Nature, Culture, Childhood Calendar, October 2024
October is a month of change and transformation as Fall takes center stage and New England transitions between Summer and Winter. October 7th is National Children’s Health Day, a day that we can all use to reflect on how we are both failing to,and supporting children’s health in different and important ways ( think especially about healthy food, outdoor play and mental health). We acknowledge and celebrate Indigenous Peoples’ Day, on October 13th, and commit to learning more about the tribal nations and people who lived here before colonization and are as much a part of this country as anybody else. We can use this day to rethink American history, reimagine what it means to be an American, and commit to a decolonization movement so that we can find a way forward in creating a truly multicultural society.
In the natural world October is a time when animals and plants show their ability to adapt to the changing conditions that mark the transition from Summer to Fall. The Full Hunter’s Moon (or Moon of the Falling Leaves) rises on October 17th. Shorter, colder days, less food available, and the coming of Winter all provide ample challenges and opportunities for plants and animals to utilize long term adaptations and adopt specific changes in behavior. The leaves of the deciduous trees changing color and eventually falling provide the context for everything else. October is a wonderful time of year for children to explore and learn about the trees that connect sky and earth. In learning about how animals prepare for winter through changes in behavior, adaptations, migration and hibernation, children connect with their animal friends and connect with the larger cycles and patterns of the natural world.
And I would be remiss to not mention Halloween, which seems to be growing in popularity every year as children and the young at heart embrace the carnivalesque aspect of costumes and masks, dramatic play, fairy and folk tales, and imaginative flights of transformation and make-believe. And perhaps more seriously, we might explore how to navigate different cultural landscapes of fear in constructive ways. Happy Halloween!
October, 1921
Benton Mackaye, a graduate of the Harvard Forestry School, wrote an article in which he proposed a grand hiking trail that would link hikers, nature advocates and different communities between North Carolina and Maine, in the Journal of American Institute of Architects. That trail would become the Appalachian Trail https://www.neh.gov/humanities/2014/novemberdecember/statement/the-founder-the-appalachian-trail-imagined-something-even#
October 1st
Common Loons start to migrate
World Vegetarian Day
“Trail of Years” begins as Cherokee people are forcibly removed from east of the Mississippi to Oklahoma in 1838
Thalidomide, an anti-nausea drug that was prescribed for morning sickness was launched in 1957, and was finally withdrawn after five years, after it was determined that it caused birth defects
First State Fair Open in Pittsfield Massachusetts in 1810
Free Speech Movement launched at U.C. Berkeley https://www.zinnedproject.org/news/tdih/free-speech-movement/
October 2nd
Redbacked salamanders will look for hibernacular, places to hibernate, in decaying root systems as it gets colder, but will continue to forage for food as long as the temperature stays in the 40s
Thurgood Marshall sworn in as the first African American Supreme Court Justice in 1967
Peanuts, by Charles Schulz, was printed for the first time in 1950
Groucho Marx, American comedian and actor, b. 1890
Franklin Rosemont, Surrealist poet, founder of the Chicago Surrealist Group, street speaker, historian, radical publisher, b. 1943
October 3rd
Bull Moose advertise their presence and desire to mate by soaking their dewlaps in their own urine
John Gorrie, invented cold-air process of refrigeration, b. 1803
October 4th
Red-Winged Blackbirds change their diet from insects to seeds
Robert Lawson, illustrator of The Story of Ferdinand the Bull, Mr Popper’s Penguins, and wrote Ben and Me: An Astonishing Life of Ben Franklin, b. 1892
Edward Stratemeyer, children’s author and publisher, wrote over 1,300 books himself and created many well known fictional book series such as The Bobbsey Twins, Hardy Boys, and Nancy Drew, b. 1862
Anarchist newspaper The Alarm published in Chicago by Albert Parsons, in 1879
Soviet Union launched Sputnik, the first artificial satellite, in 1957
