May 25

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Today’s  Historical  Highlights

1659: Richard Cromwell resigns as English Lord Protector

1776: The United States Congress resolves that it would be "highly expedient" if they can engage Indians to fight on their side of the Revolutionary War

1895: Oscar Wilde sentenced to 2 years hard labor for being a sodomite

1922: Babe Ruth suspended 1 day & fined $200 for throwing dirt on an ump

1932: Goofy, aka Dippy Dawg, 1st appears in 'Mickey's Revue' by Walt Disney

1961: JFK sets goal of putting a man on Moon before the end of decade

1986: 7,000,000 Americans form "Hands Across America"

2011: Oprah Winfrey airs her last show, ending her twenty five year run of The Oprah Winfrey Show

♪Happy Birthday To: ♪ 

 

Free Rambling Thoughts   

Last night was very windy. I was awakened several times, which is unusual since I usually sleep through just about anything. Today was a lot calmer but still windy. We had our weekly lunch at a great Chinese restaurant. Mary is talking about becoming a child advocate in court cases. Sounds like a really interesting volunteer opportunity. Cheryl is heading out to California next month to see the grandkids. She also mentioned that her recent eye surgery has taken hold and she is seeing much better. We all had a good week.

Getting ready for the Memorial Day weekend. No plans to leave town, but am sure some friends from the Rez will stop by. Flag will have lots of stuff going on too. As long there isn’t too much wind, I’ll be out and about.

Game   Center   (answers at the end of post)

Brain Game—A close up picture of what?

NPR Sunday Puzzle

Every answer is a familiar three-word phrase in the form of "______ of ______." The first word starts with M, and you are given the third word. For example, given "production" the answer would be "means" for "means of production."

1.      Magnesia:

2.     Dimes:

3.     Zorro:

4.     Steel:

5.     Truth:

6.     Parliament:

7.     Pearl:

8.     Ceremonies:

9.     Fact:

10.  Life:

Riddle of the day

What fastens two people yet touches only one?

Anagram: unscramble—numbers represent the number of letters in each answer word

Lifestyle  Substance     

Harper’s Index         

Estimated tons of debris from the Japanese earthquake headed for the West Coast of the US: 5,000,000

Found on You Tube 

        Hands Across America 1986       

Planet Earth—

Joke-of-the-day

A man got really drunk one night in his local pub. The barman refused to serve him any more alcohol and told him he should be heading home. The man thought this was a good idea so he stood up to leave but fell over straight away. He tried to stand up again but only fell over again. He thought if only he could get outside and get some fresh air he'd be grand. So he crawled outside then tried to stand up and fell over again. In the end after falling over lots more he decided to crawl home. When he got back to his house he pulled himself up using the door handle but as soon as he let go he fell over again. He had to crawl up the stairs and managed to fall over onto the bed and fell asleep. When he finally woke up the next morning his wife asked him what he was doing at the pub last night.
He denied it but she said, "I know you were there..." he maintained his innocence until "...the barman rang to say you forgot your wheelchair again...."

Rules of Thumb   

Easy shortcuts to make an ‘educated’ guess

When the spring peepers start, the maple sugaring stops.

Yeah, It Really Happened

ULGHAM, England - British bird sanctuaries said they are filling up with owls as Harry Potter-inspired pet owners get tired of the birds. Pam Toothill, of the Owlcenter in Corwen, Wales, said she had only six of the birds prior to the release of the first Harry Potter film, but the number has since grown to 100 owls, The Mirror reported Monday.
"People saw Harry's owl in the movies and thought how cute and cuddly they looked. Now they are bored and fed-up with all the work involved looking after an owl," Toothill said. Kim Olson, owner of the Sanctuary Wildlife Care Center in Ulgham, England, said many people have been illegally releasing their pet owls into the wild.
"When people saw Harry Potter loads of them wanted an owl. They've kept them in their shed or garage for a bit and now they've got bored and they hand them in to us," she said. "It's illegal to release an owl into the wild because they would take over from the native wild owls, but obviously a lot of people have ignored that law."
Harry Potter author JK Rowling has asked her fans to do the proper research before deciding to obtain an owl as a pet. "If anybody has been influenced by my books to think an owl would be happiest shut in a small cage and kept in a house, I would like to take this opportunity to say as forcefully as I can, 'You are wrong,'" she said.                 

