OCTOBER 30: NATIONAL CANDY CORN DAY
Halloween is to candy corn as Easter is to chocolate bunny. October 31 is the spooky day when we celebrate ghosts and goblins with Trick-or-Treat. So it is only right that October 30 is the day we prep for it by celebrating candy corn.
Multicolored candy corn — with its broad yellow end, tapered orange middle, and white tip — is made from sugar, corn syrup, confectioner’s wax, coloring, and binders. Originally called “Chicken Feed,” it was invented in the 1880s by George Renninger, a Wunderle Candy Company employee. Wunderle started producing the candy in 1888. The Goelitz Confectionery Company (now called Jelly Belly) picked it up in 1898. When candy corn first came to be, the US was still largely a rural society, and that’s who candy corn was marketed to: rural residents. While Jelly Belly still makes candy corn, Brach’s Confections is now the largest manufacturer of candy corn, producing approximately 7 billion pieces of candy corn per year, making up 85% of the entire candy-corn industry at Halloween.
Though the Halloween season sparked the creation, Brach’s has expanded its candy corn sales by creating different versions for different seasons: “Indian corn,” popular around Thanksgiving, has a chocolate brown rather than yellow base; Christmas has “reindeer corn” with a red end and green center is popular; “cupid corn” comes around Valentine's Day; there’s “bunny corn” at Easter; and for Independence Day, “freedom corn.” In recent times, in addition to visual variations are, new flavors have been developed: caramel apple, green apple, s’mores, pumpkin spice, and carrot cake.
As of 2016, annual production in the United States was 35 million pounds, or almost 9 billion pieces of candy. With that kind of success, no wonder the National Confectioners Association deemed October 30, “National Candy Corn Day.”
OCTOBER 31: NATONAL MAGIC DAY
Halloween’s all about illusion. We dress up as something not ourselves. So, no wonder the day has also been named National Magic Day (which is part of National Magic Week, as well).
Magic is all about the creation of illusions — spooky and otherwise. Magicians — also known as “illusionists” — use natural means for creating seemingly impossible or for supernatural feats. There are lots of categories within the overall genre. They include:
Stage illusions: a kind of large-scale performance on a stage.
Parlor magic: a performance before a medium-scale audience such as an auditorium.
Micromagic: performed close up using coins, cards, and other small items. It's also known as close-up or table magic. This type of performance occurs in an intimate setting.
Escapology: In this type of performance, the artist escapes from a dangerous situation such as being submerged underwater while handcuffed or dangling from a burning rope.
Pickpocket magic: A distraction type of performance, the artist, makes watches, jewelry, wallets, and more disappear through misdirection. The audience witnesses the entire event.
Mentalism: This type of performance stuns the audience with the artist’s powers of intuition, memory, memory, deduction, and other feats of the mind.
Many magicians take their talents and combine them. Whether they burst into the Big Time, take the show to the streets, or entertain children, they hone their skills in a variety of ways. Others travel with fairs or demonstrate their skills with corporate or trade shows. Audiences also enjoy comedy and magic together.
Throughout history, people have “done magic.” Magic shows have their origins in ancient Egypt when the first conjuring act was recorded. Magic has played a relatively large role in history, especially in Western societies — from the first magic tricks and acts to the more notorious hunting of witches in the 17th century when magic was considered demonic. In the mid-19th century, magic shows became a fun social event, culminating with masters like Harry Houdini, who ruled the magic scene until his death in 1926. One of the most reknowned magicians of his time — especially for his escapology — Houdini developed a range of stage magic tricks and made full use of the variety of conjuring techniques, including fake equipment and collusion with individuals in the audience. His show-business savvy was as exceptional as his showmanship. The Houdini Museum is located in Scranton, Pennsylvania. In 1938, a Chicago member of the Society of American Magicians went to Mrs. Houdini to obtain official permission for an observance in honor of Harry Houdini. The result: October 31 was proclaimed National Magic Day in Harry Houdini’s memory.
NOVEMBER 1: PRIME MERIDIAN DAY
Prime Meridian Day celebrates the imaginary line that divides Earth into the East and West Hemispheres. It’s also a time to learn more about the prime meridian.
A map or globe display lines of latitude and longitude. These lines were developed to make it easier to find certain places. Lines of latitude provide a coordinate that is north or south of the equator. Lines of longitude give coordinates east or west of the prime meridian. A Greek astronomer named Hipparchus, who lived from 190 – 120 BC, first used lines of latitude and longitude to locate a specific location.
