stay tuned for our next, "On This Day in History"!

May 1 - Global Love Day

Global Love Day - founded by Harold W. Becker - was first launched in December of 2004, celebrating on May 1, 2004. The purpose of this global event is to acknowledge, celebrate, and share the love everyone has within them. It is a special day of recalling that love is the link that binds everyone together; it is the "awesome power that heals and transforms everything it contacts".

Here's a short video made by the Love Foundation about this event: http://www.youtube.com/watch?feature=player_embedded&v=HT3YaVvSh7A

Share your love with the world!

Today is also Batman Day, Mother Goose Day, Lei Day, National Bubba Day, School Principals' Day, and Stepmother's Day!

Here are some interesting things that happened on this day in history:

- A supernova was observed by Chinese & Egyptians in the constellation Lupus in 1006.
- The first stone was laid for Nôtre-Dame-des-Victoires, the oldest surviving church in Canada, in Place Royal, Québec in 1688.

- England, Wales & Scotland formed the United Kingdom of Great Britain in 1707.
- The Quebec Act took effect in 1775, enlarging Quebec’s boundaries and the freedoms of its French inhabitants.
- Adam Weishaupt founded the "secret society" of Illuminati in 1776.
- Kamehameha, the king of Hawaiʻi,  defeated Kalanikupule and established the Kingdom of Hawaiʻi in 1785
- Governor Sir James Henry Craig recommended to the British Parliament that the constitution be suspended and Upper and Lower Canada reunited in 1810, a recommendation that was reiterated in Lord Durham’s 1839 report.
- Emily Stowe, first Canadian woman to practise medicine, was born in Norwich, Upper Canada (now Ontario) in 1831.

- Sir Pierre-Amand Landry, lawyer, politician, judge, first New Brunswick Acadian Cabinet minister and Supreme Court judge, and the only knighted Acadian, born in Memramcook, New Brunswick in 1846.
- Amsterdam began transferring drinking water out of the dunes in 1854.
- Sir Charles Tupper became Prime Minister of Canada in 1896, succeeding Mackenzie Bowell.

- The Beverly Hills Hotel opened in 1912.
- Mount Kelud (Indonesia) erupted in 1919, boiling Crater Lake which broke through crater wall killing 5,000 people in 104 small villages.
- Two thousand workers in Edmonton and Calgary went on strike (known as the "Sympathy Strike") from May 1, 1919 to December 1, 1919 in support of the strikers in the Winnipeg General Strike.

- Radio station CJCA made its first broadcast in Edmonton, Alberta in 1922.
- British coal-miners went on strike in 1926.
- Canada's 1st silver dollar circulated in 1935.
- Batman comics hit the street in 1939.
- General Mills introduced Cheerios in 1941.

- Gwendolyn Brooks became the 1st black person awarded a Pulitzer Prize in 1950 for her poetry.

- In 1961, Fidel Castro announced there would be no more elections in Cuba.
- Also in 1961, the Pulitzer prize was awarded to Harper Lee for "To Kill a Mockingbird".
- Elvis Presley wed Priscilla Beaulieu in Las Vegas in 1967.
- The Dominion Bureau of Statistics became Statistics Canada in 1971.
- In 1972, the Supreme Court ruled that compulsory breath tests did not breach the Bill of Rights.
- Shirley Carr replaced Dennis McDermott as president of the Canadian Union of Public Employees in 1986, the first woman to hold the position.

- In 1997, the water crested on the worst flood since 1950 in southern Manitoba. The new floodway and 6.5 million sand bags protected Winnipeg but a number of other communities were inundated.

- Writer Nicole Brossard won the $50,000 Canada Council Molson Prize in 2006 for her contribution to the cultural and intellectual heritage of Canada.
- Same-sex marriage was legalized in Sweden in 2009.

Stay tuned for our next, "On This Day in History"!