Today is...

[IceWizard]

Friday 16 Dec 2016

Day Of Reconciliation



They say that all good things come to an end, thankfully this remains true for horrid atrocities as well.

One such ending took place in 1991 with the ending of apartheid, a system of racial segregation that existed in South Africa on the back of legislation introduced by the National Party.

The Day of Reconciliation was introduced in 1994 as a way to heal the rift between the people of South Africa, and bring harmony to a nation still suffering from decades of injustice.

History of Day of Reconciliation

The history of the Day of Reconciliation is the history of a nation suffering under the auspices of colonialism and the inherent racism that existed as a part of this practice.

While apartheid became legislated in 1948, racial segregation had been a reality in South Africa since the reign of the Dutch Empire in 1652, and saw no change when the British took possession of the country in 1795.

Things only got worse in 1950 when non-white political representation was abolished in the country.

While it served to deeper entrench the policies of racial segregation, it also sparked off a series of rebellions, violence, and a trade and long arms embargo against the country.

The date for the Day of Reconciliation was selected due to its significance to both the Afrikaner and African people.

For the Afrikaner it was known as the Day of the Covenant, a religious holiday celebrating a victory over the Zulus by the Voortrekker’s in 1838 at the Battle of Blood River.

For the Africans it was a day of one of an important protest in 1910 against racial discrimination.

In 1961 the Umkhonto we Sizwe, the “Spear o the Nation”, was established, an armed force of the ANC. The first acts of sabotage and violent resistance against the apartheid leaders also happened on that day in history.



And



Underdog Day



Honour the world’s greatest unsung heroes, runners up and unlikely winners who have pulled off the unexpected on Underdog Day!

For those that may not know, an “underdog” is a person in a competition or other event who is popularly expected to lose or fail. The individual expected to win is called the favorite or top dog.

The History of Underdog Day

Originally, an underdog was a shipbuilder who stood in a dark pit and helped to saw planks of wood from beneath whilst the overdog, a supervisor of sorts, sawed the planks from above. The underdog got all dirty and covered in sawdust, yet the overdog got all of the credit for the hard work carried out.

The first recorded uses of the term occurred in the second half of the nineteenth century; its first meaning was “the beaten dog in a fight”. An “underdog bet” was a bet on the underdog for which the odds were always considerably higher.

Established by Peter Moeller in 1976, Underdog Day is the time to honour all of life’s unrecognised hard-workers.

Nowadays, the underdog character has become quite popular in pop culture, from Forrest Gump to The Karate Kid. Famous unlikely winners, such as Britain’s Got Talent’s Susan Boyle or Paul Potts have also been especially liked for their underdog status.

In fiction, some famous underdog winners include characters like Rocky Balboa or William Wallace in Braveheart–despite the rather thin or simply unlikely plots of both of these movies, they have both become cult classics, proving the status of the underdog character.

In fact, mankind has always rooted for the underdog. Perhaps there is something central to the human experience that means we all feel a bit like our lives consist of collecting the sawdust of life, and so we dream about the prospect of one day emerging from this filthy, splintery mess victorious.It would seem that people find it much easier to identify with the imperfect underdogs whose accomplishments often go unnoticed than the heroes everyone talks about and revers.

It is hard to identify with the perfect, infallible characters who always know exactly what they’re doing and make no mistakes, the simple reason for this being that that’s not what reality looks like.

Nobody is perfect, so seeing people being presented as such can actually make us dislike them. And the truth is that a lot of those heroes would not be who they are, and would not have achieved what they’ achieved, if it wasn’t for their humble sidekicks, the underdogs.

Imagine Batman without Robin, or Sherlock Holmes without Watson.

Not quite the same, right?

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December 16 Birthdays


Billy Gibbons - 67



Ludwig van Beethoven -(1770-1827)



Jane Austen - (1775-1817)



Quentin Blake - 84








December 16th

2005: U2’s Vertigo tour was declared the top grossing tour of 2005 grossing $260 million and drew 3 million people to 90 sellout concerts.

1989: Bon Jovi peaked at number nine on the Billboard Hot 100 Singles Chart with “Living in Sin” which was their eighth top ten single in the U.S.

1989: Whitesnake peaked at number ten on the Billboard 200 Album Chart with Slip of the Tongue which was their second and final top ten album in the U.S.

1983: A spokesperson for The Who announced that they were disbanding. They would go on to reunite in 1989 and 1996 before permanently reforming in 1999.

1979: Kiss performed their last concert with their original lineup at the Toledo Sports Arena until their reunion tour in 1996.

1974: Mott the Hoople publicly announced that they had split up.

1970: Creedence Clearwater Revival received their first Gold records and singles as the RIAA certified their first five albums, “Bad Moon Rising”, “Down on the Corner”, “Up Around the Bend”, and “Lookin’ Out My Back Door” Gold.

1967: NME in the U.K. announced that The Rolling Stones were launching their record label Mother Earth and that Marianne Faithfull was their first signing. The label never appeared.

1966: The Jimi Hendrix Experience released their debut single “Hey Joe”.



Birthdays:

Tony Hicks - Guitarist for The Hollies born in 1945

Billy Gibbons - Guitarist for ZZ Top born in 1949