1934 Donald Duck debuts
Other events today:
1662 Mr Punch from Punch and Judy debuts in England
1860 J.M. Barrie born
1920 Richard Adams born, author of Watership Down (for age 9-16)
Europe Day (commemorating Schumann Declaration beginning the idea of a united Europe)
Victory and Peace Day (Soviet Union defeats Nazi Germany, celebrated by Russia; Armenia; Azerbaijan; Belarus; Georgia; Kazakhstan; Kyrgryzstan; Tajikistan; Turkmenistan; Moldova; Ukraine)
Guernsey/Jersey Liberation Day
Romania Independence Day (from Ottoman Empire, 1877) – see 24th January
1806 Isambard Kingdom Brunel born – so build bridges, viaducts, tunnels and railways!
Today has a weird amount of celebrations of battles and victories, so maybe play Risk?
…. or play at being soldiers.
Other events today that might inspire your play:
1959 Barbie debuts at the American International Toy Fair, so throw Barbie a birthday party. Maybe decorate her dress/cake:
Baron Bliss Day (Belize celebrates a man who left them over $1 million. – see 21st September)
1895 volleyball invented (originally called Mintonette)
Thaipoosam Cavadee (Mauritius 2017:that one where they all skewer themselves because the god Vel vanquished a demon with a spear)
Day of the Skulls (Bolivia: skulls of family members watch over the house three years after burial; on this day they are given offerings and taken to Mass)
Inventors Day (Germany, Austria, Switzerland)
Cambodia Independence Day
Cambodia was a collection of little kingdoms heavily influenced by India until the Khmer Empire grew in the 9th century. Its capital was Angkor, the world’s largest pre-industrial capital.
Sri Lankan monks introduced Buddhism in the 13th century. Angkor was abandoned in 1432 after being sacked by the Siamese Ayutthaya Kingdom. The Khmer kings became vassals of the Siamese and Vietnamese, who continuously fought over it until the Cambodian king Norodom I asked the French for protection in 1863.
Cambodia became part of French Indochina, except for when Japan invaded in WWII.
Cambodia gained independence in 1953. When the French were handing out independence, the Mekong Delta went to the Vietnamese, even though 1 million ethnic Khmers live there.
Cambodia remained neutral in the Cold War, but King Sihanouk let Communists find sanctuary during the Vietnam War going on right next door.
In 1970 King Sihanouk was ousted and Cambodia became anti-Communist. So North Vietnam attacked Cambodia, and the king’s old supporters joined in and the country dissolved into civil war. Meanwhile the US and South Vietnam bombed Cambodia, you know, to help.
Cambodian Communism was called the Khmer Rouge, under the leader Pol Pot.
In 1975 the Khmer Republic surrendered to the Communists, and Cambodia was renamed the Democratic Kampuchea. The cities were evacuated and everyone was forced to march to work on farms. About a quarter of the population were killed, and areas of the country are now known as the Killing Fields.
In 1978 Vietnam invaded because the Khmer Rouge had been trying to take back the Mekong Delta. In 1991 the UN took over to try and sort everything out.
In 1993 Sihanouk was restored as king, and the UN set up free elections with the government in charge of power. In 1997 the co-Prime Minister Hun Sen had all the non-communist MPs assassinated, but otherwise things have worked ok.
Allama Muhammad Iqbal Day (Pakistan – birthday of national poet)
Germany’s Schicksaltag (Day of Fate because historically important things happened on this day)
1877 inaugural Wimbledon championships – so play tennis
Argentina Independence Day:
Argentina comes from the Latin ‘argentum’, silver, as Europeans thought there were mountains of silver to be found.
Before the Europeans arrived Argentinians were a mix of hunter-gatherers and farmers who made pottery.
Amerigo Vespucci arrived in 1502. The Spanish Empire made it part of the Viceroyalty of Peru, then in 1776 it became the Viceroyalty of the Rio de la Plata (Silver River), with Buenos Aires as its capital.
The 1810 May Revolution replaced the Viceroy with a Junta, a government made of local people. During the revolution some parts of the Viceroyalty broke away and became independent states: Uruguay, upper Peru and Paraguay.
There was then a civil war between the Centralists, who wanted Buenos Aires to rule a united land, and the Federalists who wanted little independent states.
From 1861 everything was settled, and Argentina welcomed in a huge wave of European immigrants that made it the seventh wealthiest country in the world.
In 1930 the democratically elected president was shoved out of the way by José Félix Uriburu’s military coup.
Argentina stayed neutral in WWI and nearly all of WWII, jumping in a month before the end at America’s insistence.
The minister of welfare, Juan Domingo Perón, became president in 1946 and introduced Peronism, where important services were nationalised, he reached 100% employment, improved wages and working conditions and repaid all external debt. Wow.
But then the economy started to suffer from over-expenditure and in 1955 Argentina’s own navy bombed the Plaza de Mayo, injuring 800 people and killing 364, in the first step of a military revolution called the Revolucion Libertadora.
Perón had to go into exile. The revolution leaders banned Peronism, but at the next elections a Peronist successor was elected, Arturo Frondizi, and he reversed everything; there was another military coup, Peronism was banned again; then Arturo Illia was elected and he tried to legalise Peronism, then there was another military coup, and so on and so on.
This last coup was led by Juan Carlos Onganía, who banned all political parties and unions (always a good start), but in 1973 the elections were back, and so was Peronism…. and so was Perón.
Tension was now so high that when he returned from exile, snipers fired on the welcoming crowd to kill the left-wing supporters, injuring 365.
Perón was elected president, and expelled the Montoneros from the party, which were a left-wing guerrilla fighter group.
Perón died the next year and his wife took his place, secretly ordering police and the military to destroy the left-wing radicals. Then she was ousted by the Proceso, which again banned all political parties and unions and made anyone associated with left-wing politics disappear.
Then Leopoldo Galtieri became head of state and decided to invade the Falklands. Bad idea. The UK defeated them in two months. Argentina then brought back democracy (huzza) and veered between neoliberalism and Peronism some more, ad infinitum.
Activities: Dance the tango. The official national sport is pato. Make locro (stew).
Other events today:
1934 Donald Duck debuts
Other events today:
1662 Mr Punch from Punch and Judy debuts in England
1860 J.M. Barrie born
1920 Richard Adams born, author of Watership Down (for age 9-16)
Europe Day (commemorating Schumann Declaration beginning the idea of a united Europe)
Victory and Peace Day (Soviet Union defeats Nazi Germany, celebrated by Russia; Armenia; Azerbaijan; Belarus; Georgia; Kazakhstan; Kyrgryzstan; Tajikistan; Turkmenistan; Moldova; Ukraine)
Guernsey/Jersey Liberation Day
Romania Independence Day (from Ottoman Empire, 1877) – see 24th January
1895 volleyball invented (originally called Mintonette)
Thaipoosam Cavadee (Mauritius 2017:that one where they all skewer themselves because the god Vel vanquished a demon with a spear)
Around the World with the Kids 
