Chaucer Day

Chaucer day takes place annually on 17 April it commemorates the anniversary of the date of 17 April1397 when Geoffrey Chaucer told the Canterbury Tales for the first time at the court of Richard II. April 17 is also the start date of the book’s pilgrimage. The Canterbury Tales is a collection of 24 stories by Geoffrey Chaucer who wrote them Between 1386 and 1400 when he became Controller of Customs and Justice of Peace and, then Clerk of the King’s work in 1389. The tales are presented as part of a story-telling contest by a group of pilgrims as they travel together on a journey from London to Canterbury to visit the shrine of Saint Thomas Becket at Canterbury Cathedral. The prize for this contest is a free meal at the Tabard Inn at Southwark on their return.

Chaucer uses the Canterbury tales and descriptions of its characters to paint an ironic and critical portrait of English society and the Church. Although the characters are fictional, they still offer a variety of insights into customs and practices of the time. It was written during a turbulent time in English history.

The Catholic Church was in the midst of the Western Schism and, though it was still the only Christian authority in Europe, was the subject of heavy controversy. Lollardy an early English religious movement led by John Wycliffe, is mentioned in the Tales, which mentions a specific incident involving pardoners (sellers of indulgences, which were believed to relieve the temporal punishment due for sins that were already forgiven in the Sacrament of Confession) who nefariously claimed to be collecting for St. Mary Rouncesval hospital in England. The Canterbury Tales is among the first English literary works to mention paper, a relatively new invention that allowed dissemination of the written word never before seen in England. Political clashes, such as the 1381 Peasants’ Revolt and clashes ending in the deposing of King Richard II. Many of Chaucer’s close friends were executed and he himself moved to Kent to get away from events in London.

Some readers have interpreted the characters of The Canterbury Tales as real historical figures while others maintain it is a mildly satirical critique of society during his lifetime. The Tales reflect diverse views of the Church in Chaucer’s England. After the Black Death, many Europeans began to question the authority of the established Church. Some started new monastic orders or smaller movements exposing church corruption in the behaviour of the clergy, false church relics or abuse of indulgences. Two characters, the Pardoner and the Summoner, are both portrayed as deeply corrupt, greedy, and abusive. Other Churchmen of various kinds are represented by the Monk, the Prioress, the Nun’s Priest, and the Second Nun.

The upper class or nobility, is also represented chiefly by the Knight and his Squire in the Canterbury Tales. In Chaucer’s time they were steeped in a culture of chivalry and courtliness as illustrated in the Knights Tale. This shows how the brotherly love of two fellow knights can turn into a deadly feud at the sight of a woman whom both idealise. Many other characters are included such as the Reeve, the Miller, The Cook, the Wife of Bath, the Franklin, the Shipman, the Manciple, the Merchant, Clerk at Oxford, the Sergeant at Law, Physician, the Parson

At the time Canterbury Tales was written Pilgrimage was a very prominent feature of medieval society. The ultimate pilgrimage destination was Jerusalem, but within England Canterbury was a popular destination. Pilgrims would journey to cathedrals that preserved relics of saints, believing that such relics held miraculous powers. Saint Thomas Becket, Archbishop of Canterbury, had been murdered in Canterbury Cathedral by knights of Henry II during a disagreement between Church and Crown. The concept of liminality also figures prominently within The Canterbury Tales. A liminal space, which can be both geographical as well as metaphorical or spiritual, is the transitional or transformational space between a “real” (secure, known, limited) world and an unknown or imaginary space of both risk and possibility. The Canterbury Tales remains popular and is regularly read in schools.

International Ford Mustang Day

International Ford Mustang Day takes place annually on 17 April to commemorate the anniversary of the introduction of the first Ford Mustang on April 17, 1964.

The Ford Mustang is an American car manufactured by Ford. It was originally based on the platform of the second generation North American Ford Falcon, a compact car. The original 1962 Ford Mustang I two-seater concept car had evolved into the 1963 Mustang II four-seater concept car which Ford used to pretest how the public would take interest in the first production Mustang. The 1963 Mustang II concept car was designed with a variation of the production model’s front and rear ends with a roof that was 2.7 inches shorter. Introduced early on April 17, 1964 (16 days after the Plymouth Barracuda), and thus dubbed as a “1964½” by Mustang fans, the 1965 Mustang was the automaker’s most successful launch since the Model A. The Mustang has undergone several transformations to its current sixth generation.

