Today is International Literacy Day. I remember learning back in the sixties that, as of then, the "average american" read at a seventh grade level. Newspaper types were instructed to shoot for that zone in their writing. Out of curiousity, I decided to see how we are doing in that regard today and Google's AI Overview told me:

The average American adult reads at a 7th to 8th-grade level, according to a study by Kutest Kids. This means that a significant portion of the adult population may struggle with complex texts or require simplified materials for comprehension. Furthermore, about 54% of U.S. adults read at or below a sixth-grade level.

This is pretty much where we were back in '64, BUT, does today's 6th grader read at the same level as a 1960's 6th grader? That is the question. As they say at Yale, and probably Hahvahd as well, "Is our children learning?" (Personally I have always understood that the elite private liberal arts universities are where one learns WHO to know (and hang with) as opposed to what; and where, regardless of one's major, one receives a BA in deportment, but that is another matter.) At any rate, somebody with a lot of time on their hands can try to compare US literacy today with US literacy in 1962 or so, but I don't really think that it is worth the trouble.

Meanwhile, according to the Guardian, reading for fun in the US has fallen 40% in the last 20 years. Just what the heck is said reading for fun? According to the article, it would appear to be daily reading for reasons other than work and study which fell by about 3% each year. The same article asserted that:

The literacy level in the US is estimated to be about 79%, which ranks as 36th globally.

On this day in 1565 Spanish admiral Pedro Menéndez de Avilés, founded St. Augustine , New Spain, the longest continually occupied city in the US.

On this day in 1819 the Philadelphia Balloon riot broke out at Vauxhall Gardens. There was to be a spectacular balloon launch and parachute drop there but only those able to cough up a buck (roughly $25 in 2024 money) could get in to have a good luck. The event attracted a huge crowd nonetheless, but the majority were fenced out and forced to try to see over or through the fence. The proceedings had begun to drag due to some difficulties they were having in getting the balloon aloft when a 14 year old boy began to climb ove the fence keeping the hoi polloi out. The even't security guards immediately beat the boy unconscious, which seriously pissed off the crowd. Said crowd broke down the fence, destroyed the balloon, smashed the instruments of the hired band, destroyed the bar and set fire to the pavillion.

Some have claimed that this was an example of class conscious rioting, with those fenced out having had it with those permitted in, while others hold that was a simple direct reaction to the overreaction of the guards in beating the boy unconscious for merely climbing the fence. I, personally, would not exclude the possibility that it was both, with one factor exacerbating the other. This wee bit of history has certainly given me a new respect for the good people of Philly even though I have absolutely no use for cheesesteak, being allergic to bell peppers.

On this day in 1892, the Pledge of Allegiance was first recited. It's author was a bit twisted and wanted it performed with very interesting arm salutes. It was, in a way, bad enough before Ike added the words "under God", which simply made it outrageous. In any evert, even without that added silliness The Supremes ruled that people cannot be forced to say it, but like the sheep in the great herding we all get marched down that road before we are old enough to comprehend what the hell they are making us do and say.

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Pledge of Allegiance by Bart Everson,

On this day in history:

70 – A Roman army under Titus secured and plundered the city of Jerusalem.

1380 – At the Battle of Kulikovo Russian forces defeated a mixed army of Tatars and the Golden Horde, stopping their westward advance.

1504 – Michelangelo's David was unveiled in Piazza della Signoria in Florence.

1514 – At the Battle of Orsha Lithuanian and Polish forces defeated a Russian army seeking to recover lost lands of the Kievan Rus
.

1522 – Magellan's ship, Victoria, arrived at Seville, completing the first circumnavigation of the globe

1565 – St. Augustine, Florida was founded by Spanish admiral and Florida's first governor, Pedro Menéndez de Avilés.

1655 – Warsaw fell without resistance to a small force under the command of Charles X Gustav of Sweden

1760 – The French surrendered Montreal to the British, completing the latter's conquest of New France.

1808 – The Treaty of Paris was signed ending the French military occupation of Prussia.

1810 – The Tonquin set sail from New York Harbor with 33 employees of John Jacob Astor's newly created Pacific Fur Company on board.

1819 – The Philadelphia Balloon riot occurred at Vauxhall Garden in Philadelphia, PA and resulted in the destruction of the amusement park.

1855 – The French assaulted the tower of Malakoff, leading to the capture of Sevastopol during the Crimean War

1860 – The steamship PS Lady Elgin sank on Lake Michigan with the loss of around 300 lives after being rammed by the Schooner Augusta during a gale

1862 – The Millennium of Russia monument was unveiled in Novgorod.

1883 – The Northern Pacific Railway was completed in a ceremony at Gold Creek, Montana.

1888 – The Great Herding began - thousands of sheep were herded from the Argentine outpost of Fortín Conesa to Santa Cruz near the Strait of Magellan. No politicians were involved.

