Andrew Hollandbeck

Article / Updated 05-19-2023

Father's Day, celebrated in the United States on the third Sunday of June, got a jump start from the formation of Mother's Day. Credit for beginning Father's Day celebrations is given to Sonora Smart Dodd (1882—1978) of Spokane, Washington. At the turn of the century, Mother's Day observances were growing across the United States. The federal government had yet to recognize the holiday, but many states had adopted the third Sunday in May as a special celebration day honoring mothers. It was during a Mother's Day church service on June 20, 1909, that Dodd was struck with the idea of creating a special holiday to honor fathers, too. When Dodd was 16, her mother died while giving birth to her sixth child, the last of five sons. Back then, like today, single parenthood was no easy task. By Dodd's account, though, her father, a Civil War veteran named William Jackson Smart, did a wonderful job. Because of this love and esteem, Dodd believed that her father deserved a special time of honor just like that given to mothers on Mother's Day. In 1909, Dodd approached the Spokane YMCA and the Spokane Ministerial Alliance and suggested that her father's birthday, June 5, become a celebration day for Father's Day. Because they wanted more time to prepare, the Ministerial Alliance chose June 19 instead. The first Father's Day was thus observed in the State of Washington on June 19, 1910. The idea of officially celebrating fatherhood spread quickly across the United States, as more and more states adopted the holiday. In 1924, President Calvin Coolidge recognized Father's Day as the third Sunday in June of that year and encouraged states to do the same. Congress officially recognized Father's Day in 1956 with the passage of a joint resolution. Ten years later, in 1966, President Lyndon Johnson issued a proclamation calling for the third Sunday in June to be recognized as Father's Day. In 1972, President Richard Nixon permanently established the observance of the third Sunday in June as Father's Day in the United States. Dodd lived to see her dream come to fruition. She died in 1978 at the age of 96.

Article / Updated 04-25-2023

Many people mistakenly believe that Cinco de Mayo is Mexican Independence Day. That simply isn't true; Cinco de Mayo celebrates an event that happened in the city of Puebla more than 50 years after Mexico won independence from Spain — and Spain doesn't even figure into Cinco de Mayo. The history of Cinco de Mayo In 1861, Mexican President Benito Juárez stopped making interest payments to Mexico's creditors. Although England worked diplomatically with Mexico to work out their problems, France's Emperor Napoleon III decided to invade Mexico and force repayment. This invasion was a clear violation of the United States' Monroe Doctrine — which stated that any attempts by European nations to colonize or interfere with states in the Americas would be viewed as acts of aggression — but by this time, the United States had its hands full with its own Civil War. So, for the time being, Mexico was on its own. France's first invasions proved successful, and its forces moved steadily toward Mexico's capital, Mexico City, defeating any resistance that stood in their way. That is, until early May 1862, when they reached the city of Puebla. Even though the French armies outnumbered the Mexican armies at Puebla 2 to 1, the Mexican forces, under the command of General Ignacio Zaragoza Seguín, managed to defeat the French army on May 5. It is this victory over the French that is celebrated on Cinco de Mayo. The French defeat at Puebla slowed but did not halt France's progress toward Mexico City, however. In 1864, with the support of Mexico's Roman Catholic clergy and conservative upper class, France overtook Mexico City, setting Emperor Maximilian I on the throne. After the U.S. Civil War ended, the United States began pressuring France to pull out of Mexico. Eventually, this pressure, along with continuous resistance from the citizens of Mexico, forced France to withdraw. By the middle of May 1867, Maximilian I had been executed and Benito Juárez was once again presiding over his state of Mexico. Celebrating Cinco de Mayo Outside of Puebla, Cinco de Mayo isn't much celebrated in Mexico. In the United States and elsewhere, though, the holiday is used to celebrate Mexican pride and heritage. In many cities with large Mexican populations, you can expect to find parades, cultural exhibits, and fairs. And, of course, Cinco de Mayo is used as an excuse to imbibe that spirit born in the heart of Mexico: tequila. U.S. celebrations of Cinco de Mayo may have begun shortly after the original battle of Puebla, as Californians used Cinco de Mayo as a rallying call to show their support of Mexican resistance to French rule.

