Dear Readers,
The Italian-American Heritage Foundation was established in San Jose on August 5, 1975, as the Italian-American Bicentennial Committee. In 1976, the original 15 founders incorporated a non-profit organization dedicated to the preservation of the Italian heritage through cultural, educational, and social programs. Grazie to the generosity of spirit and soldi of some of the original founders and to the continued generosity of spirits and dedication of volunteers. The AIHF continues to present programs that have been bringing much joy to the friends living in San Jose and beyond since 1976.
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America’s school boards are spending more time on non-scholastic matters than ever before. A New Jersey school district is removing the names of all holidays from the school calendar so as not to offend anyone. The decision came after a raucous public meeting about the board’s decision to replace Columbus Day with Indigenous Peoples Day. “Every holiday will now be listed as a day off so we don’t have to have anyone with hurt feelings,” board members explained.
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The Italic Institute of America is a site you should visit often, even every day, if time permits. They have an online 365-day almanac at www.italic.org. Just visit the website and click the almanac month you want and find out what our ancestors accomplished that day: chances are it affected world history in some ways!
Let’s check together some of the main events of this month!
August was when Julius Caesar uttered those famous words, I came, I saw, I conquered and when Garibaldi began his reunification of Southern Italy. Every day is a chance to reflect on our great legacy.
August 2, 1914: the Royal Italian Government declared its position of neutrality at the onset of the First World War.
August 3: 1778, the first performance was given at the newly opened Teatro alla Scala in Milan. We also remember August 3rd because it was the birthday of vocalist Tony Bennett, né Anthony Benedetto, who was born on this day in 1926. Tony died only a few weeks ago in New York at age 96.
August 9, 1483: the First Mass was celebrated by Pope Sixtus IV in the then-still-unfinished Sistine Chapel in Rome, as part of the celebrations of the Feast of the Assumption
On the same day in 1173, construction began of a new 185-foot bell tower in Pisa. Within four years, the structure started to inexplicably tilt to one side, forecasting its future as an Italian icon and one of the world’s most popular tourist attractions.
August 12, 1480: in Otranto, Italy, invading Ottoman Turks beheaded 800 Christians for refusing to convert to Islam.
August 13, 1926: Enrique Tirabocchi of Argentina became the first to swim the English Channel from France to England in 16 hours and 33 minutes.
August 14, 1831: Italian Patriot Giuseppe Mazzini organizes the Giovine Italia, the Young Italy, a secret society of revolutionaries committed to achieving the reunification of the Italian peninsula as an independent republic. On the same day in 1992 Federal Judge John J. Sirica, who presided over the Watergate trials in the 1970s died aged 88.
August 15, 1832: in his encyclical Mirari Vos, Arch-Conservative Pope Gregory XVI delivers a stern warning against the dangers of free speech, freedom of the press, constitutional government, and other progressive ideas that are taking root among Italian people. Napoleone Bonaparte was born on the same day in 1769, in Corsica. His mother’s surname was Ramolino.
August 16, 1892: the Italian Socialist Party, Partito Socialista Italiano, is founded in Genova.
August 17, 1978: the first transatlantic balloon flight is completed by Ben Abruzzo and Partners.
August 18, 1750: on this day, composer Antonio Salieri was born. Salieri was made “infamous” by the 1984 movie Amadeus.
August 19, AD 14: Emperor Caius Julius Octavius Augustus, founder of the Roman Empire, dies peacefully after a 40-year reign at Nola, Italy..
August 21, 1915: Italy declares war on Turkey in 1915, during the First World War.
August 22, 1968: Pope Paul VI Giovanni Montini is the first pope to visit South America, arriving in Bogotà, Colombia, for a Eucharistic Congress. He had visited North America, New York City, in 1965, also a first. He was known as “the traveling Pope.”
August 23, 1927: Italian-Americans Nicola Sacco and Bartolomeo Vanzetti were executed by the state of Massachusetts, after a travesty of a trial, and despite international appeals. In 1977, Massachusetts Governor Michael Dukakis, to exonerate them, proclaimed Nicola Sacco and Bartolomeo Vanzetti Day, on the 50th anniversary of their execution. In 1982, in the first overseas deployment of Italian troops since World War II, the Bersaglieri 2nd Battalion reached the Middle East, as part of a multinational peacekeeping force in war and terrorist-plagued Lebanon.
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