The Mustang created the “pony car” class of American muscle cars, affordable sporty coupes with long hoods and short rear decks, and gave rise to competitors such as the Chevrolet Camaro, Pontiac Firebird, AMC Javelin, Chrysler’s revamped Plymouth Barracuda, and the second generation Dodge Challenger

The Ford Mustang began production five months before the normal start of the 1965 production year. The early production versions are often referred to as “1964½ models” but all Mustangs were advertised, VIN coded and titled by Ford as 1965 models, though minor design updates in August 1964 at the “formal” start of the 1965 production year contribute to tracking 1964½ production data separately from 1965 data (see data below). with production beginning in Dearborn, Michigan, on March 9, 1964; the Ford Mustang was introduced to the public on April 17, 1964 at the New York World’s Fair.

Executive stylist John Najjar, who was a fan of the World War II P-51 Mustang fighter plane, is credited by Ford to have suggested the name. Najjar co-designed the first prototype of the Ford Mustang known as Ford Mustang I in 1961, working jointly with fellow Ford stylist Philip T. Clark. The Mustang I made its formal debut at the United States Grand Prix in Watkins Glen, New York, on October 7, 1962, where test driver and contemporary Formula One race driver Dan Gurney lapped the track in a demonstration using the second “race” prototype. His lap times were only slightly off the pace of the F1 race cars.

An alternative view suggests that Robert J. Eggert, Ford Division market research manager, first suggested the Mustang name. Eggert, a breeder of quarterhorses, received a birthday present from his wife of the book, The Mustangs by J. Frank Dobie in 1960. Later, the book’s title gave him the idea of adding the “Mustang” name for Ford’s new concept car. The designer preferred Cougar (early styling bucks can be seen wearing a Cougar grille emblem) or Torino (an advertising campaign using the Torino name was actually prepared), while Henry Ford II wanted T-bird II.[17] As the person responsible for Ford’s research on potential names, Eggert added “Mustang” to the list to be tested by focus groups; and the name “Mustang,” won The name could not be used in Germany, however, because it was owned by Krupp, which had manufactured trucks between 1951 and 1964 with the name Mustang. Ford refused to buy the name for about US$10,000 from Krupp at the time. Kreidler, a manufacturer of mopeds, also used the name, so Mustang was sold in Germany as the “T-5” until December 1978.

Starting in 1969, a variety of new performance and decorative options became available, including functional (and non-functional) air scoops, cable and pin hood tie downs, and both wing and chin spoilers. Additionally, a variety of performance packages were introduced that included the Mach 1, the Boss 302, and Boss 429. The two Boss models were to homologate the engines for racing. The 1969 Mustang was the last year for the GT option (although it did return on the 3rd Generation Mustang for the 1982 Model Year). A fourth model available only as a hardtop, the Grande, saw success starting in 1969 with its soft ride, “luxurious” trim, 55 pounds (24.9 kg) of extra sound deadening, and simulated wood trim.

Mustangs grew larger and heavier with each model year until, in response to the 1971–1973 models, Ford returned the car to its original size and concept for 1974. It has since seen several platform generations and designs. Although some other pony cars have seen a revival, the Mustang is the only original model to remain in uninterrupted production over five decades of development and revision. The Mustang is also credited for inspiring the designs of coupés such as the Toyota Celica and Ford Capri, which were imported to the United States As of August 2018, over 10 million Mustangs have been produced in the U.S.

International Haiku Day

International Haiku Day takes place on 17 April. A haiku in English is a very short poem in the English language, following to a greater or lesser extent the form and style of the Japanese haiku. Many Haikus follow a three-line format with 17 syllables arranged in a 5–7–5 pattern; or about 10 to 14 syllables, with the second line being the longest. A typical haiku is a wistful three-line observation about a fleeting moment involving nature.

The first haiku written in English date from the early 20th century, influenced by English translations of traditional Japanese haiku, which are slightly different, and the form has grown in popularity ever since. Many well-known English-language poets have written what they called haiku, even though they sometimes weren’t real haiku. Haiku has also proven popular in English-language schools as a way to encourage the appreciation and writing of poetry.

Proper Haiku have certain characteristics such as a focus on some aspect of nature or the seasons, a division into two asymmetrical sections, usually with a cut at the end of the first or second section, creating a juxtaposition of two subjects (e.g. something large and something small, something natural and something human-made, two unexpectedly similar things,). Haikus often have A contemplative or wistful tone, An elliptical “telegram style” syntax and no superfluous words. imagery predominating over ideas and statements, avoidance of metaphor and similes and non-rhyming lines.

