February 7 History National Black HIV/AIDS Awareness Day

Ridley’s Believe It Or Not—February 7, 2015 Trust your weekend is off to a great start. As always, I  hope you enjoy the holidays and observances, factoids and a relevant quote by Anne Applebaum,  with a smile on your face, enjoying with some friends a plate of fettuccini with Alfredo sauce, blessed with a positive attitude even though you know you will have to wade through tons of spam in your inbox, and secure in the knowledge that if you want to find a gift for a memorable event like Valentines’ Day soon approaching, you know that the Alaskanpoet can provide you with a unique customized poem at a great price tailored to the event and the recipient.  You need only contact me for details.

       1. Black HIV/AIDS Awareness Day—started by the CDC in 1999 to promote awareness of HIV/AIDS and the need for testing and safe sexual practices to curtail the spread of the disease.

       2. Wilder Better Than Tamer Day—commemorating the birthday on this day in 1867 of Laura Ingalls Wilder, the author of Little House on the Prairie, immortalized on TV by a series of the same name starring Michael Landon and Melissa Gilbert.
       3. 2007 Number One Song—celebrating the number one song on this day in 2007 as part of a 10 week run Irreplaceable by Beyonce, winner of 17 Grammy Awards and the seller of over 100 million albums.
        4. National Fettuccine Alfredo Day—great meal if you are a lover of pasta and thick sauces.    
        5. Ice Trumps Unsinkable Every Time—celebrating the birthday on this day in 1873 of Thomas Andrews the architect of the RMS Titanic whose design was not unsinkable and who went down with the ship after it collided with an iceberg in the North Atlantic on its maiden voyage on April 15, 1912. 
On this day in
     a. 1795 the 11^th Amendment, granting sovereign immunity to the states was ratified and made part of the Constitution.
     b. 1812 the strongest of almost 1,000 earthquakes in a two year period, believed to be an 8 on the Richter Scale, hit New Madrid, Missouri—the quake was felt as far away as New York. 
     c. 1962 to the dismay of cigar lovers in the U.S., the U.S. banned all imports of products from Cuba.

     d. 1994 the Beatles landed in the U. S. for the first time and appeared on the Ed Sullivan Show two days later, starting Beatle mania.

     e. 1990 the Central Committee of the Communist Party in the Soviet Union agreed to give up its monopoly power, the first step toward the dissolution of the Soviet Union on December 26, 1991.       

Reflections on the Russian Bear even after the demise of the Soviet Union and even as we lurch to yet another crisis in Eastern Europe. “If the Russian people and the Russian elite remembered - viscerally, emotionally remembered - what Stalin did to the Chechens, they could not have invaded Chechnya in the 1990s, not once and not twice. To do so was the moral equivalent of postwar Germany invading western Poland. Very few Russians saw it that way - which is itself evidence of how little they know about their own history.” Anne Applebaum, author of Gulag, A HistoryPlease enjoy the 140 character poems on events of interest on my twitter account below (if you like them, retweet and join 155 growing followers and please follow me) and follow my blogs. Always good, incisive and entertaining poems on my blogs—click on the links below. Go to www.alaskanpoet.blogspot.com for Ridley’s Believe It Or Not—This Day In History, poems to inspire, touch, emote, elate and enjoy and poems on breaking news items of importance. Go to Rhymes On The Newsworthy Times for comments on important and breaking news events that should be of interest. www.alaskanpoet.blogspot.com Ridley's Believe It Or Not  Rhymes On The Newsworthy Times
© February 7, 2015 Michael P. Ridley aka the Alaskanpoet
Alaskanpoet for Hire, Poems to Admire
Poet Extraordinaire Beyond Compare
Rhymes for the Memorable Times
The Perfect Gift, All Recipients to Receive a Lasting Lift