Somewhat Useless Information   

• The diamond mining industry in South Africa began in 1866, when Stephanus Erasmus Jacobs found an unusual pebble on the south bank of the Orange River. He gave it to a friend, who gave it to a friend, and so on, until it finally ended up in the hands of a professional, who determined that the "pebble" was a 21 1/4-carat diamond.
• Princess Margaret of England once commented on Elizabeth Taylor's 39-carat Krupp diamond, calling it the most vulgar thing she'd ever seen. When Liz let the Princess try the ring on, she noticed Margaret admiring it in the light and said, "See? It's not so vulgar now, is it?"
• In 1947, DeBeers hired the N.W. Ayer advertising agency to come up with a campaign that would encourage Americans to buy more expensive diamonds and hang on to them, instead of pawning or reselling them. The result was the "A diamond is forever" slogan.
• Hawaii's Diamond Head got its name in the late 1700s when western traders found what they thought were diamonds on the crater. The stones they'd found, however, turned out to be calcite crystals, not valuable gemstones.
• A chemically pure diamond has no color and is clear. Impure diamonds tend to have a yellowish or brownish hue. So-called natural "fancy color" diamonds occur when trace elements in the stone are irradiated during the gem's creation.
• Only about 20 percent of the world's diamond supply is used for jewelry. Diamonds are used in industry for cutting, grinding, and polishing everything from eyeglasses to the drums in copying machines to automobile pistons.

For AZ centennial celebration: town names

• Flagstaff, AZ: a city located in northern Arizona Coconino County, named after a Ponderosa Pine flagpole made by a scouting party from Boston (known as the "Second Boston Party") to celebrate the United States Centennial on July 4, 1876, early economy was based on the lumber, railroad, and ranching industries; remains an important distribution hub for companies such as Nestlé Purina PetCare and Walgreens, and is home to Lowell Observatory,The U.S. Naval Observatory, the United States Geological Survey Flagstaff Station and Northern Arizona University; population of the city was 60,611; the racial makeup of the city was 77.9% White, 1.8% Black or African American, 10.0% Native American, 1.2% Asian, 0.1% Pacific Islander, 6.1% from other races, and 2.9% from two or more races. 16.1% of the population is Hispanics or Latinos of any race.

• Forest Lakes, AZ: a small unincorporated community in Coconino County in the northern part of Arizona; began as a mining operation manganese in 1939; is located on the edge of the Mogollon Rim and is in close proximity to several recreational lakes within the Apache-Sitgreaves National Forest; population is 266 people, The racial makeup is 99.20% White, 0.40%Native American, and 0.40% Asian. Hispanic or Latino of any race is 6.61% of the population.

• Fountain Hills, AZ: is a town in Maricopa County neighboring the Fort McDowell Yavapai Nation, Salt River Pima-Maricopa Indian Community, and Scottsdale, Arizona; the population is 22,554; 18.2 sq mi (47 km2); the eponymous fountain was built in 1970, by Robert P. McCulloch, the year before the reconstruction of the London Bridge in Lake Havasu City, another of McCulloch's projects; the ethnic makeup of the town was 94.1% White, 1.0% Black or African American, 0.6% Native American, 1.8% Asian, 0.1% Native Hawaiian and Other Pacific Islander, 1.1% from other races, and 1.4% from two or more races. Hispanic or Latino of any race makes up 4.1% of the population.

• Fredonia, AZ: is a town in Coconino County population of 1,314; area is 7.4 sq mi (19.2 km2); Fredonia was originally started in 1885 as a business venture by five men who invested time, money, and energy to build a dam so they could create farmland under irrigation; the racial makeup of the town was 85.71% White, 1.06%Black or African American, 11.39% Native American, 0.39% from other races, and 1.45% from two or more races. 1.45% is Hispanic or Latino of any race.

Calendar Information        

…Happening This Week:

19-25

National Safe Boating Week

21-27

Recreational Water Illness and Injury Prevention Week

National Medical Transcription Week

National Backyard Games Week

Week of Solidarity With The People of Non-Self-Governing Territories Old-Time Player Piano Week

Today Is                                                                      

Cookie Monster's Birthday

Don't Fry Day

Heat Awareness Safety Day

National Missing Children's Day since 1983

National Senior Health and Fitness Day

National Tap Dance Day

National Wig Out Day

Nerd Pride Day or Geek Pride Day

Old-Time Player Piano Day

Towel Day: an annual celebration, as a tribute to the late author Douglas Adams (1952-2001) fans around the universe proudly carry a towel in his honor.

