Every Day Is Special: May 2021

May 31 - Memorial Day in the U.S. AND Castille-La Mancha Day in Spain

Posted on May 31, 2021

This is an update of my post published on May 31, 2010:

Memorial Day in the U.S. is a day to honor men and women who have died in the military services.

Memorial Day got its start immediately after the Civil War in 1865. In Charleston, South Carolina, there was a racecourse that had been used by the Confederate army to imprison captured Union soldiers - and it was also used as a mass grave for Union soldiers who had died there. As soon as the war was over, a group of formerly enslaved people took it upon themselves to dig up the Union soldiers' bodies from the mass grave and to rebury them in more dignified individual graves with markers. It was hard work, and undoubtedly disgusting, but they got the task done in just 10 days—including building a 10-foot-tall fence around the new Union graveyard.

On May 1, 1865, about ten thousand people (mostly Black residents) came to the graveyard to form a parade, listen to sermons, and sing together - all in honor of the fallen soldiers.

Other folks in other towns started their own traditions of having a particular day to honor those who died in the Civil War. Women in Columbus, Mississippi, probably didn't know about the Charlestown event when they decorated graves in April of 1866. General John A. Logan might not have known about either of these events when he urged people to decorate the graves of Union soldiers on May 30, 1968. Logan's effort was more widespread - not focused on just one town - and he went on to asking Congress to make Decoration Day (as it was then called) a legal holiday.

Eventually Congress did recognize Decoration / Memorial Day, and after World War I the category of honorees was broadened to include all who die in the military services.

Castille-La Mancha Day in Spain is a regional holiday. I mentioned in an earlier post that Spain is largely divided into semi-autonomous regions, and this is one of them. The largest city in this region is Toledo, but the area is probably best known as the setting for the famous novel Don Quixote. According to Wikipedia, the area is also known for its sunflowers, olive yards, and windmills.

The people of Castille-La Mancha celebrate the day with sporting events, art shows, musical performances, local movie showings, taste-testing and wine-tasting, and presentations about local scientists. Very cool!

Celebrate the Day's Holidays!

Here is a jigsaw puzzle of a Memorial Day scene.

Do you want to try a new game? A teacher named Carlos Velazquez, of Spain, has gathered together many “street games” that kids play in Spain.

Here is a simplified version of the story of Don Quixote.

Many towns and cities have a local memorial (or two) that is dedicated to those who gave up their life doing military service. Can you find out if yours does? Visit it today.

Here is a quick tour through Castille-La Mancha.

I loved this feature of the Toledo Cathedral - a breakthrough spot on the cathedral ceiling, through which you can see a higher, brighter, more heavenly spot.
Note the ring of angels and others surrounding the hole, which is called
El Transparente.

There is an extensive amount of stuff on the web about war and peace and memorials. Here is one website that gathers together some of those resources.

Also on this date:

What You Think Upon Grows Day

Anniversary of the discovery of the Catacombs

Macaroon Day

World No-Tobacco Day

National Reconciliation Week in Australia

Armed Forces Day in Brunei

Historical anniversaries concerning explorers

Birthday of poet Walt Whitman

Anniversary of the first U.S. copyright law

Anniversary of the charting of the Strait of Juan de Fuca

National Hamburger Day

(Last Monday in May)

Plan ahead:

Check out my Pinterest boards for:

May 30 - Mount Lassen Awakens After 27,000 Years!

Posted on May 30, 2021

This is an update of my post published on May 30, 2010:

A volcanic peak in Northern California, Lassen Peak, formed about 27,000 years ago, but for thousands of years it just sat there looking pretty as Maidu and other American Indian groups hunted and gathered in its shadow, and as European Americans such as Peter Lassen and William Nobles led groups of settlers past as they traveled to the Sacramento Valley.

Some people visited the area and climbed the peak, but few people lived near there. (As it turns out, that was probably a lucky thing!)

On this day in 1914, a steam explosion shook the mountain. This announced to the world that Lassen was active again after all those thousands of years of being “dormant” (which basically means “sleeping”).

Humans could say, “Thanks for the warning!” Actually, the mountain gave a series of warnings—more than 180 steam explosions occurred over the course of a year. Finally, after all those warnings, in May of 1915 larger eruptions shook the area, with hot, glowing blocks of lava spewing out of the mountain, an avalanche of snow and volcanic rock roaring down one flank, and mudflows pouring down another. The “Great Explosion” of 1915 shot pumice and other rocks high into the air, and a cloud of ash and gas rose more than 30,000 feet up. People who lived more than 200 miles away could see the eruption!

And nobody died!

This huge rock flew through the air,
landed with a mighty thunk,
and stayed hot for months!

It's still called "Hot Rock"!

Steam explosions continued to occur for two more years, but then Mount Lassen began to settle down again. There are geothermal areas in the park – hot springs, mudpots, and steaming fumeroles – but there haven't been eruptions or explosions for many decades now. Scientists and governmental agencies continue to monitor the volcanic areas, and every year thousands of visitors safely visit the hot spots and climb the volcano.

One active area near Lassen Peak
is called Bumpass Hell

What causes volcanoes?

Volcanoes are openings in the Earth's crust that allows molten rock, ash, and gases to escape from underneath.

There are two main reasons for volcanoes: the actions of tectonic plates, and “hot spots” caused by mantle plumes.

The rocky crust of the Earth is not one whole sphere of rock, but is instead eight giant plates and many smaller plates of rock.

These plates move about on the hotter upper mantle, sometimes spreading apart and letting molten rock come up through the resulting crack, sometimes running into each other and pushing up mountains, and sometimes with one plate pushing down underneath another. The areas where plates pull apart or run into each other are often edged with volcanoes and feature earthquakes.

The diagram above shows how Lassen Peak and other
Cascade volcanoes were formed, as the Pacific Plate
ran into and then pushed underneath the continental plate.

The diagram below shows how the Hawaiian Islands
were formed in the middle of the Pacific Ocean.

Hot spots are quite different. They are probably caused by mantle plumes, areas in which hotter columns of molten rock rise through the mantle and cause volcanic eruptions in the crust. They can be far from the edge of the tectonic plates, but as a plate slowly glides over a hot spot, a chain of volcanic islands can form. The Hawaiian Islands are a famous example of a chain of “hot spot” volcanic islands.

Mount Lassen is an example of a tectonic-plate volcano, and it other nearby volcanic mountains make up the Cascade Range. Mount St. Helens in Washington, which exploded in a deadly and economically destructive eruption in 1980; Crater Lake in Oregon, which is the remnant of Mount Mazama; and Mount Shasta in Northern California are other volcanoes in the Cascades.

Explore Volcanoes (Virtually Speaking!)

“How Volcanoes Work” is an interesting website with lots of diagrams.

Kids' National Geographic has a page about volcanoes.

There are several different kinds of volcanoes
and volcanic eruptions.

There are volcanoes elsewhere in the universe, other than Earth! The largest volcano that we know of is on the planet Mars: Olympic Mons, which is about the size of the state of Arizona.