#pixoplanet

It's September 23rd, International Sign Language Day. The United Nations instituted this event in 2018 to commemorate the World Federation of the Deaf (WFD)’s founding in 1951. The objective is to raise awareness of sign languages and deaf culture and to promote the acceptance of sign languages as deaf people’s basic human rights. The event has grown into a global movement to resolve the many issues deaf people face in their everyday lives and is celebrated through various activities by respective Deaf Communities worldwide.

These activities call for participation and involvement of various stakeholders including families, peers, governmental bodies, professional sign language interpreters, Disabled People’s Organizations (DPOs), and concerned people all over the globe. All of us are invited to unite in endorsement of the need to secure and promote the human rights of deaf people. Please affirm your support for full human rights for all deaf people by signing the WFD Charter on Sign Language Rights for All at https://wfdeaf.org/charter.

Sign languages are visual languages that transmit messages. The 72 million deaf people on our planet use over 300 distinct natural sign languages, although there is also an international sign language that deaf people use when mingling, traveling, and attending international meetings. The international sign language is considered to be a pidgin form because it isn't as complex as the natural sign languages and has a limited lexicon.

It's November 9th, 🌌 Carl Sagan Day! On this day in 1934, the brilliant Carl Edward Sagan was born in Brooklyn, New York, USA. A trip with his parents to the 1939 New York World's Fair sparked Carl's lifelong interest in science. He was fascinated by scientific exhibits that turned a flashlight beam into a crackling sound and the sound of a tuning fork into a wave on an oscilloscope. He was also enthralled by an exhibit featuring the technology that would replace radio – television. The future held wonders!

Carl never lost his childhood passion for science. After he graduated from the University of Chicago with BA, BS, MS, and PhD degrees, he had a distinguished career as a professor at first Harvard and then Cornell. But that was just the foundation of his illustrious career.

He went on to become America's pre-eminent astronomer, planetary scientist, cosmologist, astrophysicist, and – the role he is most famous for – science communicator. It seemed at the time that his crowning achievement was the 1980 blockbuster PBS documentary series "Cosmos," which he wrote, produced, narrated, and starred in.

But Carl went on to do so much more. He wrote popular books such as "Pale Blue Dot," "The Demon-Haunted World," and "Contact" (which Hollywood turned into a movie starring Jodie Foster). He helped send the first physical Earth messages into outer space – the Pioneer Plaque and the Voyager Golder Record. He convinced NASA to turn Voyager's camera back toward Earth to take a picture of us from six billion kilometers away before the space probe left the solar system. This resulted in the famous "Pale Blue Dot" image.

It's January 1st, ⛓️ Haitian Independence Day. France had ruled the colony of Saint-Domingue as part of its worldwide empire since 1659. However, in 1791, a group of enslaved Africans, inspired by the American and French Revolutions, began an epic struggle for freedom that culminated in victory and a declaration of independence on this day in 1804. The declaration proclaimed that the new republic would forever after be known by the same name it was known as before the Europeans had arrived – "Haiti," which means "High Land" in the Native American Taino language. 

The Haitian Revolution is Haiti's defining moment. It was the largest slave uprising since Spartacus' unsuccessful revolt against the Romans in 72 BCE. Haiti's victory came as a total surprise and shock to the rest of the world and inspired countless other slave revolts throughout the Western Hemisphere. It also paved the way for the termination of the transatlantic slave trade. This victory was also the final nail in the coffin of Napoleon Bonaparte’s ambitions for a New World French Empire. He’d sold the Louisiana Territory to the United States the previous year in part to pay for the defeat of the revolt in Saint-Domingue. That was not to be. Haiti became the first independent state in Latin America and the first in the New World to be led by a person of color. 

It's November 5th, 🌏 World Numbat Day – a special day to honor, celebrate, and take action to conserve one of the most unique mammals on a continent full of unique mammals – Australia, of course! I bet if you aren't from Australia, you've never heard of the Numbat before, have you? Well, let me enlighten you a tiny little bit here, and maybe if we’re lucky, some more Numbat enthusiasts will enlighten us even more.

