7-14-15

FYI: Any blue text is a link. Click to check it out!
Almanac: Week: 29 \ Day: 195
July Averages: 82°\50°
86004 Today: H 85° \ L 51° Average Sky Cover: 25% 
Wind ave:   8mph\Gusts:  20mph
Ave. High: 83° Record High:  92° (1902) Ave. Low: 50° Record Low:  38° (1962)
§ § § § §
Observances Today:
Chick-fil-A's Cow Appreciation Day
International Nude Day
National Nude Day
Pandemonium Day
Shark Awareness Day

Bastille Day (France-1789)
Ramadan (Islam)
¤ ¤
Observances This Week:
Creative Maladjustment Week: 7-14  
Sports Cliché Week: 12-16 

¤ ¤
Quote of the Day 

¤ ¤

US Historical Highlights for Today
1798 - 1st direct US federal tax on states-on dwellings, land & slaves
1837 - At Fort Clark, on the upper Missouri, Francis Chardon records the first death of a Mandan attributed to smallpox.
1845 - Fire in NYC destroys 1,000 homes & kills many
1850 - 1st public demonstration of ice made by refrigeration
1853 - 1st US World's fair opens at New York's Crystal Palace
1853 - Pres Franklin Pierce opens 1st industrial exposition (NY)
1864 - Gold is discovered in Helena, Montana
1870 - Congress grants Mary Todd Lincoln a life pension of $3,000 a year
1891 - John T Smith patents corkboard
1914 - 1st patent for liquid-fueled rocket design granted (Robert Goddard)
1927 - 1st commercial airplane flight in Hawaii
1946 - Dr Benjamin Spock's "Common Sense Book of Baby & Child Care" published
1951 - 1st color telecast of a sporting event (CBS-horse race)
1953 - 1st US National monument dedicated to a Negro-George Washington Carver
1965 - US Mariner IV, 1st Mars probe, passes at 6,100 miles (9,800 km)
1967 - The Who begin a US tour opening for Herman's Hermits
1969 - The United States $500, $1,000, $5,000 and $10,000 bills are officially withdrawn from circulation
1977 - North Korea shoots down US helicopter, killing 3
1977 - US House establishes permanent Select Committee on Intelligence
1978 - Allen Ginsburg completes "Plutonian Ode" - blocks trainload of fissile material headed for Rockwell's nuclear bomb trigger factory, Colorado
1987 - Greyhound Bus buys Trailways Bus for $80 million
2008 - "The Dark Knight" premieres in New York
¤ ¤
Today’s World Events through History
1832 - Opium exempted from federal tariff duty
1853 - Commodore Perry requests trade relations with Japan
1912
 - Kenneth McArthur runs Olympic record marathon (2:36:54.8)

1969 - A 67-year-old Catholic civilian dies after being attacked by RUC officers in Dungiven, County Derry; many consider this the first death of 'the Troubles'
1998 - Violence erupts in Richmond, South Africa, reflecting underlying political tensions between supporters of the ANC and Inkatha Freedom Party
2002 - French President Jacques Chirac escapes an assassination attempt unscathed during Bastille Day celebrations.
2014 - The Church of England votes in favor of allowing women to become bishops
§ § § § §
Birthdays Today:
How many can you identify? Answers below in Birthdays Today 

§ § § § §
My Rambling Thoughts
Great Monday. Great day for a nice walk in the neighborhood.
I get it that the American electoral system allows anyone can be President.  And I guess in 2016 most Republicans in the US will be running for that office. I sure wish the culling process would start very soon.  Listening to some of these ‘candidates’ I am beginning to think that the old ‘smoked filled rooms at the convention’ didn’t show us how dirty this political circus really is.
§ § § § §
Brain Teasers
(answers at the end of post)
There are seven parts to this riddle,
Each is part of a greater whole.
You see most of these,
Everyday as you please:

First is what I did to a book yesterday,
Second mixes with apples.
Third is a shout, then "ouch" you say,
Fourth shares the sound of mean.
Fifth is what the wind had done,
The sixth is often skipped.
The last and final can be called by two names,
If roses are this, then which is the blue one?

§ § § § §
Found on You Tube with some relevance to today
§ § § § §
…Cool Facts…
Leonardo Da Vinci made a robotic lion in 1515 that would walk, sway, open its mouth and move its tail - it even had a compartment that opened to present flowers.

In 1987, a Chicago TV station had its broadcast interrupted by a pirate signal that shows a man in a Max Headroom mask mumbling and being spanked with a fly swatter. Despite investigations by the FCC and FBI, this became the only known incident in which a hacker interrupted a major TV broadcast without getting caught.
¤ ¤
…Flagstaff, AZ History…
100 YEARS AGO-1915
The management of the Flagstaff Lumber & Manufacturing Co. treated its employees and friends to a free excursion out to Lake Mary on Sunday. There were two full carloads of workers and friends on the rails to visit the operations there and plenty to eat for all.

Excavations have begun on Observatory Hill for construction of a workshop and a general utility building.
¤ ¤
…Harper’s Index…
1/5 – portion of lesbian, gay and bisexual Republicans who oppose same-sex marriage
¤ ¤
… Relationship Facts…
People are more likely to tilt their heads to the right when kissing instead of the left (65 percent of people go to the right!)

Brain scans show that people who view photos of a beloved experience an activation of the caudate - the part of the brain involving cravings.
¤ ¤
…Unusual Fact of the Day…
The Beach Boys were the founders of surf rock; however, only Dennis Wilson knew how to surf. He died of drowning in 1983.
§ § § § §
2 jokes for the day
Q. What's the difference between a cat and a comma?

