Victoria Day commemorates the May 24, 1819, birthday of Britain’s Queen Victoria (who since has had a whole era named for her—the Victorian era). The British have always celebrated the birthday of the ruling monarch. After Queen Victoria’s death in 1901, the people of Canada continued to mark her birthday to show loyalty to the British Empire. In the early 1890s, this day was known as Empire’s Day. In 1947, the name was changed to Commonwealth Day. Today it is again known as Victoria Day, and it is a legal holiday in all Canadian provinces except Quebec.
Daily Calendar for Monday, May 23, 2022
Question of the Day
Advice of the Day
Bigger is not necessarily better and going faster is not necessarily progress.
Home Hint of the Day
A square of asphalt shingles will cover 100 square feet of surface. Three bundles of asphalt shingles (each containing twenty-two 3-foot-long shingles) make up a square.
Word of the Day
To catch a crab
In rowing when a stroke of the oar either misses the water or digs too deeply.
Puzzle of the Day
What day of the week do chickens hate most?
Fry day.
Died
- Captain William Kidd (hanged in London) –
- John D. Rockerfeller (entrepreneur) –
- Sam Snead (golfer) –
- Anne Meara (actress) –
- Eric Carle (children’s book author, most notably The Very Hungry Caterpillar) –
Born
- Carolus Linnaeus (botanist) –
- Douglas Fairbanks (actor) –
- John Bardeen (physicist) –
- Artie Shaw (bandleader) –
- Rosemary Clooney (singer) –
- Barbara Barrie (actress) –
- Joan Collins (actress) –
- Robert Moog (inventor) –
- Drew Carey (actor; host of The Price is Right) –
- Mitch Albom (author) –
- Ken Jennings (won 74 straight games on Jeopardy! game show in 2004) –
- Jewel (musician) –
Events
- Benjamin Franklin created his own pair of bifocals–
- South Carolina was admitted to the Union as the 8th state–
- Explorer William Clark: Water freeses [sic] on the oars” in what is now Montana”–
- North-West Mounted Police formed (now Royal Canadian Mounted Police)–
- New York Public Library in New York City is established–
- Townsend-Purnell Plant Patent Act became the first in the United States to grant patent protection to plant breeders–
- Actor Errol Flynn appeared on the cover of LIFE Magazine–
- Queen Juliana of the Netherlands laid the cornerstone of the tower housing the Netherlands Centennial Carillon in Victoria, British Columbia–
- Five people were killed, when a large part of the roof of a new terminal collapsed at Paris’ Charles de Gaulle Airport in France–
- Hugh Laurie was knighted by Queen Elizabeth II at Buckingham Palace–
Weather
- Folks were sleighing in Farmington, Maine–
- Late season snowstorm blanketed eastern Iowa with 4 to 6 inches of snow–