11-17-14

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Almanac: Week: 47 \ Day: 321 
November Averages: 51° \ 22°



Holiday Observances Today:
Electronic Greeting Card Day
Great American Smokeout
Homemade Bread Day
Take A Hike Day
World Peace Day Petroleum Day
World Prematurity Awareness Day

Observances This Week:
National Hunger & Homeless Awareness Week; International Fraud Awareness Week: 15-23 
American Education Week; National Book Awards Week; National Global Entrepreneurship Week: 17-23 

• • • •
Quote of the Day



Historical Highlights for Today
1278 - 680 Jews arrested (293 hanged) in England for counterfeiting coins
1603 – Sir Walter Raleigh goes on trial for treason.
1785 - Church of England organizes in New England
1798 - Snow storms in New England, hundreds die
1800 - Congress held 1st session in Wash DC in incomplete Capitol building
1853 - Street signs authorized at San Francisco intersections
1855 - David Livingstone becomes the first European to see Victoria Falls
1863 - Lincoln begins 1st draft of his Gettysburg Address
1869 - Suez Canal (Egypt) opens, links Mediterranean & Red seas
1876 - Tchaikovsky's patriotic Slavonic March made its premiere in Moscow
1913 - 1st US dental hygienists course forms, Bridgeport, Ct
1914 - US declares Panama Canal Zone neutral
1928 - Boston Garden officially opens
1933
 - United States recognizes Soviet Union, opens trade

1936 - Edgar Bergen & Charlie McCarthy become overnight success on radio
1947 - The U.S. Screen Actors Guild implements an anti-Communist loyalty oath
1953 - Remaining human inhabitants of the Blasket Islands, Kerry, Ireland are evacuated to the mainland
1968 - "Heidi Game", NBC cuts to show "Heidi" and misses Raider's rally to beat Jets
1973 - Nixon tells AP "... Well, I'm not a crook"
1991 - 1st TV condom ad aired (FOX- TV)
1993 - US House of Representatives approve Nafta
• • • •
  Birthdays Today:
How many can you identify? Answers below in Birthday’s Today



My Rambling Thoughts
Our discussion group last night was very good. Our moderator has worked for USAID on a 4 year grant to train in a Nursing Master’s Program. She is still in contact with many of her former students. The grant was two-fold-train nurses and have them take over the teaching of classes. Many successes. Her fear now is that with the complete collapse of the medical infrastructure the teaching part may take more time than Liberia has. When the ‘Back to Africa’ movement was started in the late teens of the last century, Liberia was colonized by Black Americans returning to Africa. English is the official language. I also learned that Ebola—the disease—is named after the Ebola River in the Congo (then Zaire) when it was first identified in 1996. The world community has been very slow in providing aide with the virus. Man countries seem to believe ‘it’s in Africa; it’s their problem”. Now the world is finally seeing things differently. She gave us a lot positive data that this outbreak, the 9th since first discovered, is being slowed greatly. Her biggest concern now is that as the outbreak is contained, the money will stop. With a country that is faltering economically, educationally, and medically Ebola could return as well as other diseases. Right now more people are dying in Liberia from Malaria than Ebola. Why? Because the one hospital that is open is only treating Ebola and with no meds and no personnel available, no one is treating Malaria. Economically, all the nations that were helping build industry and infrastructure have pulled out. The Europeans left the iron mines—a main source of local income and the Chinese left the road construction. Sad story.
Broncos lost to the Rams…really? It was like the team never figured out the game. The Cards are still doing well against the Lions.
• • • •
Brain Teasers
(answers at the end of post)
What do the following words have in common?

Vermont
Statuesque
Swedish
Arthur's
Africa
Sensation
Misunderstood

           
Found on You Tube with some relevance to today




OK Then…
• • • •
Paraphernalia 4 the Brain:     
England Facts…
—On April Fool's Day in 1977, the UK newspaper The Guardian ran a 7 page feature on the discovery of the fictitious island nation of "San Seriffe."
ѿEnglish sailors were referred to as "limeys" because sailors added lime juice to their diet to combat scurvy.

Flagstaff, AZ History…
75 YEARS AGO
The City Police assisted by the Sherriff’s Department are making plans to deal severely with the young hoodlums who are caught destroying property during Halloween. These “innocent” pranks are not funny and last year’s damage at A. L. & T. and other places make this a serious matter.
           
Hair Facts…
 —An average person’s yearly fast food intake will contain 12 pubic hairs.
—In 1911, pigtails were banned in China because they were seen as a link with its feudal past.

Harper’s Index…
Average number of hours per week US public-school teachers are required to work to receive their pay: 38
Average number they actually work: 52 
           
Internet Facts…
—After coming across a "very sweet" homeless man from Jamaica named Michael on a night out, Londoner Jenny Baker took to Twitter, and within hours, using the hashtag #getmichaelhome, had raised thousands of pounds so that he could return home to Jamaica where he said he would be "happy again".
—Google founders Sergey Brin and Larry Page have expressed their desire to see the search engine become artificial intelligence itself. To achieve that goal, they created the highly-protected “X lab.”

That’s Outrageous from Reader’s Digest…
20 percent of Americans think that the sun revolves around the earth; 47 percent of Americans don’t know how long it takes the earth to revolve around the sun.


