Today is VE Day (in Europe), or so I'm told. It commemorates the effective date, from central European time westward, of Germany's surrender in WWII. It seems that it is still celebrated in at lest some parts of Europe. This would make some sense, since it ended the war in Europe. (East of the central European time zone, Victory Day is still celebrated, reflecting the fact that by the effective date in the central European time zone, it was already a day later further east.)

I recall that VE day was also celebrated in the US during my childhood, but not whether is was a paid holiday or a Sunday holiday. Ditto VJ Day celebrating Japan's surrender in WWII. VJ Day appears to have been a paid holiday and at least one source holds that to be the reason it was cancelled. In any case, neither is celebrated here anymore, which makes a lot of sense.

We are a warfare state, so celebrating peace is a ludicrous proposition. Before that, we were a garrison state for a while, though I suspect that they are but two sides of the same coin. The last time I can be certain that we celebrated peace of any kind was the 1953 celebration of Armistice Day, which we converted into Veterans' Day in 1954. 1954 was an auspicious year for that conversion in that it was the year in which we used CIA operatives to surreptitiously fly supplies to the French at the Battle of Dien Bien Phu, which they lost, ending their dream of forcibly reinstating their colony in Vietnam and starting our covert and eventually overt war to prevent free elections from occurring there. Yes, we talk up democracy, but we don't like it, because too often people we don't like win elections, and then we have to take them out, like Mossadegh or Allende. We prefer people like Shah Reza Pahlavi, General Pinochet, Franco, Trujillo, Batista, Duvalier (pick one), Idi Amin, Ngô Đình Diệm, or Nguyễn Cao Kỳ. We can work with those folks. At any rate, war, endless war, covert, overt, or proxy, is what we do, that and sell weapons of war. Needless to say, we do not celebrate peace, peace accords, peace treaties, or anything remotely of that kind. That would just be too stupid.

Edward Gibbon, the historian, was born on this day in 1737. It might be a good time to read him while you still can.

Miguel Hidalgo y Costilla was born on this day in 1753. He famously proclaimed El Grito de Dolores, starting the Mexican Revolution.

On this day in history:

0589 -- Reccared I summoned the Third Council of Toledo to do nefarious stuff, which they did.
1429 -- Joan of Arc lifted the Siege of Orleans,
1541 -- De Soto reached the Mississippi and headed for Arkansas.
1788 -- The French Parlement was suspended by Louis XVI
1794 -- Antoine Lavoisier was tried, convicted and guillotined
1886 – John Pemberton first sold a patent medicine named "Coca-Cola"
1902 -- Mount Pelee erupted, wiping out Saint-Pierre
1927 -- Charles Nungesser and Francois Coli disappeared aboard The White Bird
1933 -- Gandhi began a 21 day fast
1942 -- The Battle of the Coral Sea ended
1945 -- French Army soldiers committed the Setif massacre.
1945 -- V-E Day - The German Instrument of Surrender took effect
1945 – End of the Prague uprising
1950 – The Tollund Man was discovered in a peat bog near Silkeborg, Denmark.
1963 -- Ngo Dinh Diem's troops attacked and murdered some Buddhists
1972 -- Tricky Dick announced his order to mine North Vietnamese ports
1973 -- The Pine Ridge standoff between the feds and the American Indian Movement ended
1980 -- The World Health Organization confirmed the eradication of smallpox
2019 – Isabelle Holdaway was reported to be the first patient ever to receive a genetically modified phage therapy to treat a drug-resistant infection

Some people who were born on this day:

Nature is not a place to visit. It is home.