The Numbat is a very cute little endangered marsupial about the size of its more well-known cousin, the opossum. It has a long, sticky tongue perfectly evolved for devouring termites, which it feeds on exclusively – about 20,000 a day. The Numbat is under threat mainly from habitat loss and introduced predators like foxes and feral cats. With an estimated population of fewer than 1,000 animals, the Numbat desperately needs our help to ensure its survival as a species.

It's August 28th. ✊🏿 On this day in 1963, the African American civil rights movement reached its high-water mark. The peaceful "March on Washington for Jobs and Freedom" rally attracted 250,000 civil rights protesters to the Washington Mall. It was the largest protest assembly Washington had ever seen, and King was the last speaker.

With the statue of Abraham Lincoln, the Great Emancipator, towering behind him, King used his rhetorical talents to show how the “Negro is still not free.” He told of the struggle ahead, stressing the importance of continued action and nonviolent protest. Coming to the end of his prepared text, he was overwhelmed by the moment and launched into an improvised sermon. He told the hushed crowd, “Go back to Mississippi, Alabama, South Carolina, Georgia, Louisiana; go back to the slums and ghettoes of our northern cities, knowing that somehow this situation can and will be changed.”

It's January 19th. On this day in 1946, in 🗽 Locust Ridge, Tennessee, was born the multi-talented singer, songwriter, guitarist, actress, and future 👑 Queen of Country Music, Ms. Dolly Rebecca Parton. She was the fourth of 12 children born into a poor, but loving and musical farming family. Her talent emerged at an early age, and as a child she was a featured 🎤 singer and 🎸 guitarist on local 📻 radio and 📺 TV shows in Knoxville. Parton made her first recording at the age of 12, and made her first guest appearance on the Grand Ole Opry at 13. Right after she graduated from 🏫 high school in 1964, at the age of 18, Parton set out for Nashville to pursue a 🎵 musical career.

In 1966, she cowrote a pair of top ten hits for Bill Phillips, and people around Nashville started to take notice. That same year, one of her own recordings, "Dumb Blonde," became her first Top Forty hit. The song challenged traditional female stereotypes – a cause she has championed her entire life. In 1971, "Joshua" became Parton's first Number 1 hit. Twenty-four more have followed so far in her 60+ years in the music industry.

Parton is popular the world over now, of course, and she's branched out well beyond the music industry. Her appearances in 🎥 movies such as "9 to 5," "Steel Magnolias," "Rhinestone," and "Best Little Whorehouse in Texas," among others, have turned her into a movie star. She's made over 400 TV appearances. She's part owner of the 🎢 Dollywood Theme Park in Pigeon Forge, Tennessee. Her Dollywood Foundation and Imagination Library have supported countless activist causes, such as 📚 literacy, 🟩 conservation, ⚕️ public health, 🦸‍♀️ women's rights, and 💰 wealth inequality.

It's January 16th. On this day in 2004, 🗽 American author Donita K. Paul created "Appreciate a Dragon Day" to celebrate the release of her book "DragonSpell." Amazingly, from such a humble beginning, it's caught on not only all over America, but all over the world! Commemorated every year now, Appreciate a Dragon Day is marked by activities at children's museums and libraries to celebrate literacy and honor some of our beloved dragons in 📚 books and 🎥 movies.

Most of you have a favorite 🐉 dragon, whether you realize it or not. Think about it, and you're bound to come up with Puff, Mushu, Smaug, Norbert, Falkor, Toothless, Elliott, one of the three "Game of Thrones" dragons – Drogon, Rhaegal, and Viserion – or whomever. Today's a good day to share your favorite dragon with children – and learn about theirs.

Dragons are mythical creatures (except for the Komodo and Bearded Dragons, which are really lizards and not dragons at all) that resemble 🦎 lizards with 🦇 bat wings. They're often depicted as able to breathe 🔥 fire and have large claws they slash their opponents with. Some dragons are depicted as having multiple heads. The word "dragon" comes from the Greek word "drakon" which means giant sea serpent. In the West, dragons are typically depicted as evil creatures. In East Asia, dragons are depicted in a positive light.