The first successful haiku in English was “In a Station of the Metro” by Ezra Pound, published in 1913. During the Imagist period, a number of mainstream poets, including Pound, wrote what they called hokku, usually in a five-six-four syllable pattern. American poet Amy Lowell published several hokku in her book “What’s O’Clock” (1925; winner of the Pulitzer Prize). Individualistic haiku-like verses by the innovative Buddhist poet and artist Paul Reps (1895–1990) appeared in print as early as 1939 (More Power to You—Poems everyone Can Make, Preview Publications, Montrose CA.). Inspired by R. H. Blyth’s translations, other Westerners, including those of the Beat period, such as Gary Snyder, Jack Kerouac, Richard Wright and James W. Hackett, wrote original haiku in English.

In 1966 Helen Stiles Chenoweth compiled Borrowed Water, an early anthology of American haiku featuring the work by the Los Altos Roundtable. The experimental work of Beat and minority haiku poets expanded the popularity of haiku in English. Despite claims that haiku has not had much impact on the literary scene, a number of mainstream poets, such as W. H. Auden, Richard Wilbur, James Merrill, Etheridge Knight, William Stafford, W. S. Merwin, John Ashbery, Donald Hall, Ruth Stone, Sonia Sanchez, Billy Collins, (as well as Seamus Heaney, Wendy Cope, and Paul Muldoon in Ireland and Britain) and others have tried their hand at haiku.

In 1963 the journal American Haiku was founded in Platteville, Wisconsin, edited by the European-Americans James Bull and Donald Eulert. Among contributors to the first issue were poets James W. Hackett, O Mabson Southard (1911–2000), and Nick Virgilio. In the second issue of American Haiku Virgilio published his “lily” and “bass” haiku, which became models of brevity, breaking down the traditional 5-7-5 syllabic form, and used the leaner conception of haiku . Early Haiku journals included Haiku Highlights (founded 1965 by European-American writer Jean Calkins and later taken over by the European-American writer Lorraine Ellis Harr who changed the name to Dragonfly), Eric Amann’s Haiku (founded 1967), and Haiku West (founded 1967).

The first English-language haiku society in America, founded in 1956, was the Writers’ Roundtable of Los Altos, California, under the direction of Helen Stiles Chenoweth. The Haiku Society of America was founded in 1968 and began publishing its journal Frogpond in 1978. Other Haiku books include William J. Higginson’s Haiku Handbook (and Lee Gurga’s Haiku: A Poet’s Guide (Modern Haiku Press, 2003). Significant contributors to American haiku include Hackett, Virgilio, Charles B. Dickson (1915–1991), Elizabeth Searle Lamb (1917–2005), Raymond Roseliep (1917–1983), Robert Spiess (1921–2002), John Wills (1921–1993), Anita Virgil (b. 1931), and Peggy Willis Lyles (1939–2010).

In the UK, the British Haiku Society publishes Blithe Spirit and the World Haiku Club publishes The World Haiku Review another magazine id Presence (formerly Haiku Presence) In Ireland, twenty issues of Haiku Spirit edited by Jim Norton were published between 1995 and 2000. Shamrock, the online journal of the Irish Haiku Society , has been publishing international haiku in English since 2007. In Australia, twenty issues of Yellow Moon, were published Nowadays Paper Wasp is published in Australia, Kokako in New Zealand and Chrysanthemum (bilingual German/English) in Germany and Austria. Snapshot Press is a notable UK-based publisher of haiku books. In the early 20th century, Nobel laureate Rabindranath Tagore composed haiku in Bengali. He also translated some from Japanese. In February 2008, the World Haiku Festival was held in Bangalore, gathering haijin from all over India and Bangladesh, as well as a few from Europe and the United States.[44] The Turkish poet Kadir Aydemir has published a book of Turkish Haiku titled Sessizliğin Bekçisi.[

International and National holidays and events happening 17 April

• Blah Blah Blah Day
• Bat Appreciation Day
• Ellis Island Family History Day
• International Ford Mustang Day
• International Haiku Poetry Day
• National Cheese Ball Day
• Nothing Like a Dame Day
• World Hemophilia Day

Blah, Blah Blah Day takes place annually on April 17. The day is an opportunity for people to stop procrastinating and get all the stalled projects and broken promises sorted. These can range from quitting smoking, losing weight, vacuuming the car, Getting yourself vaccinated, starting a piggy bank, cleaning your laptop keyboard or calling a relative

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BAT APPRECIATION DAY🦇

Bat appreciation Day also occurrs on 17 April. The purpose of Bat Appreciation Day is to highlight the conservation efforts being made to save endangered bat species and educate people concerning bats which are unfairly associated with darkness, malevolence, witchcraft, vampires, and death in many cultures.