1892 – The Pledge of Allegiance was first recited (with very interesting arm salutes

1898 – Seven hundred Greek civilians, 17 British guards and the British Consul of Crete were killed by a Turkish mob.

1900 – A powerful hurricane hit Galveston, Texas killing about 8,000 people.

1905 – The 7.2 Mw  Calabria earthquake hit southern Italy killing between 557 and 2,500 people.

1916 – Attempting to prove that women were capable of serving as military dispatch riders, Augusta and Adeline Van Buren arrived in Los Angeles, completing a 60-day, 5,500 mile cross-country trip on motorcycles.

1923 – Nine US Navy destroyers ran aground off the California coast at Honda Point. Seven were lost, and twenty-three sailors were killed.

1935 – Huey Long, a US Senator from Louisiana, was fatally shot in the Louisiana State Capitol building.

1941 – German forces begin the Siege of Leningrad.

1943 – The Armistice of Cassibile was proclaimed by radio.

1944 – London was hit by a V-2 rocket for the first time.

1954 – The Southeast Asia Treaty Organization (SEATO) was established. Refusal to join would trigger a coup d'etat

1960 – US President Eisenhower formally dedicated the Marshall Space Flight Center In Huntsville, Alabama

1966 – The landmark American science fiction television series Star Trek premiered with its first-aired episode

1971 – In Washington, D.C., the John F. Kennedy Center for the Performing Arts was inaugurated

1974 – US President Ford signed the pardon of Richard Nixon for any crimes Nixon may have committed while in office.

1975 – US Air Force Tech Sergeant Leonard Matlovich appeared on the cover of Time magazine in uniform with the headline "I Am A Homosexual". He was given a general discharge.

1978 – On Black Friday, Shah Pahlavi's soldiers massacred protesters in Tehran, killing 88

2005 – Two Ilyushin Il-76 aircraft from EMERCOM landed at a disaster aid staging area at the Little Rock Air Force Base; the first time Russia had flown such a mission to North America.

2016 – NASA launches OSIRIS-REx, its first asteroid sample return mission. The probe visited 101955 Bennu and returned with samples in September 2023.

2022 – Queen Elizabeth II of the United Kingdom died

2023 – A magnitude 6.9 earthquake struck Morocco, killing nearly 3,000 people and damaging historic sites in Marrakesh.

Some people who were born on this day:

One can show one's contempt for the cruelty and stupidity of the world by making of one's life a poem of incoherence and absurdity.

~~ Alfred Jarry

1474 – Ludovico Ariosto, playwright and poet
1588 – Marin Mersenne, mathematician, philosopher, and theologian
1672 – Nicolas de Grigny, organist and composer
1698 – François Francoeur, violinist and composer
1814 – Charles Étienne Brasseur de Bourbourg, archaeologist, ethnographer, and historian
1822 – Karl von Ditmar, geologist and explorer
1824 – Jaime Nunó, composer, conductor, and director
1830 – Frédéric Mistral, poet and lexicographer,
1841 – Antonín Dvořák, composer and academic
1863 – W.W. Jacobs, novelist and short story writer
1867 – Alexander Parvus, theoretician and activist
1868 – Seth Weeks, mandolin player, composer, and bandleader
1873 – Alfred Jarry, author and playwright
1886 – Siegfried Sassoon, captain, journalist, and poet
1886 – Ninon Vallin, soprano and actress
1894 – Willem Pijper, composer and critic
1896 – Howard Dietz, publicist and songwriter
1897 – Jimmie Rodgers, singer, songwriter, and guitarist
1903 – Jane Arbor, author
1906 – Andrei Kirilenko, engineer and politician
1917 – Jan Sedivka, violinist and educator
1918 – Derek Barton, chemist and academic,
1919 – Gianni Brera, journalist and author
1923 – Rasul Gamzatov, poet
1923 – Wilbur Ware, double-bassist
1924 – Grace Metalious, author
1924 – Mimi Parent, painter
1927 – Harlan Howard, songwriter
1927 – Marguerite Frank, mathematician
1931 – Marion Brown, saxophonist and composer
1932 – Patsy Cline, singer, songwriter, and pianist
1933 – Eric Salzman, composer, producer, and critic
1934 – Peter Maxwell Davies, composer and conductor
1937 – Edna Adan Ismail, politician and activist
1937 – Barbara Frum, journalist
1937 – Archie Goodwin, author and illustrator
1939 – Guitar Shorty, singer and guitarist
1942 – Brian Cole, bass player
1942 – Judith Hann, journalist and author
1942 – Sal Valentino, rock singer, songwriter. and guitarist
1944 – Peter Bellamy, singer and songwriter
1945 – Kelly Groucutt, bass player
1945 – Ron "Pigpen" McKernan, singer, songwriter, harmonica and keyboards player
1946 – Aziz Sancar, biologist and academic
1947 – Valery Afanassiev, pianist and conductor
1947 – Ann Beattie, novelist and short story writer
1947 – Benjamin Orr, singer. songwriter, and bass player
1947 – Marianne Wiggins, author
1949 – Edward Hinds, physicist and academic
1950 – Ian Davidson, lawyer and politician
1951 – Dezső Ránki, pianist
1952 – Will Lee, bass player
1953 – Stein-Erik Olsen, guitarist
1954 – Ruby Bridges, civil rights activist
1954 – Michael Shermer, historian, author, and academic, founded The Skeptics Society
1955 – Terry Tempest Williams, environmentalist and author
1956 – Mick Brown, drummer
1956 – David Carr, journalist and author
1957 – Heather Thomas, actress and activist
1958 – Michael Lardie, keyboard player, songwriter, and producer
1960 – Aimee Mann, singer, songwriter, guitarist, and actress
1960 – David Steele, bass player and songwriter
1964 – Michael Johns, businessman and political activist
1964 – Joachim Nielsen, singer, songwriter, and guitarist
1965 – Darlene Zschech, singer, songwriter, and pastor
1966 – Peter Furler, singer, songwriter, guitarist, and producer
1968 – Ray Wilson, singer, songwriter, and guitarist
1970 – Neko Case, singer, songwriter, and guitarist
1971 – Dustin O'Halloran, pianist and composer
1973 – Gabrial McNair, saxophonist, keyboard player, and composer
1973 – Troy Sanders, singer, songwriter, and bass player
1975 – Richard Hughes, drummer
1978 – Angela Rawlings, author and poet
1979 – Pink, singer, songwriter, producer, and actress
1980 – Eric Hutchinson, singer and songwriter
1981 – Kate Abdo, journalist
1983 – Sarah Stup, writer and autism activist
1989 – Avicii, electronic musician

