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KIU Trivia: July 13 in the Present and the Past

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What’s Happening Today?

International Town Criers Day. A town crier, also called a bellman, is an officer of a royal court or public authority who makes public pronouncements as required. In traditional African culture, town criers were tasked with making death announcements or directives from the King.

In the late 1990s, Scott Fraser of Waterloo, Ontario, was glancing through Chase's Book of Days (officially now Chase's Calendar of Events) at a library in Woodstock, Ontario. He noticed there wasn't a day about town criers - a position he had held in various Ontario towns since the mid-1980s. He submitted an application to Chase, hoping they would add a day in their book. They honoured his request, and the first International Town Criers Day was celebrated in 1997.

National French Fries Day. French fries are a staple of fast-food restaurants and diners, often being paired with hamburgers and cheeseburgers. A simple food consisting of potatoes—and maybe some salt—they are one of the most popular side dishes in the world. They are celebrated today by being made at home or eaten at restaurants. French fries were most likely invented in Belgium, not France, but potatoes are native to South America. In 1537, Spanish explorer Jiménez de Quesada found them in a village in Colombia.

French Fries are very popular in Uganda too and a date without a meal consisting of French fries is a rarity here.

What Happened Today?

1. In 1977, the  Ethiopian-Somali War began. The Somali National Army invaded the disputed Ogaden region between Somalia and Ethiopia. The war lasted for 9 months and ended with a Somalian retreat

2. In 2009, Uganda declared that it would arrest Sudanese President Omar al-Bashir after Uganda’s minister for Foreign Affairs Henry Okello Oryem met with International Criminal Court (ICC) chief prosecutor Luis Moreno Ocampo in Kampala.

3. In 2016, Prime Minister of the United Kingdom David Cameron resigned after his Conservative Party lost a referendum to decide whether the UK should leave the Europen Union or stay. He was succeeded by Theresa May, who also resigned after her proposed withdrawal agreement from the EU was rejected by parliament three times, being succeeded by Boris Johnson, her former Foreign Secretary.

Birthdays

1. 1969 – Betty Nambooze, Ugandan politician and former journalist was born in Mukono Town.

2. 1942 - Harrison Ford, American actor, aviator and environmentalist. He’s famous for playing the lead role in the Hollywood blockbuster, Air Force One.

Sources: Wikipedia, checkiday.com and bornglorious.com

Picture credit: The Cozy Cook