Bats are mammals of the order Chiroptera; with their forelimbs adapted as wings, they are the only mammals naturally capable of true and sustained flight. Bats are more manoeuvrable than birds, flying with their very long spread-out digits covered with a thin membrane or patagium. The smallest bat, and arguably the smallest extant mammal, is Kitti’s hog-nosed bat, which is 29–34 mm (1.14–1.34 in) in length, 15 cm (5.91 in) across the wings and 2–2.6 g (0.07–0.09 oz) in mass. The largest bats are the flying foxes and the giant golden-crowned flying fox, Acerodon jubatus, which can weigh 1.6 kg (4 lb) and have a wingspan of 1.7 m (5 ft 7 in).

The second largest order of mammals, bats comprise about 20% of all classified mammal species worldwide, with over 1,200 species. These were traditionally divided into two suborders: the largely fruit-eating megabats, and the echolocating microbats. But more recent evidence has supported dividing the order into Yinpterochiroptera and Yangochiroptera, with megabats as members of the former along with several species of microbats. Many bats are insectivores, and most of the rest are frugivores (fruit-eaters). A few species feed on animals other than insects; for example, the vampire bats feed on blood. Most bats are nocturnal, and many roost in caves or other refuges; it is uncertain whether bats have these behaviours to escape predators. Bats are present throughout the world, with the exception of extremely cold regions. They are important in their ecosystems for pollinating flowers and dispersing seeds; many tropical plants depend entirely on bats for these services.

Bats also provide humans with some benefits, at the cost of some threats. Bat dung has been mined as guano from caves and used as fertiliser. Bats consume insect pests, reducing the need for pesticides. They are sometimes numerous enough to serve as tourist attractions, and are used as food across Asia and the Pacific Rim. However They are natural reservoirs of many pathogens, such as rabies; and since they are highly mobile, social, and long-lived, they can readily spread disease.

ELLIS ISLAND FAMILY HISTORY DAY

Ellis Island Family History Day.” takes place on, April 17  “ to recognize the achievements and contributions made to America by Ellis Island immigrants and their descendants and commemorate the anniversary of 17 April 1907 when more immigrants were processed through Ellis Island than on any other day — 11,747 people. Over 40% of the U.S. population today — 100 million Americans – can trace their roots back to the 17 million brave and hopeful immigrants who took their first steps towards freedom and opportunity by going through the “Golden Door” of Ellis Island

World Hemophillia Day

World Hemophilia Day is an international observance held annually on April 17 by the WFH. It is an awareness day for hemophilia and other bleeding disorders, which also serves to raise funds and attract volunteers for the WFH. It was started in 1989; April 17 was chosen in honor of Frank Schnabel’s birthday.

The word Haemophilia, (hemophilia) is derived from the Greek haima αἷμα meaning blood and philia φιλία meaning love. Haemophilia is a mostly inherited genetic disorder that impairs the body’s ability to make blood clots, a process needed to stop bleeding. This results in people bleeding longer after an injury, easy bruising, and an increased risk of bleeding inside joints or the brain. Those with a mild case of the disease may have symptoms only after an accident or during surgery. Bleeding into a joint can result in permanent damage while bleeding in the brain can result in long term headaches, seizures, or a decreased level of consciousness.

There are two main types of haemophilia: haemophilia A, which occurs due to not enough clotting factor VIII, and haemophilia B, which occurs due to not enough clotting factor IX. The differences between haemophilia A and B were discovered in 1952. They are typically inherited from one’s parents through an X chromosome with a nonfunctional gene. A new mutation may occur during early development or haemophilia may develop later in life due to antibodies forming against a clotting factor. Other types include haemophilia C, which occurs due to not enough factor XI, and parahaemophilia, which occurs due to not enough factor V. Acquired haemophilia is associated with cancers, autoimmune disorders, and pregnancy. Diagnosis is by testing the blood for its ability to clot and its levels of clotting factors.

Haemophilia can be prevented by removing an egg, fertilizing it, and testing the embryo before transferring it to the uterus. Treatment is by replacing the missing blood clotting factors. This may be done on a regular basis or during bleeding episodes. Replacement may take place at home or in hospital. The clotting factors are made either from human blood or by recombinant methods. Up to 20% of people develop antibodies to the clotting factors which makes treatment more difficult. The medication desmopressin may be used in those with mild haemophilia A.

Haemophilia A affects about 1 in 5,000–10,000, while haemophilia B affects about 1 in 40,000, males at birth. As haemophilia A and B are both X-linked recessive disorders, females are rarely severely affected. Some females with a nonfunctional gene on one of the X chromosomes may be mildly symptomatic. Haemophilia C occurs equally in both sexes and is mostly found in Ashkenazi Jews. During the 1800s haemophilia was common within the royal families of Europe.