1961 Canada: A record 101 pound lake trout was caught in Lake Athabasca. Saskatchewan.
CREDIT – foodreference.com
National Mango Day (July 22 in Agriculture History)
1376 According to legend, the Pied Piper got rid of all the rats in the German town of Hamelin. When the townspeople refused to pay, the Pied Piper led all the towns children away. This is the date given by Richard Rowland Verstegan in 1605 – the earliest version in English. In ‘The Anatomy of Melancholy’ (1621) Robert Burton gives the date as June 20, 1484. Other dates range back to 1284 AD.
1461 Charles VII of France was born. His mistress, Agnes Sorel, was a celebrated cook who created several dishes, and had several culinary creations named in her honor. (Agnes Sorel soup garnish, Agnes Sorel Timbales, etc.).
1796 The city of Cleveland, Ohio was founded by General Moses Cleaveland of the Connecticut Land Company. The original spelling of Cleaveland was changed in 1831 when the ‘Cleveland Advertiser’ dropped the first “a” in the name to reduce the length of the newspaper’s masthead.
1822 Gregor (Johann) Mendel was born. Mendel was an Austrian botanist whose work was the foundation of the science of genetics. Working mainly with garden peas (some 28,000 plants over 7 years), he discovered what was to become know as the laws of heredity.
1915 Sir Sanford Fleming died. He devised the present system of time zones while working for the Canadian Pacific Railway.
1926 Dorcas Bates Reilly was born (died Oct 15, 2018). As Campbell’s test kitchen supervisor, she created the classic Green Bean Casserole. She also made hundreds of recipes throughout her career.
1942 Gasoline rationing with coupons began on the Atlantic coast of the U.S.
1952 Frank L. Zybach of Strasburg, Colorado received U.S. patent No. 2,604,359 for a “Self-Propelled Sprinkling Irrigating Apparatus.” This is the now familiar center-pivoting system that waters large circles of crops.
1956 Curnonsky (Maurice Edmond Sailland) died. At the age of 84, he leaned too far out of his window and fell to his death. French writer, novelist, biographer, and gastronome. Curnonsky was known as the “Prince of Gastronomes,” a title he was awarded in a public referendum in 1927, and a title no one else has ever been given.
CREDIT – www.foodreference.com
Today, 15th July ( IN HISTORY)
1869 Hippolyte Mege Mouries received French patent No. 86489 for his process to make margarine. Emperor Napoleon III had offered a prize for a suitable substitute for butter, for use by the French Navy.\
70 Rhinos Bred At Rwanda’s Controversial Captive Breeding Farm Set Free
Transporting the world’s second largest land mammal halfway across the second largest continent isn’t exactly easy.
But in a 3,400-kilometer (2,100-mile) journey that involved crates, cranes, trucks, and a Boeing 747, 70 captive bred southern white rhinos were moved from South Africa to Rwanda’s Akagera National Park in early June as part of an initiative to “rewild” them.
“Moving 70 rhinos across the continent is high-risk stuff,” Martin Rickelton, the head of translocations for African Parks, told CNN. So far, the animals appear to be doing well in their new home. “All reports are good,” Rickelton adds.
The creatures, which can weigh over 2,000 kilograms (more than 4,000 pounds), originated from a controversial breeding program started in the 1990s by property developer John Hume.
Hume, who spent years lobbying for the legalization of the rhino horn trade, amassed stockpiles of horn, obtained by trimming them without harming the animals, with the aim of flooding the market to driver poachers out of business and to fund conservation efforts.
But he ran out of money, and with the horn trade still banned under international law, he put the rhinos up for sale in 2023. He told Agence France-Presse (AFP) at the time that he’d spent around $150 million on the project – with surveillance being the largest cost. “I’m left with nothing except 2,000 rhinos and 8,000 hectares (20,000 acres) of land.”
He didn’t receive a single bid. African Parks — a conservation nonprofit that manages 23 protected areas across the continent — stepped in to acquire for an undisclosed sum what was the largest rhino captive breeding operation in the world, with plans to “rewild” the animals over 10 years.
The translocation marked the first cross-continental move for African Parks’ Rhino Rewild initiative.
“It’s a very important milestone,” says Taylor Tench, a senior wildlife policy analyst at the nonprofit Environmental Investigation Agency US, who wasn’t involved in the relocation. “This is definitely a big development with respect to African Parks’ efforts.”Today, there remain only about 17,000 southern white rhinos in Africa and they’re classified as “near threatened” on the International Union for Conservation of Nature’s Red List. That means the 2,000 southern white rhinos that African Parks bought, and plans to spread around the continent, comprise more than 10% of the remaining population.
Although the international trade of rhino horn has been banned under the Convention on International Trade in Endangered Species (CITES) since 1977, demand from consumers in Asia who see it as a status symbol, or falsely believe it can cure ailments ranging from hangovers to cancer, is still driving poaching.
Source: Foodreference.com
Strange Happenings: The Day It Rained Fish in Teiran
On May 24th,2020, a strange incident occurred as a social media viral video showed fish falling from the sky like rain in Yasuj, Iran. This rare happening, which many attributed to storms or tornadoes, involves fish falling during rainfall. Similar occurrences of animals raining down have been reported globally, including snakes.
https://www.facebook.com/share/r/193KnBS4av
Numerous videos are going viral on social media, capturing the extraordinary sight of fish raining from the sky in Yasuj, a city in western Iran. These clips depict fish falling onto the ground, as well as one showing a man catching fish as he witnesses this rare event. Although fish rain isn’t a new phenomenon, it’s still fascinating to understand how it happens.
Source: www.economictimes.indiatimes.com
TODAY IN FOOD HISTORY ( JULY 8 )
July 8, 1886
It rained snails in Cornwall, England. July is one of the best months for raining all sorts of living creatures.
July 8, 1881,
Edward Berner of Two Rivers, Wisconsin, supposedly invented the Ice Cream Sundae when he served a customer ice cream topped with chocolate syrup (used to flavor ice cream sodas). It was a Sunday, and flavored soda water was not served on Sundays to respectable people.
July 8,1870,
Congress enacted the Federal Trademark Act of 1870, the first federal act permitting registration of trademarks.
• National Salad Week (July 7-13, 2025 – 4th week in July)
Source – www.foodreference.com