~~ Gary Snyder

1639 – Giovanni Battista Gaulli, artist
1737 – Edward Gibbon, historian and politician
1753 – Miguel Hidalgo y Costilla, priest and rebel leader, grito de dolores
1824 -- William Walker, physician, lawyer, journalist and wannabe colonist
1828 -- Henry Dunant, co-founder of the Red Cross
1839 – Adolphe-Basile Routhier, judge, author, and songwriter ( O Canada)
1842 – Emil Christian Hansen, fermentation physiologist and mycologist
1884 -- Harry S. Truman, Bess Truman's husband
1885 -- Thomas B. Costain, writer
1895 -- Fulton J. Sheen, early televangelist
1899 -- Friedrich Hayek, ideological father of the DLC via Friedman, Reagan & Thatcher
1902 – André Michel Lwoff, microbiologist and physician
1903 – Fernandel, actor and singer
1905 -- Red Nichols, composer, cornettist and bandleader
1910 -- Mary Lou Williams, pianist and composer, "soul on soul".
1911 -- Robert Johnson, guitarist, singer and songwriter
1922 – Mary Q. Steele, naturalist and author
1926 -- David Attenborough, environmentalist and TV personality
1929 – Girija Devi, classical singer
1930 – Gary Snyder, poet, essayist, and translator, Beat, activist, zen monk
1937 – Thomas Pynchon, novelist
1940 -- Ricky Nelson, singer, actor, songwriter and guitarist
1940 -- Toni Tennille, keyboardist, singer and songwriter
1941 -- John Fred, singer and songwriter
1943 -- Paul Samwell-Smith, bass player
1945 -- Keith Jarrett, pianist and composer
1947 – H. Robert Horvitz, biologist and academic
1951 -- Philip Bailey, drummer, singer, songwriter and actor
1951 -- Chris Frantz, drummer
1953 -- Billy Burnette, guitarist, singer, songwriter and actor
1953 -- Alex Van Halen, drummer
1970 -- Naomi Klein, author and activist
1976 -- Martha Wainwright, guitarist, singer and songwriter
1977 -- Joe Bonamassa, guitarist, singer and songwriter
1977 – Kathrin Bringmann, mathematician and academic

Some people who died on this day:

If all mankind minus one, were of one opinion, and only one person were of the contrary opinion, mankind would be no more justified in silencing that one person, than he, if he had the power, would be justified in silencing mankind.

~~ John Stuart Mill

1785 – Pietro Longhi, painter
1788 – Giovanni Antonio Scopoli, physician and botanist
1794 -- Antoine Lavoisier, chemist and biologist
1819 -- Kamehameha I
1828 – Mauro Giuliani, guitarist, cellist, and composer
1873 -- John Stuart Mill, philosopher,Political economist, naturalist
1880 -- Gustave Flaubert, author
1891 -- Helena Blavatsky, mystic, spiritualist, occultist & theosophist whose spirit ran the Reagan Whitehouse
1903 -- Paul Gauguin, painter
1960 -- J. H. C. Whitehead, mathematician
1969 – Remington Kellogg, zoologist and paleontologist
1985 -- Theodore Sturgeon, author
1988 -- Robert A. Heinlein, author
1993 – Avram Davidson, author
1998 -- Bebe Rebozo, Nixon's Bud
2000 – Dédé Fortin, singer, songwriter, and guitarist
2000 – Henry Nicols, activist
2003 – Elvira Pagã, vedette, singer, and artist, first to wear a bikini in public
2008 -- Eddy Arnold, guitarist, singer, actor and songwriter
2014 – Roger L. Easton, physicist, co-invented the GPS

Some Holidays, Holy Days, Festivals, Feast Days, Days of Recognition, and such:

V-E Day (Europe)
White Lotus Day (Theosophy)
Miguel Hidalgo's birthday (Mexico)
Furry Dance (Heston, UK)

Today's Tunes

Mount Pelee Eruption

Red Nichols

Mary Lou Williams

Robert Johnson

Ricky Nelson

Toni Tennille

John Fred

Paul Samwell-Smith

Keith Jarrett

Philip Bailey

Chris Frantz

Billy Burnette

Alex Van Halen

Martha Wainwright

Joe Bonamassa

Eddy Arnold

Bonus Billy Burnette:

Ok, it's an open thread, so it's up to you folks now. So what's on your mind?

Cross posted from http://caucus99percent.com