February 19, 2017

Today we celebrate:

Prevent Plagiarism Day - This is a day to focus on the problem of high tech cheating by taking someone else’s words/ideas and presenting them as your own. This day was created by Jace Shoemaker-Galloway after becoming the victim of plagiarism when her work was published without permission or attribution. This is an issue that can have pretty severe consequences if you are caught plagiarizing other people’s work. It can cause you to fail a class, experience intense public embarrassment, lose a job, or even lose an election.

International Tug-o-War Day - A simple, but fun sport. We used to play this on Field Day when I was in elementary school. Some cultures take it very seriously. Back in the day, this competition was used to solve community disputes, I guess the strongest or heaviest communities prevailed. It was even an Olympic sport before it was dropped from the Games in 1920. If you are not aware of how it is played, I will educate you. Take a group of people and divide them into two teams, one on each end of a long rope. Most people place the heaviest person at the end where they can wrap the rope around themselves and serve as an anchor. Then either have a mud pit or body of water in the middle of the field or tie a marker in the middle of the rope and paint a couple of lines on the field. When the signal is given, everyone pulls on the rope with all of their strength. Then whichever team pulls the rope so the marker crosses the line closest to them, or so that the opposing team falls in the mud or water, wins.

National Chocolate Mint Day – Chocolate and mint, my favorite combination of flavors. I'll have to find some Andes Candies, Peppermint Patties or Junior Mints to have today.

Iwo Jima Day – Begun on this day in 1945, the fighting at Iwo Jima lasted more than a month with very heavy casualties for the U.S. and for the Japanese because surrender for either side was not an option or even a vague possibility for consideration. Thousands of men died that day and in the month following. This invasion was the first time American's attacked Japanese home territory and the Japanese really had no chance against the superior forces (in terms of numbers of soldiers, firepower, and air power) that the American's brought to the island. But despite that, the battle lasted for five weeks because the Japanese were well entrenched in caves and tunnels and chock full of pure stubbornness.