February 2nd...This Day in History (Now with links to other events)

First Groundhog Day 1887

 

On this day in 1887, Groundhog Day, featuring a rodent meteorologist, is celebrated for the first time at Gobbler’s Knob in Punxsutawney, Pennsylvania. According to tradition, if a groundhog comes out of its hole on this day and sees its shadow, there will be six more weeks of winter weather; no shadow means an early spring.

Groundhog Day has its roots in the ancient Christian tradition of Candlemas Day, when clergy would bless and distribute candles needed for winter. The candles represented how long and cold the winter would be. Germans expanded on this concept by selecting an animal–the hedgehog–as a means of predicting weather. Once they came to America, German settlers in Pennsylvania continued the tradition, although they switched from hedgehogs to groundhogs, which were plentiful in the Keystone State.

Groundhogs, also called woodchucks and whose scientific name is Marmota monax, typically weigh 12 to 15 pounds and live six to eight years. They eat vegetables and fruits, whistle when they’re frightened or looking for a mate and can climb trees and swim. They go into hibernation in the late fall; during this time, their body temperatures drop significantly, their heartbeats slow from 80 to five beats per minute and they can lose 30 percent of their body fat. In February, male groundhogs emerge from their burrows to look for a mate (not to predict the weather) before going underground again. They come out of hibernation for good in March.

In 1887, a newspaper editor belonging to a group of groundhog hunters from Punxsutawney called the Punxsutawney Groundhog Club declared that Phil, the Punxsutawney groundhog, was America’s only true weather-forecasting groundhog. The line of groundhogs that have since been known as Phil might be America’s most famous groundhogs, but other towns across North America now have their own weather-predicting rodents, from Birmingham Bill to Staten Island Chuck to Shubenacadie Sam in Canada.

In 1993, the movie Groundhog Day starring Bill Murray popularized the usage of “groundhog day” to mean something that is repeated over and over. Today, tens of thousands of people converge on Gobbler’s Knob in Punxsutawney each February 2 to witness Phil’s prediction. The Punxsutawney Groundhog Club hosts a three-day celebration featuring entertainment and activities.

 (More Events on This Day in History)

• American Revolution

• 1781 Nathanael Greene finds fortification at Steele’s Tavern

• Automotive

• 1991 Hurley Haywood in quest to win fifth 24 Hours of Daytona

• Civil War

• 1803 Albert Sidney Johnston born

• Cold War

• 1949 United States rejects proposal for conference with Stalin

• Crime

• 1922 Murder in Hollywood: A tale of vice and vixens

• Disaster

• 1847 First Donner Party member dies

• General Interest

• 1943 Battle of Stalingrad ends
• 1971 Idi Amin takes power in Uganda
• 1980 ABSCAM operation revealed

• Hollywood

• 1996 Gene Kelly dies
• 2014 Actor Philip Seymour Hoffman dies at age 46

• Literary

• 1882 James Joyce is born

• Music

• 1979 Sid Vicious dies of a drug overdose in New York City

• Old West

• 1812 Russians establish Fort Ross

• Presidential

• 1848 Treaty of Guadalupe Hidalgo is signed

• Sports

• 1876 National League of baseball is founded

• Vietnam War

• 1962 First U.S. Air Force plane crashes in South Vietnam.
• 1970 Antiwar protestors sue Dow Chemical

• World War I

• 1916 Zeppelin crashes into North Sea

• World War II

• 1942 Quisling becomes prime minister of puppet regime in Norway
• 1943 Germans surrender at Stalingrad