April 20, 2017 (Thursday)
Writing in 2012, Alexander Nazaryan suggested that April 20 (today’s date) is a bad day. For some reason, T.S. Eliot called April “the cruelest month.” Nazaryan says April 20 is quite possibly the worst day of the year. He reminds us:
In 1889, on April 20, Adolph Hitler was born.
In 1914, on April 20, 20 people, including women and children, were killed at Ludlow Coal Mine in Colorado, where a strike was taking place.
In 1978, on April 20, Korean Air Lines flight 902 was fired on by Russian fighter jets, killing two passengers and forcing the airliner with 107 on board to perform an emergency landing on Russian soil.
In 1999, on April 20, The Columbine High School massacre left 13 dead.
In 2010, on April 20, the BP oil rig, Deepwater Horizon, exploded in the Gulf of Mexico, killing 11 people and altering the lives of millions in the region.
In 2011, on April 20, while reporting from Libya, two American photojournalists were killed by a mortar shell.
Some bad things have happened on this day, but I am willing to go out on a limb and declare that bad things happen every day in this world. We know about many of those events, yet much more happens than we ever hear about.
A thorough, well-balanced article about April 20 would list many good things that happened on this date, such as:
In 1657, on April 20, religious freedom was granted in New Amsterdam (New York City).
In 1775, on April 20, the American Revolutionary War got underway, after battles at Lexington and Concord.
In 1902, on April 20, Pierre and Marie Curie refined radium chloride.
In 1912, on April 20, new baseball parks Tiger Stadium and Fenway Park opened.
In 2008, on April 20, Danica Patrick became the first female driver to win an Indy car race.
I’m saying that one could pick any day of the year and list both good and bad things that happened on those days. Some days seem worse; some, better.
What about today? Will this be a good day for you? The truth is, it may depend entirely upon you. I like the farewell greeting I hear sometimes: “Go out and make it a good day!”