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March 26, 2007
Yesterday was Maryland Day!!!
Maryland Day is a legal holiday in the U.S. state of Maryland. It is observed on the anniversary of the March 25, 1634 landing of settlers in the Province of Maryland.On this day settlers from The Ark and The Dove first stepped foot onto Maryland soil, at St. Clement's Island in the Potomac River. The colony was granted to Cæcilius Calvert, 2nd Baron Baltimore two years prior by Charles I of England. In thanksgiving for the safe landing, Jesuit Father Andrew White celebrated mass for the colonists, perhaps for the first time ever in this part of the world. The landing coincided with the Feast of the Annunciation, a holy day honoring Mary, and the start of the new year in England's legal calendar (prior to 1752).
The holiday began in 1903, the date chosen by the state board of education to honor Maryland history. In 1916, the legislature authorized Maryland Day as a legal holiday (Chapter 633, Acts of 1916).
Well you learn something new everyday I guess. Usually these kinds of things would be covered in an elementary civics class, but I had Arkansas and Georgia Civics, I wasn't in school when I came to Maryland. I'm not sure what the appropriate celebration is for Maryland Day, somehow it seems a little ouster for drunken debauchery or anything fun like that. I suspect a moment of silence will suffice. ;)
Read more over at Wikipedia and Maryland State Archives.
Posted by Jamison at March 26, 2007 2:11 PM
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