Today is National Stop Bullying Day

It’s the first day of National  Stop Bullying Week, a time for schools to conduct classes on how to stop bullying in schools and neighborhoods.

Today is also National Toothache Day.

Because it’s St. Apollonia's Day, honoring the patron saint of dentists and people with toothaches. 

Saint Apollonia was born in the third century and lived in Alexandria, Egypt. Apollonia spent her whole life preaching the word of God. She took a big risk doing this because Christians were being persecuted during the reign of Emperor Philip. Even into old age, Apollonia still preached and bravely risked her life to visit Christians in prison to comfort them. In 249 AD she was captured and brought before a court.

When the judge asked her name, she replied, "I am a Christian and I love to serve the true God". People who were trying to force her to give up her faith then tortured her. All her teeth were smashed with pinchers and then knocked out. Even this painful ordeal did not shake her faith, when she was given the choice of rejecting Jesus or being burned alive she jumped into the burning fire herself. When the pagans saw how heroic she was many were converted to Christianity. A church was erected in her honour in Rome, it no longer exists but the square where it stood is still called after her "Piazza Sant' Apollonia".

And it’s National Don't Cry Over Spilled Milk Day.

History 101: February 9, 1825: The U. S. House of Representatives elected John Quincy Adams president after no candidate won a majority of electoral votes.

Like George W. Bush (“W”) John Quincy Adams was the son of a president and was known as “JQA” to distinguish him from John Adams, the first VP and second President of the U. S.

Music History 101: February 9, 1964: In their first live American TV appearance, a new group from England drew 73.7-million viewers to The Ed Sullivan Show. They were paid $2,400 to sing 5 songs.  Few actually heard the music over the din of screaming fans in the audience.

The 101 number one song of the day was written by a college student at Howard Payne College in Brownwood Texas. Ray Hildebrand was a lifeguard at the swimming pool and the coach let him live in the gym during the summer for free. At the time, Annette Funicello had a single on the charts called “Tall Paul.” He couldn’t get the song out of his head and it led him to write a song of his own. Later that fall when school resumed the he was living in a boarding house who owner had a niece named Jill Jackson who asked Ray to sing with her on a radio benefit for the American Cancer Society. They sang the song that Ray had written in the gym. It caught on and led to a recording contract and that song reached number one in the nation on February 9, 1963. Ray and Jill assumed the stage names: Paul and Paula: (Hey Paula)