Wednesday, May 19, 2010

Send Marilyn Monroe a Postcard of Thomas Chippendale's Wedding!


ALMANAC-

May 19, 1593: Jacob Jordaens, Flemish painter, was born. "Jacob Jordaens was one of three Flemish Baroque painters, along with Peter Paul Rubens and Anthony van Dyck, to bring prestige to the Antwerp school of painting. Unlike those contemporaries he never traveled abroad to study Italian painting, and his career is marked by an indifference to their intellectual and courtly aspirations. In fact, except for a few short trips to locations in the Low Countries, he remained in Antwerp his entire life. As well as being a successful painter, he was a prominent designer of tapestries. Like Rubens, Jordaens painted altarpieces, mythological, and allegorical scenes, and after 1640—the year Rubens died—he was the most important painter in Antwerp for large-scale commissions and the status of his patrons increased in general. However, he is best-known today for his numerous large genre scenes based on proverbs."


May 19, 1748: Thomas Chippendale, famous London cabinet-maker and furniture designer, married Catherine Redshaw at St George's Chapel, Mayfair.


May 19, 1891 - National Society of Colonial Dames of America was founded. "The National Society of the Colonial Dames of America is an American organization composed of women who are descended from an ancestor who came to reside in an American Colony before 1750, and whose services were rendered during the Colonial Period. The national headquarters of the society is at Washington, D.C., at Dumbarton House. The Society owns and operates over 70 museums around the nation, including the Henry B. Clarke House in Chicago; Governor Stephen Hopkins House, Providence, Rhode Island; Gunston Hall, Mason Neck, Virginia; Liberty Hall, Frankfort, Kentucky; Stenton, Philadelphia, Pennsylvania; and McAllister House Museum, Colorado Springs, Colorado.


May 19, 1898: The Post Office authorizes use of privately-printed postcards. "In 1861, John P. Charlton of Philadelphia patented the postcard, selling the rights to H. L. Lipman, whose postcards, complete with a decorated border, were labeled "Lipman's postal card." Then in 1873, Post Master John Creswell, introduced the first pre-stamped "penny postcards". These first postcards depicted Interstate Industrial Exposition that took place in Chicago. The postcards were made because people were looking for an easier way to send quick notes. The first postcard to be printed as a souvenir in the United States was created in 1893 to advertise the World's Columbian Exposition in Chicago. The Post Office was the only establishment allowed to print postcards, and it held its monopoly until May 19, 1898, when Congress passed the Private Mailing Card Act which allowed private publishers and printers to produce postcards. Initially, the United States government prohibited private companies from calling their cards “postcards,” so they were known as “souvenir cards.”


VIDEO OF THE DAY-

On May 19, 1962 Actress Marilyn Monroe performed a sultry rendition of "Happy Birthday" for President John F. Kennedy during a fund-raiser at New York's Madison Square Garden-


No comments: