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Happy Valentine Day
Today is, of course, Valentines Day. Credit is traditionally given to Pope Gelasius for declaring February 14 as Saint Valentine’s Day around the year 496 to separate the church from the Roman celebration of Lupercalia, an ancient pagan fertility festival which occurred on February 15th. Who knows what today might be like had he stuck with the pagan fertility festival. We might be getting a wee bit more than chocolates (or giving a wee bit more)
It is also National Donor Day, sometimes referred to as National Organ Donor Day. Observed each year on February 14th, National Donor Day (also known as National Organ Donor Day) is a day to increase awareness about organ donation and the lives that can be saved. In the United States, more than 120,000 people are waiting for a life-saving organ donation.
National Donor Day focuses on five different types of donations: Organs – Tissues – Marrow – Platelets – Blood. Many nonprofit health organizations sponsor blood and marrow drives and organ/tissue sign-ups across the nation. Approximately every two seconds, there is someone in the U.S. who needs blood, which translates to the need for over 41,000 daily donations. I'm pretty sure organs can be donated on a deferred basis. The others in real time. A great idea to consider.
National Ferris Wheel Day
Finally, it's also National Ferris Wheel Day. This unofficial national holiday is held on this day to honor the birth of the inventor of the Ferris Wheel, George Washington Gale Ferris, Jr.
Preparations for the 1893 World’s Columbian Exposition began in earnest in 1891. Director of works for the fair, Daniel H. Burnham, laid out the challenge: create a centerpiece to the show that would rival the Eiffel Tower in Paris.
Erected the year before, the Eiffel Tower was quickly becoming a world attraction. Ideas were tossed about, plans presented and plans rejected. George Washington Gale Ferris was inspired. He contemplated several ideas, but it wasn’t until one evening in a Chicago chophouse that he struck on an idea that could fit the challenge. After sketching out the design on napkins, he proceeded to develop his plans.
When presented with the concept Burnham balked, doubting it could safely carry people to such heights. Ferris persisted. Spending $25,000 of his own money, he paid for safety studies, obtained $600,000 more from investors, hired engineers and built the 250-foot diameter wheel and hoisted it up between 140-foot twin towers.
It was a colossal success at 26 stories tall and making a whopping $726,805.50. In 1893, that was a hefty profit for the fair.
Despite the wheel’s success, Ferris struggled after the fair. Lawsuits over who owed who bankrupt him. His wife left him. Then in 1896, a few short years after the fair, he died at the age of 37 of typhoid fever.
The original wheel suffered a similar fate. In 1906, it was destroyed with dynamite for scrap metal. The idea has lived on, and wheels continue to be enjoyed around the world.
Comments
Appreciate the effort dude but I'm not reading that thing