Sometimes when I’m bored, I enjoy looking up events that happened in the past on the same day like the present. They are occasionally sometimes interesting or funny events that I found quite interesting and thought that I could share some of the “today’s” I found from the past.
- 1824 The National Gallery in London opens to the public
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The project creating a national gallery started in April 1824, when the House of Commons agreed to pay £57000 (now about 971 million yen) for the art collection of John Julius Angerstein, a British banker, as the core exhibit of the national collection. The first national gallery was held, in fact, not at the same place as now. It opened at Angerstein’s townhouse and was held there until the dedicated gallery building was constructed. This first national gallery was often criticized because of its size compared to other famous galleries as the Lovre. The now existing national gallery at Trafalgar Square opened in 1838.
- 1883 Tomatoes are vegetables! -by the supreme court of the US
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It all started with President Chester A. Arthur signing the Tariff Act on March 3, 1883. It required taxation on imported vegetables but not fruits. At the same time, a company called John Nix & Co. fruit commission was one of the successful sellers in New York, which they imported their products from other states and countries. In short, this company filed a suit against the collector of the port of New York that tomatoes are fruits, so they don’t need to pay the tax for it. They argued that it grows from the flowering part of a plant, therefore, is a fruit. After some debating period in the court, the supreme court concluded that although tomatoes are botanically a fruit, in common parlance, it is seen as a vegetable, therefore a vegetable.
- 2020 What were you doing?
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Let’s take time for ourselves. What were you doing the day today last year? Did you take any pictures that day? I believe my family and I went on a picnic or camping the same day today in 2020. I remember that May was a challenging month in terms of school since I had to work from home in a completely new environment. I remember being extremely tired of everything. The good thing was that I got to spend time with my family on the weekends. Today, though I am exhausted by this pandemic, it is better than last year since I got used to it. How about you?
Overall, my favorite event is the supreme court decision of assigning tomatoes as vegetables. I personally believe that tomatoes are fruits since they seem to be much similar to other fruits than vegetables. What do you think?