Article / Updated 04-24-2023

Mother's Day as a national holiday in the United States is almost a century old, but its roots go back before the Civil War to a hard-working Virginian mother and activist named Anna Reeves Jarvis. In total, Anna Reeves Jarvis gave birth to 11 children, though only four of them survived to adulthood. In the late 1850s, seeing the mortal costs of disease and bad sanitation, Jarvis began organizing Mothers' Day Work Clubs, which brought together local mothers to help promote cleanliness and sanitation in the community. During the Civil War, Jarvis (by then a resident of the Union's newly formed state of West Virginia) encouraged these clubs to remain neutral and to nurse wounded soldiers from the Confederacy and Union alike. Throughout Jarvis's work with her family, her church, and her community, she expressed her wish that someday, the importance of a mother's work would be formally recognized by all. One of her surviving children, her daughter Anna, born in 1864, took those wishes to heart. When her mother died on May 9, 1905, the younger Anna hoped to fulfill her mother's wish. She and her friends and supporters began a letter-writing campaign to establish a national holiday in celebration of the importance of motherhood. The campaign was successful as, by degrees, this new holiday came into being. On May 9, 1908, Jarvis's home town of Grafton, West Virginia, was the first to recognize Mother's Day in a church service on the third anniversary of Jarvis's death. At that service, Anna presented each mother in attendance with one of her mother's favorite flowers, the white carnation. Two years later, the state of West Virginia adopted Mother's Day as a state holiday. Anna's letter-writing campaign continued as she pushed for broader recognition. One by one, more states began celebrating Mother's Day in their own ways. It wasn't until May 1914 that President Woodrow Wilson, following a joint resolution of Congress, signed and issued Proclamation 1268, creating a national Mother's Day and setting its observance on the second Sunday of May. Since that time, every president has issued a Mother's Day proclamation that recognizes and honors America's mothers. By then, carnations had already become a traditional symbol of Mother's Day. More specifically, red carnations were used to honor living mothers, and white carnations were placed on the graves of deceased mothers. Ironically, Anna Jarvis, "the mother of Mother's Day," never had any children of her own. After she died in 1948, at the age of 84, she was buried — quite fittingly — next to her mother in Philadelphia.

Article / Updated 02-15-2023

An earthquake is the sometimes violent shaking of the ground caused by movements of Earth's tectonic plates. Most earthquakes occur along fault lines, which is where two tectonic plates come together. Earthquakes strike suddenly and violently and can occur at any time, day or night, throughout the year. Smaller earthquakes might crack some windows and shake products off store shelves, but larger earthquakes can cause death and massive destruction, devastating communities and debilitating local economies. A tectonic shift Earthquakes occur when large sections of the Earths' crust — called tectonic plates — shift. There are seven primary tectonic plates (African, Antarctic, Eurasian, Indo-Australian, North American, Pacific, and South American) and a number of smaller, secondary and tertiary plates. Because of underlying movement in the Earth's mantle, these plates can shift. This shifting of one plate causes it to rub against or push under or over an adjacent plate. The place where two plates meet is called a fault line, and it's at these fault lines that earthquakes occur. Earthquakes are often followed by smaller earthquakes called aftershocks, which can occur over days or weeks as the plates settle into equilibrium. In the United States, California experiences damaging earthquakes most often, but Alaska has the greatest number of large earthquakes. They occur mostly in uninhabited areas, though, and so don't cause as much damage. What can earthquakes do? The violent ground-shaking of earthquakes by itself can cause damage to homes, roads, and bridges; shake products off shelves; and lead to injuries and death, but earthquakes can also lead to other natural disasters: Avalanches and landslides: Earthquakes can shake snow, soil, and rock right off a sloped surface. Landslides have been a particular problem in California, where a number of mountainside homes have ended up in the Pacific Ocean because of them. Surface faulting: Surface faulting is a change in the relative positions of things on opposite sides of a fault line. For instance, a straight section of railroad track that runs across a fault line might have a nasty curve in it after an earthquake, rendering it useless for train travel. Tsunamis: Tsunamis are a series of waves that are caused by the sudden displacement of large amounts of ocean water, usually because of underwater earthquakes. When tsunamis hit land, they can knock over buildings, wash away cars, and cause massive flooding. The most massive tsunamis can reach heights of well over 500 feet. Liquefaction: Liquefaction occurs when water-logged soil acts like a liquid and causes sections of ground to sink or slide. As well as damage to roads and buildings, liquefaction can lead to flash floods. How are earthquakes measured? Seismometers and seismographs sense and record movements in the Earth's surface, showing both the intensity and duration of earthquakes and other tremors. Seismologists then use this information to rate the earthquake on the Richter scale. The Richter scale was developed in 1935 by Charles Richter to show the amount of energy released during an earthquake. It was originally intended not as an absolute measure of individual quakes but as a way to compare the relative strengths of different earthquakes. Though Richter measurements are generally thought of as being between 0 and 10, there are theoretically no limits to the scale in either direction. Earthquakes measuring less than 4.0 magnitude occur in small areas and might not even be noticed, much less cause any serious damage. Earthquakes measuring 4.0–4.9 magnitude cover a larger area. They are felt, but damage is light. You start to see some damage with a 5.0-magnitude earthquake, starting with poorly constructed buildings. Higher up on the Richter scale, you see greater damage over a greater area. The largest recorded earthquake was the 9.5-magnitude Great Chilean Earthquake of 1960. This quake spawned numerous tsunamis that caused damage as far away as Hawaii, Japan, and the Philippines.