A. A cat has its claws at the end of its paws; a comma is a pause at the end of a clause

¤ ¤
A man who was born with no arms wished to seek employment.
Fearing nobody would want to hire him with his obvious disability, he thought he'd answer a help wanted sign he saw posted at his church.
He rang the bell at the rectory and when the pastor opened the door he was moved with pity.
He asked, "What can I do for you, my son?" The man said I've come to answer your help wanted ad.
The pastor became concerned and said that ad is for a bell ringer.
He stammered that he didn't think he'd be able to handle the job.
The man pleaded and said won't you give me a chance so I can show you what I'm capable of? The pastor relented and hired him.
The time came when the church bell had to be rung. The man made his way under the bell, took a running start and threw his body against the bell which resulted in a booming "BONNGGGG" as soon as the vibrations subsided, he took another running start and threw his body into the other side of the bell with the expected result of "BONNNGG" . . . and so it went.
Now our armless friend was at the job for several months to the delight of the pastor.
One day the guy was running late and in his haste he ran up to the belfry and got his running leap at the bell without first getting under the bell.
As he ran right off the side of the tower he screamed.
Everyone from within the church filed out and just stared.
Finally somebody said "poor fellow, does anybody knows who he is?"
To which came the answer from someone in the back . . . "I don't know his name, but his face sure rings a bell."

¤ ¤
Yep, It Really Happened
In 1982 there was Lawnchair Larry. He was a man with a dream, and that dream was to launch himself into the sky in a lawn chair tied to 45 helium-filled weather balloons. 
His wild plan took him right into the controlled airspace of Los Angeles International Airport where miraculously he and his contraption did not get sucked into a jet engine. 
In 2008 an Oregon man named Kent Couch became the first person to achieve interstate travel by balloon-powered lawn chair when he traveled 240 miles to land safely in western Idaho. 
This year it is 26-year-old Canadian Daniel Boria. 
Boria's wild idea was to promote his cleaning-products company by flying a helium balloon-powered lawn chair over the city of Calgary where he planned to parachute into a rodeo event called the Calgary Stampede, because nothing makes Canadian cowboys want to buy cleaning products more than a crazy man committing suicide in the middle of their rodeo. 
But Mr. Boria is probably better at selling cleaning products than he is at physics. He slightly over-estimated the lifting power he needed, and the 120 over-sized party balloons he attached to his chair took him much higher than he expected. 
"I was sitting in a lawn chair looking down through the clouds at 747 airplanes and looking up to a cluster of balloons," Boria told the Toronto Star.
"I rose to a certain altitude and the winds got pretty intense. I was somersaulting out the chair and it felt like minus 30. I watched below as the stampede and my dream drifted away."
He missed the rodeo by a bit, landing in a field just outside the city, but he did not die. He suffered a broken ankle and was arrested for 'causing mischief' and could face further charges. 
The chair was never found and is probably somewhere over Saskatchewan by now. 
There is no report on the sales of Mr. Boria's cleaning products. 
¤ ¤

Somewhat Useless Information
Less than 40 percent of all clothing is sold at full price.

People first wore clothing was for protection. Roughly fashioned garments protected them from animal bites, scratches, and burns. 

Catherine de Medici in 1579, ordered up a steel corset designed to slim her royal waist down to a mere 13 inches.

One of the first customers of the "Separable Fastener" (early version of the zipper) was the US Army. It applied zippers to the clothing and gear of the troops of World War I. 

On May 20, 1873, Levi Strauss & Jacob Davis received patent #139,121 from the U.S. Patent and Trademark Office. That day is considered to be the official "birthday" of blue jeans.

In the 1920s a pioneering Paris fashion designer, Jean Patou, invented the designer tie. He made ties from women's clothing material including patterns inspired by the latest art movements of the day, Cubism and Art Deco. Today women buy 80 percent of ties sold in the US.

§ § § § §
Birthdays Today
83 - Roosevelt Grier, Cuthbert Ga, NFLer (NY Giants)/actor (Movin' On)
54 - Jane Lynch, TV Actress (Glee)
49 - Matthew Fox TV Actor (Lost)
29 - Peta Murgatroyd, Professional dancer (DWTS)
¤ ¤
Born this day…Died in __@__
Gerald R Ford, [Leslie King], 41st US VP\38th US President-2006@93
William Hanna, animator (Hanna-Barbera;Tom and Jerry, Scooby Doo)-2001@90
Ingmar Bergman, Uppsala Sweden, director (Cries & Whispers)-2007@89
Dale Robertson, actor (Death Valley Days, Walter-Dynasty)-2013@89
Polly Bergen, actress (Rhoda-Winds of War, Baby Talk)-2014@84
Tom Carvel, ice cream mogul (Carvels)-1990@84
Frederick Louis Maytag I, inventor (washing machine)-1937@79
George Tobias, actor (Abner Kravitz-Bewitched)-1980@76
Gertrude Bell, Durham, British archaeologist (Desert & The Sown)-1926@57
Woodrow Wilson "Woody" Guthrie, folk singer (This Land Is Your Land)-1967@55
§ § § § §
Historical Obits Today
Richard McDonald, American fast food pioneer-1998@89
Cicely Saunders, English Nurse, physician and writer who founded the first modern hospice, 2005@ 87
Adlai Stevenson II, US amb to UN/pres candidate, heart attack-1965@65
Meredith MacRae, American actress, brain tumor-2000@56
Billy the Kid (William H. Bonney, Henry McCarty), American outlaw-shot-1881@21
§ § § § §
Brain Teasers Answers
The 7 Colors of the Rainbow

Red: read a book
Orange: apples and oranges
Yellow: Yell and Ow
Green: Rhymes with "Mean"
Blue: The wind "blew"
Indigo is often skipped
Violet: Roses are red, Violets are blue.

§ § § § §
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…§


No comments:

Post a Comment

Followers

Total Pageviews

Blog Archive

About Me

My photo
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.