Robert Burns was born on this date in 1759 in Alloway, Ayrshire, Scotland. The poet only lived 37 years, but his works live on, recited by people who do not know the quotes are from the pen of the national poet of Scotland: “Auld Lang Syne,” “A Red, Red Rose” (“O my Luve’s like a red, red rose/That’s newly sprung in June;/O my Luve’s like the melodie/That’s sweetly play’d in tune”), “Tam o’Shanter.”

In 1801, a few years after his death, his friends came together to celebrate his life. The celebration of his life was held on his birthday, January 25, and every year since 1803, “Burns Suppers” or “Burns’ Nights” have grown in popularity. They are celebrated around the world.

Dinner is always a haggis, a savory meat pudding similar to (but superior to, I have been assured by those who know) scrapple or andouillette. After it is brought in, an attendee recites Burns’ “Address to a Haggis,” seen here after the jump:
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A candy store owner in Onawa, Iowa, Christian Nelson, was confronted one summer day in 1920 with a most challenging customer: a little boy who could not decide between an ice cream or a chocolate bar and could not afford both.

Nelson spent the next year in a (mostly enjoyable) search for a method by which he could coat ice cream with chocolate. In 1921, he started selling “I-Scream Bars,” and he applied for a patent for his invention. An Iowa confectioner named Russell Stover (he was a real person) agreed to mass-produce Nelson’s creation but under a name that Mrs. Russell Stover devised: “Eskimo Pie.”

On this date in 1922, Nelson was awarded Patent Number 1,404,539 for “the production of a commercially practical coated brick or block of ice cream or the like.” The Eskimo Pie is 95 today. (Not the original one. That one is long gone.)
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By October 1847, Elizabeth Blackwell (above) was 26 and had been studying medicine privately for a couple of years. She applied to medical schools and she was rejected by each one.

Hobart College (then called Geneva Medical College) in Geneva, New York, received her application and created its own standard to use in the decision to accept or deny her for matriculation: the administration put her cause up for a vote among the student body of 150 male students.

If even one student rejected her, against the votes of the 149 others, she would be rejected. The student body came through: the 150 voted unanimously to accept her as a fellow student, and on this date in 1849, Blackwell graduated with her class.

Blackwell was the first woman to earn a medical degree in the United States. She practiced medicine in America and in Europe in the 1850s and ’60s.
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