Article / Updated 09-11-2018

Hurricanes and typhoons are types of tropical cyclones — large, rotating, low-pressure systems that bring rain and wind — with sustained wind speeds of over 74 miles per hour. These severe storms can spawn other weather problems, such as tornadoes and water spouts, flash floods, and dangerous thunderstorms. Hurricanes and typhoons are the same weather systems; what they're called depends on where they develop. A storm in the Atlantic Ocean or eastern Pacific Ocean — nearest to North America or Hawaii — that meets the criteria for rotation and sustained wind speed is known as a hurricane. The same sort of storm in the Indian Ocean or western Pacific Ocean — nearest to Japan, Hong Kong, the Philippines, or India — would be called a typhoon. Both are tropical cyclones. Hurricane season in the Atlantic Ocean, which sees the most hurricane activity, is from June to November. How are hurricanes or typhoons categorized? Hurricanes are categorized based on the maximum speed of sustained winds within the cyclone. The Saffir-Simpson scale ranges from 1 for low-level hurricanes to 5 for the most unforgiving and catastrophic. The Saffir-Simpson Hurricane Scale Category Sustained Wind Speeds Expected Damage 1 74–95 mph Minimal: Damage to plants, signs, and unanchored mobile homes. 2 96–110 mph Moderate: Damage to roofs, serious damage to mobile homes, low-level flooding 3 111–130 mph Extensive: Damage to small buildings, low roads cut off, flooding 4 131–155 mph Extreme: Roofs destroyed, mobile homes destroyed, trees down, major flooding 5 156 mph or more Catastrophic: Most buildings and plants destroyed, major flooding How are hurricanes and typhoons named? Beginning in 1953, the (U.S.) National Hurricane Center maintained a list that it used to name tropical cyclones, including hurricanes. That list is now maintained by the World Meteorological Organization (WMO), which keeps separate lists for cyclones in the Atlantic, in the eastern north Pacific, and in the eastern central Pacific. Other organizations are responsible for naming cyclones in other parts of the world. The lists for the Atlantic and eastern northern Pacific each actually comprise six different lists of 21 names that are used in rotation, which means that the names used for this year's hurricanes will pop up again in six years. If more than 21 cyclones occur in the year, subsequent storms are named after the letters of the Greek alphabet. When a hurricane is particularly devastating or costly, its name is removed from the list and replaced with a new one. There will, for instance, be no more hurricanes named Hugo (1989), Andrew (1992), Katrina (2005), or Irene (2011). Until 1979, tropical storms and hurricanes were given only women's names. Since then, they have been given alternating male and female names.

Article / Updated 03-26-2016

To most Americans, the flag of the United States of America is more than just a piece of cloth. The Stars and Stripes represents American freedom, democracy, and sacrifice and should be treated with respect. Respect can mean different things to different people, but the U.S. government isn't going to let individual whims dictate how the flag should be handled. Chapter 36, Title 10 of the United States Code lists the rules, regulations, and expectations concerning patriotism and how the flag should be used and displayed. Generally, the flag should be displayed from sunrise to sunset. If, however, you want to display your flag through the night, it should be properly lighted. Placement of the flag A number of rules govern the placement of the Stars and Stripes, including these: When it's displayed with other flags, the U.S. flag should be hoisted first and lowered last. No such flag or pennant may be placed above or to the right of the U.S. flag of the United States The U.S. flag should be at the center and at the highest point of the group when a number of flags of States or localities or pennants of societies are grouped and displayed from staffs. The flag should not be draped over the hood, top, sides, or back of a vehicle or of a railroad train or a boat. The U.S.flag, when it is displayed with another flag against a wall from crossed staffs, should be on the flag's right (the viewer's left), and its staff should be in front of the staff of the other flag. When used on a speaker's platform, the U.S. flag, if displayed flat, should be displayed above and behind the speaker. When displayed from a staff in a church or public auditorium, the flag should hold the position of honor at the speaker's right as he faces the audience. When the U.S. flag is displayed over the middle of the street, it should be suspended vertically with the union — the blue part with the stars — to the north on an east-west street or to the east on a north-south street. Flying at half-staff Flying the Flag of the United States at half staff is a sign of honor and remembrance. When the flag is to be displayed at half staff, it should first be hoisted all the way to the top before being lowered to the center of the flagpole. At the end of the day, the flag should first be hoisted back to the peak before being lowered and removed. A number of rules govern when and for how long a flag should be flown at half staff: The flag should be displayed at half staff on Memorial Day until noon and then raised to the peak. The flag should be flown at half staff For 30 days following the death of the President or a former President. For 10 days following the death of the Vice President, the Chief Justice or a retired Chief Justice, or the Speaker of the House of Representatives. From the day of death until interment (burial) if an Associate Justice, a Secretary of an executive or military department, a former Vice President, or the Governor of a state, territory, or possession. On the day of death and the following day for a member of Congress. The President can also declare other times when a flag should be flown at half staff.

