The Lunar New Year is often celebrated with parades, family gatherings, red envelopes, and (sometimes enthusiastically) the lighting of firecrackers for days afterward. Both the animal sign and the element of your birth year are said to influence your personality and destiny. This year’s elemental sign is Fire — so we are celebrating the Year of the Fire Horse.
According to a Chinese legend, Nüwa is the goddess who created the world. She created certain animals on different days, hence each day is considered the birthday of the corresponding animal.
The spirit of the Horse is often associated with vitality and perseverance — qualities long admired in Chinese culture. The Horse symbolizes energy, intelligence, and an outgoing nature. Extremely animated, Horses thrive when they are the center of attention. Always in search of a good time, they keep crowds entertained with humor and quick wit.
In traditional Chinese culture, an especially talented person might be described as a “Qianli Ma” — literally, a horse that can travel a thousand li in a single day. (One li equals roughly 500 meters.) It’s high praise indeed.
Bon temps roulez, mes amis - It's Mardi Gras!
No one needs to disrobe, it's much too cold, we've got plenty of beads, (unless you like to disrobe in public and then, it's between you and your maker.)
Today is also know as Shrove Tuesday or Pancake Day, which heralds the beginning of fasting in Lent. On this day (so the historians say) there were feasts of pancakes to use up the supplies of fat, butter and eggs... foods that were forbidden during austere Lent. The word 'shrove' is the past tense of the English verb 'shrive' which means to obtain absolution for one's sins by way of confession and doing penance.
In England there are several celebrations on this day but perhaps the best known one is the Pancake Day Race at Olney in Buckinghamshire which has been held since 1445.
The race came about when a woman cooking pancakes heard the shriving bell summoning her to confession. She ran to church wearing her apron and still holding her frying pan, and thus without knowing it, started a tradition that has lasted for over five hundred years.
Keep flipping them pancakes!
Today is Random Acts of Kindness Day, the name of an unofficial holiday increasingly celebrated around the world by localities or organizations, or nationwide, in order to encourage acts of kindness.
Then immediately go back to your usually ornery self.
February 17, 1965 -
You are going to be a star.
Joan Rivers made her first guest appearances on The Tonight Show starring Johnny Carson on NBC-TV on this date.
February 17, 1967 -
The Beatles released Penny Lane and Strawberry Fields Forever on this date.
These songs were intended for Sgt. Pepper's Lonely Hearts Club Band, but Capitol Records decided to release the two songs as a single, partly to regain popularity from John Lennon's "The Beatles are bigger than Jesus" comment.
February 17, 1971 -
On this day, Boston native James Taylor made his primetime television debut on the Johnny Cash Show.
Other guest on the show that evening included Neil Young and Linda Ronstadt.
February 17, 1984 -
The Herb Ross musical drama Footloose, starring Kevin Bacon (the guy everyone is six degrees seperated from,) Lori Singer, Dianne Wiest, and John Lithgow, premiered in the US on this date.
During the filming of 3rd Rock from the Sun: Dr. Solomon's Traveling Alien Show, one of the characters playing a circus strongman took John Lithgow aside to share a personal story with him. He confided that he was from a small town in Louisiana where his own father, a Baptist minister, would not allow the kids dance or listen to rock 'n' roll music. When he saw Footloose he explained that Lithgow's 'reverend' was the epitome of his own father. After he brought his father to see the film, without any warning of its plot, his father was so touched by Lithgow's performance, the man said that he was the first of 6 children that were permitted to attend their high school prom.
February 17, 1989 -
The cinematic masterpiece Bill And Ted's Excellent Adventure starring Keanu Reeves and Alex Winter opened in theaters on this date.
In the film, Bill and Ted claim that they need Edward Van Halen in their band to make it better. After the film was released, he jokingly said he would have joined their band if they had asked.
February 17, 1990 -
We are all not worthy - Aerosmith appeared on Saturday Night Live on this date.
They performed the Wayne's World theme song while appearing in the skit as themselves.
February 17, 1995 -
Paramount Pictures heard America cry out that they needed to see The Brady Bunch Movie, directed by Betty Thomas and starring Shelley Long, Gary Cole and Michael McKean and released it in the US on this date.