October 5th
Bears Head Tooth Fungi fruiting
Clive Barker, genre busting horror/fantasy writer, author of the exquisite young adult series, Abarat, b. 1952
Louise Fitzhugh, author of the Harriet the Spy Series and several young adult novels, some of which were refused by her publishers because they were too controversial (one lost manuscript featured adolescent girls who fall in love), b. 1952
Monty Python’s Flying Circus makes its debut in 1969
Shawnee Chief ,Tecumseh, killed in the War of 1812, in 1813, he organized the largest Native confederacy of various tribal nations, captured Detroit, valiantly defended Indigenous lands, and allied witht eh British in the 1812 War
Louis Lumiere made the first motion picture in 1895, invented camera equipment for making movies and a projector, b. 1864
World Teacher’s Day
October 6th
Hermit Thrushes Migrating
Porcupines climb trees to eat acorns and beechnuts that are ripe enough to eat but not mature enough to fall from the tree yet
Fannie Lou Hamer, civil rights activist, tireless organizer, advocate, agitator, and educator around voting, civil, economic and educational rights, b. 1917
Jason Lewis, succeeded in the first human powered attempt to circumnavigate the world, beginning in 1994, taking 4, 883 days, and ending in 2007
October 7th
Eastern Chipmunks storing food for winter
Allen Ginsberg reads Howl publicly for the first time in San Francisco, in 1956
World Habitat Day
Mathew Shepard, a gay student at the University of Wyoming was beaten, robbed and left to die, in 1998
R.D. Laing radical ‘anti-psychiatrist,” critiqued a society gone mad, explored how people could unite the different parts of themselves and overcome the “divided self,” wrote “The Divided Self: An Existential Study of Sanity and Madness, b. 1927
Louis Leakey archaeologist who convinced other scientists that Africa was the best place to look for evidence of human origins, b. 1903
United States National Child Health Day ( first Monday in October)
October 8th
Slugs lay small pearly white eggs
R.L. Stine, author of the incredibly popular “Goosebump” series of scary stories for young readers (tweens), b. 1943
In 1998, CIA report reveals CIA ignored Nicaraguan Reagan backed contra imports of cocaine into the US, that started the crack scourge in Los Angeles and that eventually spread throughout the country
US invades Iraq and Afghanistan, as part of the so-called War on Terror, in the wake of the 9-11 terrorist attacks, in 2001
The first internal pacemaker was implanted into Arne Larsson in 1948
Francesco Ferrer, radical educator, opens his Modern School, in Barcelona Spain, in 1901
October 9th
Canada geese start migrating in the classic V-formation
John Lennon, musician, lyricist, cultural leader, b. 1940
October 10th
New England Asters provide bees with late season nectar
James Marshall, prolific. one of a kind children’s author, who created the two lovable hippos, George and Marshall, the Fox series, The Stupids, and many retellings of classic folktales, b. 1942
Daniel San Souci, children’s author and illustrator of beautiful books about animals, sometimes in realistic and sometimes in fantasy settings, b. 1948 https://www.kirkusreviews.com/author/daniel-san-souci-2/
World Mental Health Day
The Outer Space Treaty was agreed upon, by the space exploring nations, declaring that outer space and all celestial bodies were the common heritage of all humankind, in 1967
Ken Saro-Wiwa, Nigerian, Ogoni environmental activist, b. 1941
October 11th
Yellow-Orange Fly Agaric Mushroom fruiting
Russell Freedman, author of many wonderful biographies for young people, including Abe Lincoln, Marion Anderson, Confucius, and the The Wright Brothers, b. 1929 https://www.kirkusreviews.com/author/daniel-san-souci-2/
Electric vote recorder, Edison’s first invention, patented in 1868
October 12th
Woodchucks heading to winter burrows
Carolee Schneemann, feminist, performance artist, neo-Dadaist, Fluxus body artist, b.1939
, and Columbus and his people “discover” the Arawak and Carib people in 1492
October 13th
Crickets courting, mating and laying eggs
Paddington Bear, the creation of children’s author Michael Bond, makes his debut in “A Bear Called Paddington,” in 1958
Lenny Bruce, stand up comic, social rebel, b. 1925
Indigenous People Day/formerly Columbus Day
October 14th
Oak apple galls developing
Bill Sanders, cartoonist, newspaper man, provocateur, speaker of truth to power, longtime political satirist for the Milwaukee Sentinel, b. 1930