Article / Updated 03-26-2016

Bastille Day, formally called La Fête Nationale ("The National Celebration"), is celebrated every July 14 in France to commemorate the storming of the Bastille, a fortress-prison. Like the July 4 Independence Day in the United States, Bastille Day memorializes the start of a political revolution aimed at replacing an absolute monarchy with a constitutional government. In 1789, King Louis XVI of France found his country in economic crisis. He convened the Estates-General to address the issue. The Estates-General was composed of three estates: The First Estate consisted of representatives of the clergy. The Second Estate represented the French nobility. The Third Estate represented French commoners. One of the causes of the financial crisis was France's archaic taxation system, which placed the greatest tax burden on the Third Estate — and most especially the middle class, or bourgeoisie — while ignoring the First and Second Estates, where most of the nation's wealth was concentrated. The Third Estate called for reformation, but the conservative First and Second Estates stymied their efforts. Spurred on both by their economic situation and by the recent success of the American Revolution, the Third Estate broke off from the Estates-General and recast themselves as the National Assembly, dedicated not only to ending France's economic crisis but to creating a French Constitution that would give the people more government power. Gradually, King Louis XVI was forced to recognize the National Assembly's authority, but he and his conservative noble advisors weren't happy about it. The king started making some military and political maneuvers that made the Paris bourgeoisie tense, including the firing of his minister of finance, Jacques Necker, who was sympathetic to the Third Estate. Sensing that the nobility might soon attempt to squelch this commoners' uprising, Paris citizens began attacking people and places that they felt represented royal power and the nobility, stealing food and stockpiling weapons. Enter the Bastille. In the 18th century, the King of France could imprison any French citizen for any reason, without trial or appeal. Most such political prisoners ended up in the Bastille. To the downtrodden of Paris, the Bastille not only represented the evils of an absolute monarchy, but the fortress-prison also housed a large cache of weapons and ammunition. Fewer than 1,000 citizens gathered at the Bastille on the morning of July 14, 1789, calling for Governor de Launay to surrender and to release weapons and ammunition. Negotiations dragged on, and the crowd grew. So did tensions. Finally, fighting broke out between the citizens and the soldiers stationed at the Bastille. Governor de Launay surrendered the Bastille that evening. The Parisian mob subsequently beat, killed, and beheaded him and posted his head on a pike that was carried around town. News of the revolt spread throughout France, and the French Revolution became inevitable. The first Bastille Day, then called La Fête de la Fédération, was celebrated just a year later, in 1790, and for years after. La Fête Nationale was officially recognized as a national holiday on July 6, 1880.

