It's Frederick Douglass Day.  Best known as an abolitionist, as an author and for his debates with Abe Lincoln, he was an all around social reformer and staunch supporter of women's suffrage.  He was the only black person to attend the famous Seneca Falls Convention and gave a speech in support of women's suffrage, controversial even there, in which he declared that he could not personally accept the right to vote as a black person so long as women were denied that same right.

 

“Where justice is denied, where poverty is enforced, where ignorance prevails, and where any one class is made to feel that society is an organized conspiracy to oppress, rob and degrade them, neither persons nor property will be safe.”

-- Frederick Douglass       (quote HT -  Joe Shickspack)

Given Douglass' life and works, it is perhaps fitting that it is also Race Relations Day except for the fact that the phrase, standing alone like that, seems somewhat vacuous, like so many merely titular "holidays" that fail to promote anything or exhort people to any particular action or behavior.  One could almost see it as a Hallmark Holiday, though it isn't crass and commercialized.

Perhaps, given Douglass' status and standing as an author is is better paired with International Book Giving Day, Library Lovers Day, and Read to Your Child Day all of which occur on this day as well.

Today is also a real greeting card holiday, supposedly all about love and possibly caring and like that, but I suggest that a  quick perusal of world history on this date indicates no such thing, just like every other day.  It is more about greeting cards, store-bought bouquets and candy, which might be why it is also National Cream-Filled Chocolates Day

On this day in history:

1349 – Several hundred Jews were burned to death by mobs while the remaining Jews were forcibly removed from Strasbourg.

1530 – Spanish conquistadores overthrew and executed Tangaxuan II

1655 – The Mapuches launched coordinated attacks against the Spanish in Chile
 

1778 – The US flag was formally recognized by a foreign naval vessel for the first time

1779 – James Cook was killed by Native Hawaiians near Kealakekua on the Island of Hawaii.

1797 – John Jervis, and Horatio Nelson  led the British Royal Navy to victory over a Spanish fleet in action near Gibraltar.

1852 – Great Ormond St Hospital for Sick Children, the first hospital in England to provide in-patient beds specifically for children, was founded

1855 – Texas was linked by telegraph to the rest of the United States

1876 – Alexander Graham Bell applied for a patent for the telephone, as did Elisha Gray.

1899 – Voting machines were approved by the U.S. Congress for use in federal elections.

1903 – The US Department of Commerce and Labor was established

1912 – Arizona was admitted as the 48th and the last contiguous U.S. state.

1912 – The U.S. Navy commissioned its first class of diesel-powered submarines.

1920 – The League of Women Voters was founded

1929 – Seven people, including six rivals of Al Capone's gang, were murdered in Chicago.

1945 – The British Royal Air Force and the United States Army Air Forces begin fire-bombing Dresden.

1945 – FDR met King Ibn Saud of Saudi Arabia aboard the USS Quincy, officially beginning U.S.-Saudi diplomatic relations.

1946 – The Bank of England was nationalized.

1949 – The Knesset convened for the first time.

1949 – The Asbestos Strike began in Canada.

1961 – Element 103, Lawrencium, was first synthesized at the University of California.

1966 – Australian currency was decimalized.

1983 – United American Bank of Knoxville, Tennessee collapsed 

1989 – Union Carbide agreed to pay $470 million to the Indian government for damages it caused in the 1984 Bhopal disaster.

1990 – The Voyager 1 spacecraft took the photograph of planet Earth that later became famous as Pale Blue Dot.

2000 – The spacecraft NEAR Shoemaker entered orbit around asteroid 433 Eros, the first spacecraft to orbit an asteroid.

2005 – In Beirut, 23 people, were killed when the equivalent 1,000 kg of TNT was detonated

2005 – YouTube was launched by a group of college students,

2011 – As a part of Arab Spring, the Bahraini uprising began with a 'Day of Rage'.

Born this day in:

“He has nothing useful to say about fascism who is unwilling to mention capitalism.”

~~     Max Horkheimer

1404 – Leon Battista Alberti, painter, poet, and philosopher

1602 – Francesco Cavalli, composer
1784 – Heinrich Baermann, clarinetist
1813 – Lydia Hamilton Smith, businesswoman
1819 – Christopher Latham Sholes, journalist and politician, invented the typewriter 
1838 – Margaret E. Knight,  inventor
1847 – Anna Howard Shaw, physician, minister, and activist
1848 – Benjamin Baillaud, astronomer and academic
1869 – Charles Thomson Rees Wilson, physicist and meteorologist
1895 – Max Horkheimer, German philosopher and sociologist
1898 – Fritz Zwicky, physicist and astronomer
1900 – Jessica Dragonette, singer
 
1913 – Jimmy Hoffa, trade union leader
1917 – Herbert A. Hauptman, mathematician and academic
1937 – Magic Sam, singer and guitarist
1939 – Razzy Bailey, country music singer, songwriter, and musician
1939 – Blowfly, singer, songwriter, and producer
1943 – Eric Andersen, singer and songwriter
1943 – Maceo Parker, saxophonist
1946 – Gregory Hines, actor, singer, and dancer
1947 – Tim Buckley, singer, songwriter, and guitarist
1950 – Roger Fisher, guitarist and songwriter
1972 – Rob Thomas, singer, songwriter
1976 – Liv Kristine, singer and songwriter
1977 – Anna Erschler, mathematician

Died this day in:

Balanced' is a code for 'denied': a right to free speech that must be 'balanced' against so exhaustive a list of other supposed values means a right that can be exercised only when those in power judge that the speech in question is innocuous to them.

~~     Ronald Dworkin

1744 – John Hadley, mathematician, invented the octant 
1779 – James Cook, captain, cartographer, and explorer
1780 – William Blackstone, jurist and politician
1884 – Lydia Hamilton Smith, businesswoman
1894 – Eugène Charles Catalan, mathematician and academic
1933 – Carl Correns, botanist and geneticist
1943 – David Hilbert, mathematician, physicist, and philosopher
1950 – Karl Guthe Jansky, physicist and engineer
1959 – Baby Dodds, drummer
1969 – Vito Genovese, mob boss
1975 – P. G. Wodehouse, novelist and playwright
1989 – James Bond, ornithologist and zoologist
1989 – Vincent Crane, pianist
1999 – Buddy Knox, singer, songwriter, and guitarist
2002 – Mick Tucker, drummer
2006 – Lynden David Hall, singer, songwriter, and producer
2007 – Gareth Morris, flute player and educator
2009 – Louie Bellson, drummer and composer
2010 – Doug Fieger, singer, songwriter, and guitarist
2010 – Dick Francis, jockey and author
2011 – George Shearing, pianist and composer
2012 – Tonmi Lillman, drummer and producer
2012 – Dory Previn, singer and songwriter
2013 – Ronald Dworkin, philosopher and scholar

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

Independence Day (Grenada), celebrates the independence of Grenada from the United Kingdom in 1974.
Frederick Douglass Day
Race Relations Day
International Book Giving Day
Library Lovers Day
Read to Your Child Day
International Epilepsy Day
League of Women Voters Day
National Cream-Filled Chocolates Day
Valentine's Day

Music goes here, iirc, well, With apologies

Francesco Cavalli

Heinrich Baermann

Jessica Dragonette

Magic Sam

Eric Anderson

Maceo Parker

Roger Fisher

Rob Thomas

Baby Dodds

Vincent Crane

Buddy Knox

Louie Bellson

George Shearing

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