Chuck Yeager flies faster than the speed of sound in the Bell X-1 airplane, in 1947
Winnie-the-Pooh makes his literary debut, in 1926
Martin Luther King receives the Nobel peace Prize in 1964
Hannah Arendt, German American political philosopher who coined the phrase “the banality of evil, explored the concept of “natality” where she theorized the specific role of children in renewing a common world, and who plumbed the depths and heights of what it means to be human, b. 1906
October 15th
Bumble Bees bask in the Fall sun before dying ( all except for the new queens that will reproduce the colony the following Spring)
Barry Moser, author, illustrator, water colorist, and master of the woodcut, who brings classics like Alice and Wonderland, The Wizard of Oz, Dante’s Inferno, and Frankenstein back to life, and beautiful children’s books populated with animals and the natural world, b. 1940 https://www.rmichelson.com/illustration/barry-moser/
Black Panther Party founded and the 10 point program drafted in 1966
Friedrich Nietzsche, radical philosopher, violent polemicist, poet, aphorist, who saw the nihilism at the heart of Western culture and argued for the transvaluation of all values based on an affirmation of this life, this earth, and self-ovecoming b. 1844
Michel Foucault, philosopher, sociologist, historian of ideas, political activist who relentlessly explored the interrelationships of knowledge and power, b. 1926
“I Love Lucy” airs for the first time in 1951
World’s first manned balloon flight lasted 4 minutes in France, in 1783
October 16th
Striped Skunks raiding Eastern Yellow Jackets Nests
John Brown attacks Harper’s Ferry ammunitions depot as part of the abolitionist in 1859
Million Man March where 800,000 Black men marched in Washington, DC in 1995
World Food Day
Tommie Smith and John Carlos give the Black Power Salute while receiving gold and silver medals at the 1968 Olympics
Oscar Wilde, wit, dandy, gay, Irish playwright, essayist, writer of The Individual Man Under Socialism, The Ballad of Reading Gaol,The Portrait of Dorian Gray, b. 1854
Henri Saint-Simon, French, utopian socialist theorist, b. 1760
Walt Disney Company founded in 1923
Matt Nagle, born a quadriplegic, became the first person to use a computer interface to control his movement, b. 1979
October 17th
Big Brown Bats enter hibernation
Damselflies and Dragonflies still mating and often eat the eggs of their own young
Shel Silverstein, famously idiosyncratic, hilarious and observant poet and cartoonist for children ( and adults), author of Where the Sidewalk Ends, Falling Up, and The Giving Tree, b. 1932
Moby Dick is published in 1851
D.T. Suzuki, Buddhist philosopher, writer, author of Essays in Zen Buddhism, b. 1870 “Emptiness which is conceptually liable to be mistaken for sheer nothingness is in fact the reservoir of infinite possibilities.”
Henri Bergson, French philosopher of multiplicity, heterogeneity, continuity and community, author of Matter and Memory, Creative Evolution, Duration and Simultaneity b. 1859
Puerto Rico becomes U.S. colony, ceded from Spain, in 1898
Clean Water Act enacted in 1972
October 19th
Easter Box Turtles hibernating
Ed Emberley, perhaps unfairly neglected because of the progressive education dogma about not teaching drawing to children, artist/author of the incredibly inviting “Drawing Book” series, and many delightful books for young children like “Go Away Big Green Monster”, b. 1931
Phillip Pullman, author of the deliciously mysterious Golden Compass/ Dark Materials fantasy books for young adults, b. 1946
First African-Americans elected to the House of representatives in 1870 as part of reconstruction after the end of the Civil War
Streptomycin, the first line of defense against tuberculosis, is discovered in 1943
October 20th
Deciduous trees’s leaves changing colors and falling
Nikki Grimes, African American, essential, beloved, children’s, tweeners, and young adult poetry, fiction and non-fiction author, of Bedtime for Sweet Creatures, Bronx Masquerade, Make Way for Dyamonde Diamond, Its Raining Laughter and many , many others, b. 1950, https://www.nikkigrimes.com/bookpage1.html
John Dewey, philosopher of pragmatism, educator, “father” of progressive education, b. 1859
Crockett Johnson, author the Harold and the Purple Crayon books and illustrator of The Carrot Seed, b. 1906
Arthur Rimbaud, Gay French poet, imagistic Romantic poet, complicated relationship with Verlaine, b. 1854
