Patriot's Day

Patriots Day April 19 - America had remained neutral in the war until April 6th of 1917 when President Wilson and the U.S. Congress made a declaration of war. This poster calls for the American people to get on board with the war efforts.

Political Bonus

We tend to think the people in Congress today are a bit looney, but it all started way earlier.

In 1936, Democrats took over Rhode Island’s state senate and began giving out $100 bonuses to veterans. A Republican was concerned at this liberality and quietly recommended a bonus for Sgt. Evael O.W. Tnesba of the Twelfth Machine Gun Battalion. A Democrat seconded the bill and it passed immediately, sending a ripple of laughter through the chamber.

Sensing they’d been had, the Democrats referred the bill to a committee for study. There they discovered that Evael O.W. Tnesba spelled backward is Absent W.O. Leave.

Voting Tuesday

Between 1788 and 1845, states decided their own voting dates. In 1792, a law was passed mandating that state elections be held within a 34-day period before December, so most elections took place in November. By November the harvest was finished but winter had not begun, so it made for a good time to vote.

During the late 18th and early 19th centuries, communication was slow, so results took weeks to announce, but with the advent of the railroad and telegraph, Congress decided it was time to standardize a date.

Monday was out, because it would require people to travel to the polls by buggy on the Sunday Sabbath. Wednesday was not an option, because it was market day, and farmers would not be able to make it to the polls. So it was decided that Tuesday would be the day that Americans would vote in elections.

In 1845, Congress passed a law that presidential elections would be held on the first Tuesday after the first Monday in November.

NASA

Interesting that the United States Space Agency, the National Aeronautics and Space Administration (NASA), was authorized by Congress this day in 1958 and we now witness the end of the NASA Space Program. NASA is cutting its workforce for the program from 6,700 to 1,000, who will prep the shuttles for shipment to museums. Many inventions and discoveries that touch us everyday came as byproducts from that program. NASA holds 6,300 patents.

A few of the things from NASA that you may know, such as invisible braces, scratch-resistant lenses. memory foam (like tempurpedic beds), infrared ear thermometer, athletic shoe cool insoles, long distance communications via satellite, adjustable smoke detector, lightweight cordless tools (with Black & Decker), water filters, thermal gloves and boots, LED lights, heart pump, artificial limbs, aircraft anti-icing system, enriched baby food (in over 90%), freeze drying. There are hundreds more.

Memorial Day

Memorial Day, originally called Decoration Day, is a day of remembrance for those who died in our nation's service. The preferred name for the holiday gradually changed from "Decoration Day" to "Memorial Day", which was first used in 1882.
  
Decoration Day was officially proclaimed on 5 May 1868 to honor Union and Confederate soldiers by General John Logan, national commander of the Grand Army of the Republic (an organization for Northern Civil War veterans), in his General Order No. 11, and was first observed on 30 May 1868, when flowers were placed on the graves of Union and Confederate soldiers at Arlington National Cemetery. The date was chosen because it was not the anniversary of a battle.

The holiday changed after World War 1 from honoring just those who died fighting in the Civil War to honoring Americans who died fighting in any war.

In 1971, Memorial Day was declared a federal national holiday by an act of Congress, and its observance was set on the last Monday in May.