The prime meridian (which is 0 degrees longitude) could have been set anywhere. For many years, governments of different countries disagreed on its location. Mapmakers in France, for example, marked the prime meridian in Paris, while the Chinese government published maps with 0 degrees longitude going through Beijing.
In October 1884, US President Chester Arthur called for an International Meridian convention in Washington, DC, to agree upon “a meridian to be employed as a common zero of longitude and standard of time reckoning throughout the world.” There, on November 1, 41 representatives from 25 countries agreed on the official location of the prime meridian (0 degrees longitude): the Royal Observatory in Greenwich, England — the site of the large Airy Transit Circle telescope. The treaty adopted at the conference also set the International Date Line at 180° longitude in the Pacific Ocean. In all, there are 24 meridians, 1 every 15°, with an hour time difference. Despite this agreement, it took several years for every country in the world to agree on the official location for the prime meridian.
NOVEMBER 2: COOKIE MONSTER DAY
Cookie Monster Day celebrates the popular Sesame Street character Cookie Monster. Cookie Monster was dreamted up by Muppet creator Jim Henson. But Cookie (as he is known by his friends) was an actor even before debuting on Sesame Street in 1969. He actually got his big break in 1966 as a “Wheel-Stealer” on an unaired General Mills commercial for a snack food. The following year the monster was featured in an IBM training film that included a self-destructing “coffee break machine.” On October 8, 1967, this skit appeared on The Ed Sullivan Show. The Cookie Monster prototype next appeared as Arnold in three commercials for Munchos, a potato snack from Frito-Lay. Henson could have kept making more commercials with the popular monster, but brought him to Sesame Street instead. There he found a home.
When Cookie Monster first appeared on Sesame Street, his role was undefined. He didn’t even have a name. But by the second season he came into his own, and became one of the most popular characters on the show. He is known for his blue fur, googly eyes, simple language (“Me want cookie!”), and appetite to eat everything — not just cookies. There has been some concern that Cookie Monster encourages unhealthy eating, but Cookie Monster himself has even rapped about eating healthy food. However, the song he is most known for is “C is for Cookie.”
Cookie was played by Frank Oz until 2001, when David Rudman started doing most of the puppet’s portrayals.
Cookie Monster Day is celebrated on November 2, the day in 1969 when Cookie Monster was first introduced on Sesame Street. If you would like to hear Cookie’s “C is for Cookie” song, click here And if you want to hear Cookie rap for nutrition, click here.
NOVEMBER 3: WORLD JELLLYFISH DAY
World Jellyfish Day celebrates a beautiful, mysterious, and sometimes dangerous invertebrate. The day also encourages us to learn more about these unique aquatic animals.
Jellyfish are made up of about 95% water. They’re actually not fish at all, but invertebrates (meaning: without bones). Yes, they have a nerve network, but no central nervous system or brains. Also, they are without a circulatory system or a respiratory system. A jellyfish’s umbrella-shaped, jelly-like body — known as a bell — contains its stomach. Dangling from the bell are tentacles with cnidocytes, a type of exploding cell.
Jellyfish range in size: The Irukandji jellyfish weighs less than a tenth of an ounce, with a bell two-tenths of an inch in diameter. On the other hand, the lion’s mane jellyfish can weigh over 440 pounds and have a bell diameter of more than 6 ½ feet. No matter their size, because of these stinging tentacles any jellyfish is best appreciated from a distance.
Found in all 5 oceans around the world, most jellyfish eat plankton, fish larvae, and fish eggs. Their prey are sharks, sea turtles, dolphins, and tuna and other fish. Jellyfish migrate together in blooms, moving from the bottom of the ocean to its surface. Many, but not all, bloom in the spring, reproduce in the summer, and die in the fall. Some have a lifespan of a few hours, others can live for a few years. Many are dangerous to humans, with one of the most dangerous being the sea wasp, a box jellyfish.
Jellyfish have been around for a very long time — even longer than dinosaurs. Scientists’ theory that jellyfish originated some 500 million years ago was proven right with the 2007 discovery of perfectly preserved 505-million-year-old jellyfish fossils in Utah. Jellyfish’s mostly see-through bodies, wiry tentacles, and lack of bodily organs confounded early scientists – back when categories were only plants, animals, and humans — so much they couldn’t even classify them,. They didn’t seem to fit any one of those groups, and were classified as simply “incomplete” and ignored.