As he heads off to his business meeting, Carol Brady tells her husband, Mike, to "Go get 'em, Tiger", and then wonders to herself "Tiger, Tiger: what ever happened to that dog?" This is one of many inside jokes about the show. Tiger was the name of the Bradys' dog in the TV series. But, after the first two seasons, the dog simply disappeared without explanation. The original Tiger was actually killed by a truck off-set during the first season. A trained look-a-like dog was brought in to replace him but he had a poor temperament and could not remain focused. Tiger was written off the show after appearing in just eleven episodes and no mention was ever made of what happened to him. However, his dog house was left in the back yard for the remainder of the series.
February 17, 2011 -
Welcome our new computer overlords - IBM's Watson computer beats Jeopardy's best contestants ever, Ken Jennings and Brad Rutter, on this date.
The researchers acknowledged that Watson had benefited from something they called the “buzzer factor.” Both Mr. Jennings and Mr. Rutter are accomplished at anticipating the light that signals it is possible to “buzz in,” and can sometimes get in with virtually zero lag time. The danger is to buzz too early, in which case the contestant is penalized and “locked out” for roughly a quarter of a second. Watson, on the other hand, does not anticipate the light, but has a weighted scheme that allows it, when it is highly confident, to hit the buzzer in as little as 10 milliseconds, making it very hard for humans to beat. When it was less confident, it took longer to buzz in. In the second round, Watson beat the others to the buzzer in 24 out of 30 Double Jeopardy questions.
February 17, 1997 -
Mike Nesmith directed himself and the other original Monkees in Hey, Hey, It's the Monkees, a one-hour comedy special which premiered on ABC, on this date.
The special assumes the Monkees have been living in their beach house all the years since the series ended and have continued having adventures. This one is episode number 781 - A Lizard Sunning Itself On A Rock.
Today's moment of Zen
February 17, 1600 -
Roman philosopher and mathematician Giordano Bruno was burned at the stake at Campo di Fiore in Rome, likely because of his advocating the theory that the Earth revolves around the Sun.
His death at the hands of Roman Inquisition is thought to have convinced Galileo to recant his own theory of a moving Earth. The people living around the Palatine Hills always expected the Roman Inquisition.
Celebrated French dramatist and comedian Moliere collapsed on stage and died on February 17, 1673. It is said that he was wearing green, and because of that, there is a superstition that green brings bad luck to actors. As an actor, he was not allowed by the laws of the time to be buried in the sacred ground of a cemetery.
His wife Armande asked the King Louis XIV to allow a "normal" funeral celebrated at night. The king agreed, and Moliere was buried in a part of the cemetery reserved for unbaptized infants. In some accounts of his death, it is said that over 800 people attended his "secret" funeral.
February 17, 1869 –
The dream that changed the world - Dmitri Mendeleev began creating what we now call The Periodic Table.
On the night of February 16, 1869, it is said, Dmitri Mendeleev, Russian Chemist and owner of the wildest beard east of Vienna, had a dream in which he saw almost all of the 65 known elements arrayed in a grand table. The following morning, he set to work organizing the elements on blank cards.
He carried on for three days and nights, continually arranging and rearranging the cards in various sequences until he noticed a pattern in the elements in order of increasing atomic mass; their properties were repeated. Because the properties repeated themselves regularly, or periodically, on his chart, the system became known as the periodic table.
A bomb exploded in the dining room of St. Petersburg's Winter Palace on February 17, 1880. Tsar Alexander II survived. Being late for supper, the Tsar was not harmed, although 67 other people were killed or wounded. The dining room floor was also heavily damaged.
February 17, 1904 -
The original two-act version Madama Butterfly by Giacomo Puccini, premiered on this date.
It did not go so well, lasting just one performance. One critic refereed to the performance as a "diabetic opera, the result of an automobile accident." Puccini revised the opera, splitting the second act into two acts and making other changes. On May 28, 1904, the new version was performed in Brescia and was a huge success.
February 17, 1933 -
The first issue of the weekly news magazine, Newsweek, was published on this date.
February 17, 1958 -
Pope Pius XII declared Saint Clare of Assisi (1193 - 1253), the patron saint of television, on this date.
February 17, 1994 -
The decomposing corpse of Zviad Gamsakhurdia, first president of the Republic of Georgia, was exhumed from a temporary grave in Djikhaskari on this date. His wife refused an autopsy, but western journalists noted a bullet wound in the side of Zviad's head. Officially listed as suicide, the wife also claims he was murdered. Another government minister oddly states the death was by cancer with the head shot administered post-mortem.
And so it goes
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