Gung Hay Fat Choy!

"Best wishes and congratulations. Have a prosperous and good year."

Also called the Spring Festival, this is China's major traditional holiday and is one of the most popular festivals in China and in other parts of Southeast Asia, including Vietnam where New Year's Day is called "Tet", Malaysia, Taiwan, and of course, Hong Kong. It is also known as the Lunar New Year.

Photo by sanxki (Flickr)

Year of the Rabbit
Is this Year of the Rabbit your Lucky Year? If you want to know more, check out Chinese Astrology.

See Photos of Chinese New Year 2011

Suffragist Jeannette Rankin's Birthday

Jeannette Rankin

Courageous pacifist and suffragist Jeannette Pickering Rankin (1880 - 1973) was born on June 11 in Missoula, Montana. Rankin opened the way for women in politics and for the movement for peace.

Jeannette Rankin was a woman ahead of her time. The first woman elected to the U.S. Congress in 1916, she was Montana's representative in Congress. She was the first woman in the House of Representatives before women in other states even had the right to vote.

"What one decides to do in crisis depends on one's philosophy of life, and that philosophy cannot be changed by an incident. If one hasn't any philosophy in crises, others make the decision." ~Jeanette Rankin

Rankin was the only member to vote against declaring war on Japan in 1941 after the attack on Pearl Harbor.

I would love to know what you think. Don't forget to leave a comment!

Read more about Rankin
Click here

Want to know more about women in history?
Click Here for Women's History

See more June Holidays and Celebrations


Image Jeannette Pickering Rankin By U.S. Congress [Public domain], via Wikimedia Commons

Edited 6/22/16

Happy St. Patrick's Day

For a few hours each year, millions of Irish and non-Irish commemorate the life of a 1500-year-old saint in a boisterous display of parading and revelry, festooned in the shamrock and emerald green.

There are over 34 million Irish Americans living in the U.S., making St. Patrick's Day one of the most widely celebrated holidays in America.

The obvious ways to celebrate St. Patty’s Day in Kansas City is to start with breakfast at Brown's Irish Market, head over to the St. Patrick's Day Parade, followed by lunch and more at Kelly’s Westport Inn, located in the heart of Westport, or to an Irish Pub like O'Dowds Little Dublin.

How will you celebrate Pi Day?

For most of the world, today is March 14th, or 3/14. To most, that date doesn't have any special meaning. But to math nerds, it means today is Pi Day!

There are a large variety of ways of celebrating Pi Day and most of them include eating pie and discussing the relevance of π.

Jim Stingl writes:
"Math geeks and calendar freaks collide today. Pi is 3.14, and the date is 3/14."

By the way, today is also Albert Einstein's birthday.

I'll get you started on pi: 3.141592653589793. The mathematical constant goes on without any repeating patterns right into infinity...

Read more of Stingl's article Geometry fans rejoice - it's Pi Day

Check out EducationalRap.com’s Pi Day Rap page, including quite a few Pi rap songs you can listen to. Lines like “If I’m buyin’ rims for a car – circumference – hey, yo, 2 Pi r…”

Also, TeachPi.org has a Pi music page with downloadable lyrics to several songs.

Leave a comment and tell me what is your favorite thing about Pi?

Learn more about Pi Day from Wikipedia.

Image Pi Pie at Delft University 
Public Domain

updated 3/122/17

Elephant and Dog Best Friends

CBS News' Steve Hartman visits an animal sanctuary where a dog and an elephant have formed a very lasting, and unusual, friendship.



Edited 2/27/15