Today in 1912, First Lady Helen Taft and Viscountess Chinda, wife of the Japanese ambassador to the United States, planted two cherry trees along the banks of the Potomac River in Washington DC.
There are now thousands of cherry blossoms in the nation’s capital; they’re a signature of the city.
And it all happened thanks to one very determined woman and a bunch of great minds all thinking alike.
That very determined woman was Eliza Scidmore, a world-traveling journalist and author who called DC home.
In 1885, she visited her brother in Japan, where she fell in love with the many spaces in Japanese cities that showcased the cherry trees and their bright pink blossoms.
When she returned to Washington she suggested to city officials that they ought to add some cherry blossoms.
They weren’t interested; they asked, wouldn’t we have to hire security so people weren’t taking all the cherries?
Scidmore said these trees don’t really put out cherries, and they complained again, what’s the use of cherry trees that don’t put out cherries?
But she kept at them for decades, eventually writing to her acquaintance Mrs. Taft at the White House.
It turned out the First Lady had been working on ways to improve DC’s Tidal Basin area, and she’d seen the cherry trees herself on a trip to Japan when her husband was Secretary of War.
But could these Japanese trees grow in American soil?
Botanist David Fairchild could answer that.
He founded the Department of Agriculture’s Plant Introduction Section, and brought hundreds of thousands of plant species to the US.
Some of those species have become some of the biggest crops American farmers produce.
He had also visited Japan and seen the cherry trees for himself, and he’d successfully grown cherry blossom saplings on his property in Maryland.
The pieces were falling into place; by 1909 the effort to bring the blossoms to DC was underway.
It took a few years for Japanese and American officials to figure out how to get healthy trees to America and plant them, but they took to the area quite well; they’re now symbols of springtime in Washington and of international friendship.
As for Eliza Scidmore, she has a plaque in Washington to honor her role in the cherry tree story.
And after her passing in 1928, her ashes were laid to rest in Japan, next to a plaque that reads in Japanes, “A lady who loved Japanese cherry blossoms rests here in peace.”
Today in 1969, the birthday of Mariah Carey.
If she’s looking to celebrate in a big way, she’ll have to top her party from 2016.
That’s when she gathered a few dozen friends, relatives and colleagues at a fancy villa in Italy for a Mariah Carey-themed Mariah Carey birthday party.
As one insider reportedly said, “They clearly had a lot of fun!”
How the Cherry Blossoms Came to Washington (American Heritage)
Mariah Carey Threw Herself a Mariah Carey–Themed Party (Us Magazine)