May 26

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Today’s  Historical  Highlights

1637: 1st battle of Pequot at New Haven Ct kills 500 Natives

1798: British kill about 500 Irish insurgents at the Battle of Tara

1805: Lewis & Clark 1st see Rocky Mountains

1911: 1st Indianapolis 500 auto race is run1963: Organization of African Unity forms

1978: 1st legal gambling casino opens in Atlantic City

2002: The Mars Odyssey finds signs of large ice deposits on the planet Mars

♪Happy Birthday To: ♪ 

 

Free Rambling Thoughts   

Another windy day. A small brush fire in Flag, on a main road…quickly extinguished. It’s all part of being in the desert. I was out and about this morning, before the wind really picked up. The weatherman says the wind will continue through the long weekend. Many Phx people will be headed this way for a cool weekend…sure hope they understand the fire danger.

After lunch yesterday we stopped by a new store that has many many cool things. It is advertized as a feed and tack store, but is a clothing store, a hardware store, and lots more. Anyway, I bought two of those 50’s pink flamingos. It’s a joke from our house in Wheat Ridge, where two pink flamingos moved mysteriously from house to house during the summer. They would show up, be taken back to the owners and then wander off again. Makes me smile when I see them by my fountain.

Game   Center   (answers at the end of post)

Brain Game—A close up picture of what?

NPR Sunday Puzzle

Every answer is a familiar two-word phrase in which the first word starts with CA and the second word starts with W. For example, given "a glass opening in a wall that is attached by hinges," the answer is "casement window."

1.      It melts and drips from a flame:

2.     Covering for a Snickers bar or M&M’s:

3.     What a moat surrounds:

4.     Cabernet or other product from Napa Valley:

5.     Person making a large floor covering:

6.     Removal of money from a bank:

7.     Part of a surrey that rolls:

8.     Seltzer:

9.     Luxury timepiece originally made by 19^th c French jeweler:

10.  T-shirt, shorts, and sandals for example:

11.    One who might try to get you take 3 balls for a dollar:

12.   Classic quote ’one who must be above suspicion’:

13.   Telephone feature that allows you to speak to one person while another is on hold:

14.   Business with soap and big brushes:

15.   Cry of eagerness for a future event:

Riddle of the day

You throw away the outside and cook the inside. Then you eat the outside and throw away the inside. What did you eat?

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

Lifestyle  Substance     

Harper’s Index         

Percentage of Chinese and Americans, respectfully, who struggled to pay for food in 2008: 16:9

Found on You Tube 

Miles Davis - Kind of Blue 50th Anniversary        

Planet Earth—

Joke-of-the-day

A pregnant woman gets into a car accident and falls into a deep coma.
Asleep for nearly six months, she wakes up and sees that she is no longer pregnant. Frantically, she asks the doctor about her baby.
 The doctor replies, "Ma'am, you had twins! A boy and a girl. The babies are fine. Your brother came in and named them."
The woman thinks to herself, "Oh no, not my brother -- he's an idiot!" Expecting the worst, she asks the doctor, "Well, what's the girl's name?"
 "Denise," the doctor says.
 The new mother thinks, "Wow, that's not a bad name! Guess I was wrong about my brother. I like Denise!" Then she asks the doctor, "What's the boy's name?"
 The doctor replies, DeNephew. 

Rules of Thumb   

Easy shortcuts to make an ‘educated’ guess

Soaking in a hot tub adds two to three pints of perspiration per hour per person to the water.

Yeah, It Really Happened

MIAMI - Administrators at a Florida school said police were on hand to make sure their prom did not intermingle with a porn convention going on at the same venue. Gwen Zaldivar, the activities director for Miami Beach Senior High School, said extra security steps were taken when administrators discovered the prom held during the weekend would be sharing the Miami Beach Convention Center with the Exxxotica Expo pornography convention, WFOR-TV, Miami, reported Monday.
"We ... hired police officers," Zaldivar said. "We [worked] with the Miami Beach Convention Center to make sure they have their security in place as well."
Zaldivar said police, security workers and teachers stood guard at the venue to ensure the two events did not intermingle. School officials said their choices of prom venues were limited.
"We do not hold our proms in venues such as hotels for the safety of our children and to discourage drinking," Zaldivar said. "Therefore this was the only available location and it's easy to control the students are safe."                 