Article / Updated 03-26-2016

Labor Day, observed on the first Monday in September in the United States, is considered by many to mark the end of summer. Although it is ostensibly meant to celebrate the civic and economic contributions of American workers, it is also connected historically to workers' repression and political appeasement. Exactly who first came up with the idea of Labor Day is unclear, but two stories are at the front of the running: In the first story, Peter McGuire, cofounder of the American Federation of Labor (AFL) and general secretary of the Brotherhood of Carpenters and Joiners, first suggesting a Labor Day holiday to honor those whose sweat and toil created the country's prosperity. In the second story, the holiday was conceived by machinist Matthew Maguire in 1882, while he served as secretary of the Central Labor Union of New York. Documents show that the Centeral Labor Union adopted a Labor Day proposal and created a planning committee for a demonstration and picnic. Regardless of whose idea it was, the first Labor Day was celebrated on Tuesday, September 5, 1882, in New York City; the second was celebrated exactly a year later. In 1884, the first Monday in September was chosen as the holiday, and the Central Labor Union urged other labor organizations to begin observing the holiday. Support for a national Labor Day celebration grew. Meanwhile, near Chicago, George Pullman founded Pullman, Illinois, in 1880, to house the employees of his railroad sleeping car manufacturing company. The entire town was designed and built to house the Pullman Company's employees. All was well with the Pullman Company until an economic depression swept the country in 1893. In response to a falling demand for sleeper cars, Pullman began lowering wages, but rental costs in Pullman, IL, (which were controlled by and automatically paid to the Pullman Company) remained unchanged. Facing plummeting take-home pay, Pullman employees began walking off the job. Eugene V. Debs and the American Railway Union (ARU) picked up the cause, and pretty soon, railroad workers across the United States were boycotting trains that carried Pullman cars. President Grover Cleveland, citing the now delayed mail system, declared the strike illegal and sent 12,000 troops to break it. Two men were killed in the violence that erupted near Chicago. Debs was sent to prison, and the ARU was disbanded, and Pullman employees henceforth were required to sign a pledge that they would never again unionize. Sensing the political unease caused by his anti-labor stance during the Pullman strike, President Cleveland put reconciliation with labor forces at the top of his to-do list. Labor Day legislation was rushed through Congress and passed unanimously on June 28, 1894, just six days after the end of the Pullman strike.

Article / Updated 03-26-2016

A tsunami is a series of ocean waves caused by a sudden displacement of water. Tsunamis are most often caused by earthquakes, but they can also be caused by other events, such as volcanic eruptions and meteorites. Tsunamis are waves of energy that radiate from the source at great speeds. If you imagine throwing a rock into a lake, you get some sense of how the tsunami's energy radiates from its source. In the deep ocean, this energy might barely make a ripple on the surface, but as it gets closer to shore, that energy becomes compressed, which can result in large, destructive waves. The word tsunami is made up of the two Japanese characters tsu, which means "harbor," and nami, which means "wave." So, in Japanese, tsunami means "harbor wave." Though a "harbor wave" might sound unexceptional, tsunamis rank quite high on the devastation scale. The National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration (NOAA) reports that, since 1850, tsunamis have been responsible for the deaths of over 420,000 people. (Tornadoes, by contrast, have taken the lives of approximately 23,000 people during the same period.) One of the reasons tsunamis are so destructive is that a single tsunami can affect areas hundreds of miles apart. For example, a tsunami on December 26, 2004, claimed the lives of 130,000 people who lived near the earthquake that caused it as well as another 58,000 lives on farther shores. Because tsunamis are caused by unpredictable events, they are also unpredictable, but scientists are continually working on tsunami measurement and early-warning systems, called tsunameters. Although such devices won't be able to tell when a tsunami will happen, they can warn those in its path of its imminent arrival, giving them time to evacuate to a safer distance.

Article / Updated 03-26-2016

A hailstone begins life as a core of ice crystals or frozen water. Warm, moist air from underneath a storm cloud creates a strong updraft so that, instead of falling to the earth, that core is blown up through the moist storm cloud, collecting layers of ice — a process called accretion. As the warm updraft cools, it loses its energy and gravity takes hold of the hailstone, pulling it back down through the storm cloud and collecting still more layers of ice. When it gets low enough, that hailstone will encounter the warm updraft again, which will carry it back into the colder heights of the atmosphere. This process of rising, falling, and collecting layers of ice continues until the hailstone becomes too heavy for the updraft to lift; then it falls toward the earth. Most large thunderstorms create hail, but it melts into rain before it reaches the ground. Tornadoes, which are created when warm, moist air meets cool, dry air, are often preceded by falling hail. If you've ever heard a meteorologist on a nightly newscast compare the size of hailstones to quarters, golf balls, or softballs, they weren't just pulling those comparisons out of thin air. Though they prefer actual hailstone measurements over comparisons, the National Weather Service does offer a chart of recommended comparisons: Hail Diameter (in inches) Description 1/4 Pea 1/2 Marble 3/4 Penny 7/8 Nickel 1 Quarter 1-1/4 Half-dollar 1-1/2 Walnut/ Ping-Pong 1-3/4 Golf Ball 2 Hen Egg/Lime 2-1/2 Tennis Ball 3 Large Apple/Teacup 4 Grapefruit 4-1/2 Softball