Jordan: Independence Day (1946 End of British League of Nations mandate)

Today’s Other Events                                                             

1600’s

1637: "The Battle of Mystic": As a part of the Pequot war Mohegan Chief Uncas is leading approximately 100 Indian allies, but he is doubtful of the ability of Captains John Underhill and John Mason's seventy-seven Europeans to defeat the Pequot, near modern Mystic, Connecticut, as many as 700 old men, women and children are burned or shot to death. Only about a dozen Pequot in the village survive.

1700’s

1721: John Copson becomes America's 1st insurance agent

1784: Jews are expelled from Warsaw by Marshall Mniszek

1787: Constitutional convention opens at Phila, G Washington presiding

1793: Father Stephen Theodore Badin is 1st US Roman Catholic priest ordained

1800’s

1825: American Unitarian Association founded

1837: The Patriots of Lower Canada (Quebec) rebel against the British for freedom

1878: Gilbert/Sullivans opera "HMS Pinafore," premieres in London

1900’s

1927: Henry Ford stops producing Model T car (begins Model A)

1935: Jesse Owens equals or breaks 6 world records in one hour

1945: Arthur C Clark proposes relay satellites in geosynchronous orbit 

1949: Chinese Red Army occupies Shanghai

1959: Supreme ct rules La prohibiting black-white boxing unconstitutional

1968: Gateway Arch in St Louis dedicated

1968:Unicorn by The Irish Rovers hits #7

1969: "Midnight Cowboy" released with an X rating

1981: Bobby Unser becomes 1st Indy 500 winner to be disqualified

1986: 30,000,000 watch "Live Aid," a massive benefit concert

2000’s

2003: Néstor Kirchner becomes President of Argentina after defeating Carlos Menem. He is the first elected President since the economic crisis

2009: North Korea allegedly tests its second nuclear device. Following the nuclear test, Pyongyang also conducted several missile tests building tensions in the international community

Today’s Birthdays                                                           

Remembered for being born on this day

Rachel Carson, conservationist/writer (silent springs) in 1907

Dixie Carter, TN, actress (Designing Women, Edge of Night) in 1939

Bennett Cerf, publisher (Random House) panelist (What's My Line)in 1898

Ralph Waldo Emerson, US, essayist/philosopher (Concord Hymn) in 1803

Eddie Maxwell, singer (Yes We Have No Bananas) in 1912

John Raleigh Mott, organizer (YMCA, Nobel 1946) in 1865

U Nu, premier Burma (1948-58, 1960-62) in 1907

Bill "Bojangles" Robinson, actor (Stormy Weather, Little Colonel) in 1878

Beverly Sills, [Belle "Bubbles" Miriam Silverman], Bkln NY, soprano in 1929

Gene Tunney, world heavyweight boxing champion (1926-30) in 1897

In their 90’s

Hal David, lyricist (Promises Promises-Grammy 1969) is 91

à

In their 60’s

Jessi Colter, American country music artist is 69

Frank Oz (Frank Richard Oznowicz), Hereford England, American muppetteer (Grover-Sesame Street, Muppet Show) is 68

Leslie Uggams, NYC, singer/actress (Leslie Uggams Show, Roots) is 69

Karen Valentine, Santa Rosa CA, actress (Love American Style, Room 222) is 65

In their 50’s

Connie Selleca, Bronx, actress (Hotel, Capt America II) is 57

In their 40’s

Anne Heche, actress (Donnie Brasco, Juror, Volcano) is 43

Mike Myers, comedian, Canadian actor is 49

In their 30’s

Cillian Murphy, Irish actor is 36

Molly Sims, actress, model, goodwill ambassador is 39

Today’s Obits                                                           

Buck, dog (Married with Children), dies in 1996 at 13

Charles Nelson Reilly, American actor and host of pneumonia in 2007 at 76

Vic Tayback, actor (Mel-Alice), dies of a heart attack in 1990 at 60

Madame C J Walker, wealthy cosmetics manufacturer, dies in 1951 at 51

Answers                                                                                                                                            

Brain Game: Close Up Picture

Riddle of the day

A wedding ring

NPR Sunday Puzzle

1.      Magnesia: milk

2.     Dimes: March

3.     Zorro: mark

4.     Steel: man

5.     Truth: moment

6.     Parliament: member

7.     Pearl: mother

8.     Ceremonies: master

9.     Fact: matter

10.  Life: meaning

Anagrams

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 has mistakes and sadly once out 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  ☺