In the French Republican Calendar adopted in 1792 during the French Revolution, this Saturday, February 15, 2020 will be Septidi 27 Pluviôse, the one-hundred-forty-seventh day of year 228 of the revolutionary era. Pluviôse was named after the Latin word pluviosus, meaning rainy.
Fête du jour (Feast day of the people): Noisetier (Hazelnut: In 1995, evidence of large-scale Mesolithic nut processing, some 9,000 years old, was found in a midden pit on the island of Colonsayin Scotland. The evidence consists of a large, shallow pit full of the remains of hundreds of thousands of burned hazelnut shells. Hazelnuts have been found on other Mesolithic sites, but rarely in such quantities or concentrated in one pit. The nuts were radiocarbon dated to 7720+/-110BP, which calibrates to circa 7000 BC. Similar sites in Britain are known only at Farnham in Surrey and Cass ny Hawin on the Isle of Man. See also Sruwaddacon Bay, Kilcommon, Erris, County Mayo, Ireland.)
102 years ago this Saturday was the one-hundred-thirteenth day of the Russian Revolution!
101 years ago this Saturday was the one-hundred-third day of the nearly year-long German Revolution that took place between 1918 and 1919!
- USA. ENIAC, the first electronic general-purpose computer, is formally dedicated at the University of Pennsylvania in Philadelphia.
- USA. Organized labor aligns with interests of capital. The Congress of Industrial Organizations (CIO) expels the Mine, Mill & Smelter Workers; the Food, Tobacco & Agricultural Workers; and the United Office & Professional Workers for “Communist tendencies.” Other unions expelled for the same reason (dates uncertain): Fur and Leather Workers, the Farm Equipment Union, the Int’l Longshoremen’s Union, the United Electrical, Radio and Machine Workers.
- UK. Wapping Strikes. Following the move of News International to Wapping where print unions would not be able to wield the power over the newspaper industry, they strike and picket the Wapping plant and 58 people arrested in the worst outbreak of violence yet outside the News International printing plant in Wapping, east London.
- Worldwide. Protests against the Iraq war take place in over 600 cities. It is estimated that between 8 million to 30 million people participate, making this the largest peace demonstration in history.