However, in 1859, Charles Darwin proposed his theory of evolution — “all living things show a variation in physical traits over time as a process of natural selection” — and jellyfish got some recognition. In 1866, the German zoologist and naturalist Ernst Haeckel wrote a book, Generelle Morphologie der Organismen (or, in English, General Morphology of Organisms). In it, he illustrated the evolution of many organisms — jellyfish included — to show how primitive animal forms gradually came to be versions known in modern times. His theory was that jellyfish had split from the rest of the organisms at an earlier date, which was the reason they looked so different from other species. And the research continued. In that process, at least in the scientific community, Jellyfish lost their “fish” designation, since they have no bones at all, much less a backbone. Scientists now sometimes refer to them as jellies.
Today, jellyfish are looked upon, all over the world, as somewhat of an invasive species, since they need very little oxygen to live and spread. They can survive in any water, enjoy a broad diet, reproduce very quickly, and shrink when food reserves reduce, only to revive themselves when food is available again. There are over 200 species of them — and some of them are even edible. They come in an array of colors, including, but not limited to, pink, yellow, blue, and purple. Jellyfish are usually luminescent, which makes them especially beautiful. On the down side, some jellyfish stings are very painful and others can be deadly.
NOVEMBER 4: KING TUT DAY
King Tut Day celebrates the day of the 1922 discovery, by archaeologist Howard Carter, of King Tut’s tomb in Egypt’s Valley of the Kings. Carter had first arrived in Egypt in 1891, but didn't start an in-depth search for King Tut’s tomb until after World War I. One reason the tomb hadn’t yet been found was because the steps to it had been covered and hidden with debris from the close-by tomb of Ramses VI. After discovering Tut’s tomb, Carter and another archaeologist, Lord Carnarvon, entered its interior chambers 3 weeks later, to find it remarkably intact. In the four-room tomb thousands of objects were discovered. These included a stone sarcophagus containing 3 other coffins inside of each other. Sort of a Russian doll of a coffin. Inside the final coffin — this one made of gold — was King Tut’s mummy. Most artifacts found in the excavation are now stored in the Cairo Museum. King Tut’s mummified body, still lies in his coffin.
King Tut’s full name was Tutankhamun. He was the 12th pharaoh of the 18th Egyptian dynasty, and reigned from roughly 1332 to 1323 BC, assuming power at the age of 9. His original name was Tutankhaten, which means “the living image of Aten,” but, after assuming the throne, he changed it to Tutankhamun, which means “the living image of Amun.” The difference? In Egyptian mythology “Aten” was merely the sun disk god. “Amun,” on the other hand, was a major god, sometimes called “King of the Gods.” Tut’s father was Akhenaten. He instituted a monotheistic religion where the only god that could be worshiped was Aten. During his father’s rule, focus was primarily on the religious transition, relegating foreign and other domestic affairs to the rear. After a 17-year rule, his son took over the throne. As King Tutankhaten, he worked to reverse his father’s policies and restore order, in a hope that all the gods would once again smile on Egypt.
It is not definitively known what led to Tut’s early death at 20. A long-held theory was that political rivals had killed him by striking him in the head. When found, there was damage to his skull. But a body scan in 2006 revealed the damage had happened after his death. Research suggests that he probably died from gangrene after suffering a broken leg. A 2010 study found that he had malaria and was disabled, which may have meant that he had to walk with a cane and was more susceptible to falls. Well, we at Kendal can all appreciate that.
NOVEMBER 5: ZERO TASKING DAY
Zero Tasking Day is celebrated on the first Sunday in November every year — November 5, this year — the same day that Daylight Savings Time ends. Suddenly, we have a whole extra hour. It’s temping to get a few extra tasks in. Zero Tasking Day encourages us to ditch that attitude.
Daylight savings was created to enable individuals who follow a clock-based schedule to get as many things done with the seasons’ ensuing changes (shorter days, longer nights). The clock would be changed on the same day at the same time to be an hour ahead. That way, people would have more hours during the day.
Daylight Saving Time ends on this day, when we turn our clocks back and “gain” an hour. Author Nancy Christie had the idea that instead of using the gained hour for more work and stress, we should instead be using it to “take a breath, relax, reenergize, refresh and deload.” According to Christie, we shouldn't be playing catch-up on tasks. Instead, we should do nothing — nothing except a little soul searching and reflection. She said we should stop and breathe and marvel at our own existence. We should reflect on and look at the world around us and place ourselves within it with a sense of peace. We should use the day to strengthen ourselves and be kind and nurturing to ourselves, so we are better able to help others, and so we will be more equipped to reach our own goals. Definitely sounds like a plan.