Somewhat Useless Information   

• John Travolta's shirt in Saturday Night Fever was specially designed so that it buttoned at the crotch.

• Bernard Edwards and Nile Rodgers of Chic were refused entrance to New York's legendary Studio 54 on New Year's Eve in 1977. They returned to Rodgers' apartment with a few bottles of champagne and began jamming. The riff they came up with evolved into "Le Freak," which went on to sell 13 million copies worldwide.

• Earlier records had sold a million copies, but Johnnie Taylor's number one hit, "Disco Lady," was the first single to be awarded a platinum single by the RIAA. This song was the first to sell a million copies after the RIAA first introduced the award in 1977.

• Victor Willis, the original police officer and lead singer of the Village People, was once married to Phylicia Rashad, who portrayed mother Clair Huxtable on TV's The Cosby Show.

• On July 12, 1979, the White Sox were forced to forfeit to the Tigers when Chicago DJ Steve Dahl's "Disco Demolition Night" promotion went awry. The previous night's game had attracted 15,000 fans, so stadium officials were unprepared for the 90,000 who showed up and swarmed the field between games.

• Record producer Tom Moulton was the brainchild behind extended remixes for disco songs, created so that folks could fully enjoy dancing to a song for more than three minutes. He came up with the concept of the 12-inch single, the first of which was Moment of Truth's
 "So Much for Love."

For AZ centennial celebration: town names

• Gadsden, AZ : in Yuma County, The population is 953, total area of 1.7 square miles (4.4 km²), The racial makeup of the CDP was 40.92% White, 3.57% Native American, 0.31%Asian, 0.21% Pacific Islander, 53.62% from other races, and 1.36% from two or more races. 93.81% of the population are Hispanic or Latino of any race.

• Gila Bend, AZ: founded in 1872, is a town in Maricopa County, is named for an approximately 90-degree bend in the Gila River, the population of the town is 2,055, The racial makeup of the town was 51.31% White, 1.31% Black or African American, 10.25% Native American, 0.35% Asian, 32.42% from other races, and 4.34% from two or more races. 52.63% of the population are Hispanic or Latino of any race., In 2010 Abengoa Solar secured a $1.45 BUSD loan guarantee to build a large 280 megawatt Concentrated Solar Power Plant in Gila Bend

• Gold Camp, AZ: (also known as Gold Canyon) in Pinal County, Land area: 22.3 square miles, The population was 6,029, The scenery photos from the beginning of "The Three Amigos" are from Gold Canyon, The racial makeup of the CDP was 96.20% White, 0.30% Black or African American, 0.66%Native American, 0.48% Asian, 0.07% Pacific Islander, 1.36% from other races, and 0.93% from two or more races. 3.53% of the population are Hispanic or Latino of any race..

• Gray Mountain, AZ: an unincorporated community in Coconino County on the Navajo Nation

Calendar Information        

…Happening This 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                                                                      

Amateur Radio Military Appreciation Day (ARMAD)

International Jazz Day

Julia Pierpont Day: is recognized by many historians for having originated Decoration Day 

Australia: Sorry Day (gives people the chance to come together and share the steps towards healing for the Stolen Generations, their families and communities. Stolen generations refer to Indigenous Australians who were forcibly removed from their families and communities.)

Guyana (formerly British Guiana) Independence 1966 from UK

Georgia: Independence Day (1918 from Transcaucasian Federation)

Today’s Other Events                                                             

1500’s

1540: The "Lady of Cofitachequi" has been taken with the de Soto expedition, against her will. With a large quantity of the pearls that de Soto's men took from her village, she escapes.