October 21st
Giant Puffball mushrooms fruiting
Janet Ahlberg, author illustrator (along with her husband) of over 100 books for young children that invite them into a profoundly inviting, safe, beautiful and enchanting world, b. 1944 https://www.penguin.co.uk/articles/childrens-article/where-to-start-with-janet-and-allan-ahlberg-s-books
Ursala LeGuin, author of the Earthseas series for young adults, science fiction writer that rigorously explores and reimagines what it means to be human, and a literary and philosophical moral compass for me personally, b.1929
October 22nd
225,000 Black students boycott the Chicago Public Schools to protest segregation in 1963
Flu epidemic kills over half a million people in the United States and 21 million people worldwide, in 1917
October 23rd
Funnel Weaving spiders weave last webs of the year
Laurie Halse Anderson, author of quirky, moving, funny children’s books, and tough, earnest, books for young adults that explore topics like high school life, sexism, eating disorders, and sexual violence, b.1961
Elizabeth Cody Kimmel, non-fiction author of many books about explorers, Ladies First: 40 Daring Women Who Were Second to None, a biography of the Dalai Lama, and the Lily B. Series, b.1964
NAACP sends an appeal to the world through the United Nations to address United States human rights violations against African-Americans
Katie Lee, folksinger, photographer, environmental activist, b. 1919
October 24th
International Day of Climate Action
United Nations formed in 1945, ratified by the five permanent members and the 46 member states
Antony van Leeuwenhoek, known as the father of microscopy because of the advances he made in microscope design and use, b. 1632
First transcontinental telegraph system was completed making it possible to transmit coast to coast messages rapidly, 1861
October 25th
Eastern Coyotes howling
Fred Marcellini, re-illustrated E.B. White’s “The Trumpet of the Swans” and illustrator/reteller of classic fairytales like Puss and Boots and The Steadfast Tin Soldier, b. 1936
Youth March for integrated schools led by Jackie Robinson, Coretta Scott King, Harry Belafonte and Bayard Rustin, in 1957
Pablo Picasso, painter, cubist, sculptor, b. 1881
October 26th
Steven Kellog, author illustrator of zany, hilarious children’s picture books like The Day Jimmy’s Boa Ate the Wash, Is Your Mama a Llama, and Parents in the Pigpen, Pigs in the Tub, b. 1946
Eric Rohmann, author of My Friend Rabbit, and gorgeous, mind-blowing books about animals that depict them up close and vibrantly alive, like Giant Squid and HoneyBee: the Busy Life of Apis Mellifera, b. 1956
First infant to receive an organ from another species ( heart from a baboon) , 1984
October 27th
Diving Beatles remain active through fall and winter
U.S. prison population exceeds 1,000,000 for the first time in 1994 and tops out at 2.1 million the highest rate in the world
New York City Subway operation begins in 1904
October 28th
Jonathan Swift’s Gulliver’s Travels published in 1726
Sustainability Day ( 4th Wednesday of October)
Jonas Salk, American doctor and researcher, inventor of the polio vaccine
October 29th
Gray catbirds migrating South ending up anywhere between Southern New England to Panama
Supreme Court rules that schools must desegregate “immediately” rather than with “all due deliberate speed” in 1969
Hurricane Sandy hits the US’s eastern coast in 2012
October 30th
Fisher Cats, instead of eating fish, primarily feed on small mammals, rabbits and porcupines
Martin Luther King arrested and jailed in Birmingham, Alabama, for peaceful civil disobedience protesting constitutional bans against “race mixing”in 1967. He later wrote his famous “Letter from a Birmingham Jail” providing the political rational for civil disobedience in an unjust society.
Oberlin College becomes the first college to admit women students in 1838
October 31st
Bears make stick perches high in trees to eat beech nuts, leaves, buds and catkins
World population reached 7 billion in 2011
In 1992, Pope John Paul 11 acknowledges error committed by the Catholic Church in the way they handled Galileo Galilei in the 17th century
Martin Luther posts 95 theses, launches Reformation, in 1519
Halloween
Helping Children Overcome Their Fears of the Monster Under the Bed https://www.verywellfamily.com/fear-of-monsters-under-bed-4584321
Charlie and Suzanne get married!!!!!!!!!!!
