Daily Holidays -December 10

[Sherman A1]

Human Rights Day was established in 1948, and ever since that auspicious day it has stood as the first major stride forward in ensuring that the rights of every human across the globe are protected. From the most basic human needs such as food, shelter, and water, all the way up to access to free and uncensored information, such has been the goals and ambitions laid out that day. https://www.daysoftheyear.com/days/human-rights-day/

Gingerbread Decorating Day Gingerbread is though to have been brought to Europe by an Armenian monk named Gregory of Nicopolis in the 10th century who had brought the necessary spices back from the Middle East, and then taught the art of gingerbread making, what with the spices and the molasses, to French Christians until his death. Gingerbread then made its way around Europe–in the 13th century, it made its way to Sweden, where it was baked by nuns to help soothe indigestion. There, it slowly became popular to paint the cookies and use them as window decorations as well. The 13th century also saw gingerbread make its debut in the city of Toruń in Poland, where the honey supplied by the local villages made the cookies especially delicious. To this day Pierniki Toruńskie, as they are known in Poland, are an icon of Poland’s national cuisine. From the 17th century onwards, gingerbread was sold in monasteries and pharmacies in England, where it was thought to have medicinal properties, and gingerbread became the symbol of the town of Market Drayton, which was particularly known for it. In the play, “Love’s Labour’s Lost”, Shakepeare himself wrote, “And I had but one penny in the world, thou should’st have it to buy gingerbread.” In 1875, the gingerbread man was first introduced to holiday traditions through a fairytale published in St. Nicholas magazine, where he was depicted as a holiday treat that was eventually eaten by a hungry fox. https://www.daysoftheyear.com/days/gingerbread-decorating-day/

International Shareware Day Of all of the underdogs and unsung heroes of our generation, computer programmers might be the most unsung of all. Spending hours upon hours in front of their computers daily, looking at screens of line of seemingly random letters, numbers and commands, they spend their lives making our lives better and rarely, if ever, get any sort of recognition for it. You may not think of it this way, but almost every little thing that you use in your 21st century life is operated by some sort of computer chip running on some sort of computer program that one or more computer programmers spent days on to make sure it worked so it could make your life easier. The electric windows in your car you can’t remember what life what like before, the blender you use so religiously to make all of your healthy shakes every single day, and that smartphone taxi app that prevents you from getting ripped off every time you come back from a party–these are all based on more or less complicated computer programs that people do their best to avoid paying for, thus stifling the programmers’ efforts. All in all, I think we can agree that International Shareware Day, a day dedicated to the programmers typing their lives away to make yours easier, is a day that needed to happen. https://www.daysoftheyear.com/days/international-shareware-day/

http://www.famousbirthdays.com/december10.html

[femmocrat]

1. K & R for Gingerbread Day!