1600’s

1647: Massachusetts disallows priest access to colony

1647: Alse Young becomes the first person executed as a witch in the American colonies, when she is hanged in Hartford, Connecticut

1700’s

1728: According to some sources, a peace and friendship conference is held for two days between the representatives of the British in Pennsylvania and the Conestoga, Delaware, Potomac and Shawnee Indians

1800’s

1861: Postmaster General Blair announces end of postal connection with South

1864: Territory of Montana formed

1868: President Andrew Johnson avoids impeachment by 1 vote

1900’s

1908: At Masjed Soleyman (مسجد سليمان) in southwest Persia, the first major commercial oil strike in the Middle East is made. The rights to the resource are quickly acquired by the United Kingdom

1930: Supreme Court rules buying liquor does not violate the Constitution

1938: House on un-American Activities forms

1945: US drop fire bombs on Tokyo

1948: South Africa elects a nationalist government with apartheid policy

1966: Buddhist sets self on fire at US consulate in Hué South-Vietnam

1969: Apollo 10 astronauts returned to Earth

1972: Nixon & Brezhnev signs SALT accord

1984: Frisbee is kept aloft for 1,672 seconds in Philadelphia

1998: The United States Supreme Court rules that Ellis Island, the historic gateway for millions of immigrants, is mainly in the state of New Jersey, not New York.

2000’s

2004: The United States Army veteran Terry Nichols is found guilty of 161 state murder charges for helping carry out the Oklahoma City bombing

 2006: The May 2006 Java earthquake kills over 5,700 people, leaves 200,000 homeless

Today’s Birthdays                                                           

Remembered for being born on this day

James Arness, Minneapolis MN, actor (Matt Dillon-Gunsmoke, Thing) in 1923

Miles Davis, Alton, Illinois, American jazz musician, trumpeter and composer in 1926

Al Jolson, [Asa Yoelson], jazz singer/silent actor (Mamie, Swanee)in 1886

Peggy Lee, American singer (Fever) in 1920

Robert Morley, England, actor (High Road to China, African Queen) in 1908

Jay Silverheels (Harold J. Smith), Canadian Mohawk actor (Tonto-Lone Ranger) in 1912

John Wayne (Marion Mitchell Morrison), Winterset IA, actor (Green Berets, True Grit) in 1907

In their 60’s

Pam Grier, actress (Big Bird Cage, Tough Enough) is 63

Philip Michael Thomas, Columbus Ohio, actor (Miami Vice) is 63

Hank Williams Jr, Shreveport La, country singer (Honky Tonk) is 63 

In their 50’s

Bobcat Goldthwait, comedian (Police Academy)is 50

In their 40’s

Lenny Kravitz, singer-songwriter, multi-instrumentalist, record producer, actor and arranger is 48

Today’s Obits                                                           

George Brent, actor (Baby Face, Dark Victory, 42nd St), dies in 1979 at 80

Edsel Ford, owner (Ford Motor Company), dies of stomach cancer in 1943 at 49

Art Linkletter, Canadian-American radio and television personality dies in 2010 at 97

Ida McKinley, First Lady of the United States dies in 1907 at 59

Sydney Pollack, American actor, director, producer, and screenwriter dies in 2008 of stomach cancer at 73

Jimmie Rodgers, country singer, dies in 1933 of TB at 35

Answers                                                                                                                                            

Brain Game: Close Up Picture

Riddle of the day

An ear of corn or a chicken

NPR Sunday Puzzle

1.      It melts and drips from a flame: candle wax

2.     Covering for a Snickers bar or M&M’s: candy wrapper

3.     What a moat surrounds: castle walls

4.     Cabernet or other product from Napa Valley: California wine

5.     Person making a large floor covering: carpet weaver

6.     Removal of money from a bank: cash withdrawal

7.     Part of a surrey that rolls: carriage wheel

8.     Seltzer: carbonated water

9.     Luxury timepiece originally made by 19^th c French jeweler: Cartier watch

10.  T-shirt, shorts, and sandals for example: casual wear

11.    One who might try to get you take 3 balls for a dollar: carnival worker

12.   Classic quote ’one who must be above suspicion’: Caesar’s wife

13.   Telephone feature that allows you to speak to one person while another is on hold: call waiting

14.   Business with soap and big brushes: car wash

15.   Cry of eagerness for a future event: can’t wait

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  ☺