Some people who died on this day:

President Eisenhower was a fine general and a good, decent man, but if he had fought World War II the way he fought for civil rights, we would all be speaking German now.

~~ Roy Wilkins

1613 – Carlo Gesualdo, lute player and composer
1637 – Robert Fludd, physician, mathematician, and cosmologist
1682 – Juan Caramuel y Lobkowitz, mathematician and philosopher
1761 – Bernard Forest de Bélidor, mathematician and engineer
1811 – Peter Simon Pallas, zoologist and botanist
1882 – Joseph Liouville, mathematician and academic
1894 – Hermann von Helmholtz, physician and physicist
1895 – Adam Opel, entrepreneur, founded Opel
1916 – Friedrich Baumfelder, pianist, composer, and conductor (born 1836)
1944 – Jan van Gilse, composer and conductor
1949 – Richard Strauss, composer and manager
1954 – André Derain, painter and sculptor
1963 – Maurice Wilks, engineer and businessman
1965 – Hermann Staudinger, chemist and academic
1970 – Percy Spencer, engineer, invented the microwave oven
1980 – Willard Libby, chemist and academic,
1981 – Roy Wilkins, journalist and activist
1981 – Hideki Yukawa, physicist and academic,
1985 – John Franklin Enders, virologist and academic,
1991 – Alex North, composer and conductor
1999 – Moondog, singer, songwriter, drummer, and poet
2001 – Bill Ricker, entomologist and author
2005 – Donald Horne, journalist, author, and critic
2006 – Hilda Bernstein, author and activist
2007 – Vincent Serventy, ornithologist, conservationist, and author
2009 – Aage Bohr, physicist and academic,
2014 – Gerald Wilson, trumpet player and composer
2016 – Prince Buster, singer, songwriter, and producer
2017 – Jerry Pournelle, author and journalist
2017 – Don Williams, musician
2022 – Elizabeth II, Queen
2024 – Zoot Money, musician

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

International Literacy Day (International)
World Physical Therapy Day

Today's Tunes

Literacy Day

Founding of St. Augustine, New Spain, now FL

Marraakesh earthquake

François Francoeur,

Jaime Nunó,

Antonín Dvořák

Seth Weeks

Howard Dietz

Jimmie Rodgers

Wilbur Ware,

Harlan Howard

Patsy Cline

Guitar Shorty

Brian Cole,

Sal Valentino

Kelly Groucutt

Ron "Pigpen" McKernan,
~ Easy Wind

~ Big Boss Man

Benjamin Orr

Zachary Richard,

Will Lee

Stein-Erik Olsen

Pink,

Eric Hutchinson

=Richard Strauss,

Moondog

Gerald Wilson

Prince Buster

Don Williams

Zoot Money

Bonus Pigpen
Mr. Charlie

pigpen is all you need

hard to handle

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

Cross posted from http://caucus99percent.com

open thread, literacy day, Saint Augustine, Philly Balloon Riot, Pledge of Allegiance, Honda Point, Antonin Dvorak, Jimmie Rodgers, Patsy Cline, Guitar Shorty, Pigpen, Pink, Richard Strauss, Prince Buster