**NEW**Pilgrim Facts…
—The Pilgrims are perhaps best known for the celebration of the harvest that shared with their Native American neighbors: Thanksgiving. But there is more to the Pilgrims than the Mayflower, religious persecution, and that first Thanksgiving.
—Thanksgiving is a holiday for which old, traditional recipes make an appearance, and cookbooks are out in full force. The Pilgrims also used cookbooks, as evidenced by several "recipe books" from the period. These books provide insight into cooking at that time. The most famous may be Gervase Markham's The English Housewife, which was first published in 1615.

Rules of Thumb…
WALKING
Without a pack, you should be able to walk 25 miles a day without serious strain. With a pack one-fourth your weight or less, 15 miles a day is reasonable on a decent trail.    

Unusual Fact of the Day…
The only other country in the world to celebrate the United States' birthday, July 4th, is Denmark.
• • • •
Joke-of-the-day
The best answer to the question asked in an interview, "Where do you see yourself in 5 years' time?" . . . "In the mirror as always . . "
           
Yep, It Really Happened
PARIS (UPI)
French officials announced a law change that will allow homeowners to install toilets in their kitchens and living rooms. Minister of Housing Sylvia Pinel and Minister of Ecology Segolene Royal announced in the French government's Official Journal Nov. 8 they are doing away with a law requiring toilets to be kept separate from kitchens and living rooms. The ministers wrote they were doing away with "the prohibition of direct communication between the [bathrooms] and kitchens and living rooms" as part of "a process of simplification of regulations." The decree goes into effect Dec. 1.
           
Somewhat Useless Information
What extraordinary did barbers do back in the Middle Ages?
Did you know that back in the Middle Ages, barbers could conduct surgeries?
Unlike doctors, “barber surgeons” were expected to do anything from cutting hair to amputating limbs and were the most common medical practitioners of medieval Europe.
However, nobody could guarantee the success of a surgery, as mortality at the time was quite high due to loss of blood and infection.
+++
What is the highest known temperature?
Did you know that the highest observed temperature in the universe was briefly seen at CERN at the Large Hadron Collider?
Its magnitude was 7.2 trillion degrees Fahrenheit.
Scientists claim that theoretically we could go for even hotter temperatures. “The first contender for the hottest temperature is the Planck Temperature, which equals 100 million million million million million degrees, or 1032 K. You just can’t put this kind of temperature into perspective”.
           
**NEW**Somewhat Useful Information from fivethrityeight.com
Note: While listening to NPR this morning, I discover this site. Interesting stuff.

Tattoos:
—Somewhere between 21 percent and 24 percent of American adults have tattoos.
—Among 18- to 29-year-olds, 12 percent said they had just one tattoo compared to 26 percent who said they had two or more.
—In the NBA- Fifty-six percent of players are tattooed.
—14 percent of respondents said they regret tattoos according to a 2012 poll that interviewed 2,016 adults, of which only 21 percent said they had a tattoo. So that claim about regrets is only based on 423 people.
• • • •
Today’s Events through History
1558 - Elizabeth I  ascends throne at death of her half-sister "Bloody" Mary
1884 - Cops arrest John L Sullivan in 2nd round for being "cruel"
1889 - Union Pacific begins daily through service, Chicago-Portland & SF
1967 - Surveyor 6 becomes 1st man-made object to lift off Moon
2004 - Kmart Corp. announces it is buying Sears, Roebuck and Co. 
Birthday’s Today
Gordon Lightfoot, Ontario, Canadian folksinger (Sundown) is 76
Martin Scorsese, Queens, director (Raging Bull) is 72
Lauren Hutton, [Mary], model/actress (American Gigolo) is 71

Danny Devito, actor (Taxi) is 70
Lorne Michaels, [Lipowitz], Toronto Ontario, comedian (SNL) is 70
William R Moses, actor (Cole-Falcon Crest) is 55
RuPaul (Andre Charles), drag queen/model/actor (RuPaul Show) is 54
Daisy Fuentes, model/MTV veejay (America's Funniest Videos) is 48

Remembered for being born today
August Ferdinand Möbius, German mathematician (1790-1868)
Grace Abbott, Grand Island Neb, social worker (US Children Bureau) (1878-1939)
Lee Strasberg, Austria, acting coach/actor (Somewhere in the Night) (1901-1982)
Rock Hudson, actor (Pillow Talk, A Farewell to Arms) (1925-1985)
Bob Mathias, American decathlete (Olympic-gold-1948, 52) (1930-2006)
• • • •
Historical Obits Today
Doris Lessing, Iranian-British novelist and Nobel laureate, 2013, @94
Margaret Yorke, English crime fiction writer, 2012, @ 88
Esther Rolle, actress (Good Times), diabetes, 1998, @78
Auguste Rodin, French sculptor (Thinker), 1917, @77
Robert Hofstadter, American physicist, Nobel Prize laureate, 1990, @75
Catherine the Great [Catherine II], Empress of Russia stroke, 1796, @67
• • • •

Brain Teasers Answers
They each contain an abbreviation of a weekday.

verMONt
staTUESque 
sWEDish 
arTHUR'S 
aFRIca 
senSATion 
miSUNderstood

• • • •
Disclaimer: All opinions are mine…feel free to agree or disagree.
All ‘data’ info is from the internet sites and is usually checked with at least one other source, but I have learned that every site contains mistakes and sadly once the information is out there, many sites simply copy it and is therefore difficult to verify. Also for events occurring before the Gregorian calendar was adopted [1582] the dates may not be totally accurate.
§…And That Is All for Now…§


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Flagstaff, Arizona, United States
I retired in '06--at the ripe old age of 57. I enjoy blogging, photography, traveling, and living life to it's fullest.