3-21-14

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Flagstaff Almanac: Day: 080   / Week: 12  

Today: L 18°…H 57°… Ave. humidity: 35%

     Wind: ave:   13mph; Gusts:  30mph  

     Average Low: 23° Record Low:  5° (1948)

    Average High: 51° Record High:  70° (2004)

Quote of the Day

 

Today’s Historical Highlights

1st foreign language course broadcast on US radio

1824 - Fire at Cairo ammunitions dump kills 4,000 horses

1857 - Earthquake hits Tokyo; about 107,000 die

1859 - Scottish National Gallery opens in Edinburgh

1907 - US invades Honduras

1924 - 1st foreign language course broadcast on US radio (WJZ, NYC)

1925 - Edinburgh's Murreyfield Stadium officially opens

1935 - Persia officially renamed Iran

1947 - Truman signs Executive Order 9835 requiring all federal employees 

      to have allegiance to the US

1963 - Alcatraz federal penitentiary in SF Bay closed

1975 - Ethiopia ends monarchy after 3000 years

1984 - Part of Central Park is named Strawberry Fields honoring John Lennon

1998 - Good Friday Agreement signed in Northern Ireland.

♫  Today’s Birthdays: ♫   

How many can you identify? Answers in Today’s Birthdays

 

My Free Rambling Thoughts   

Clock is ticking for our trip to Cuba. Still have lots to do, but all is doable within the given timeframe. That’s good.

 

I had a great lunch with our retirement group today. Mary had some great stories about all her grandkids being in Phoenix last week. Two live there, two in Chicago. Cousins don’t always get along that well, but this trip seemed to have been very successful. Cheryl is leaving Monday to spend a week with her son and his family in CA. She should have a great time too. One of her nieces is adopting 2 little ones from Haiti. Everything was set and last week they headed to Haiti to pick up the kids from the orphanage. Upon arrival they found that not all the paperwork had been approved and are stuck there for who knows how long…with only two days of clothes. They are still positive that this is a small bump, but are starting to wonder. We won’t get together again till I get back. Cheryl and I will both miss the annual Home Show here in Flag. It is always enjoyable to spend a couple of hours seeing indoor and outdoor stuff, getting some freebies, and lots of ideas. Guess that will make next year even better.

 

The drama of the missing plane just keeps many of glued to the TV. Now they think they have found some wreckage, near Australia, that is floating. All resources are headed that way. With today’s modern travel, one forgets just how big the Indian Ocean is and how small that plane is in comparison. As tragic as these new developments are, at least it may give the families some answers.

 

My maternal grandmother was born on the first day of spring in 1897. She was a pre-insulin diabetic and lived until 1958. I still have fond memories of her. She would have been 117.

 

Amazing internet machine fact: Right after 9/11, the Maasai tribe (Kenya) donated 14 cattle to America to help us during the tragedy. A book was even written: 14 Cows for America.  How cool is that! I visited the Maasai in Ethiopia and didn’t know about this until today.

Game  Center (answers at the end of post)

Brain Teasers

Even though the Tasmanian Tiger is classified as a carnivore, why doesn't it eat meat?

Lifestyle  Substance:     

Found on You Tube with some relevance to today

• Eddie Money-take me home tonight

• Rosie O'Donnell on forgiving her dad

• Michael Redgrave Interview

• James Coco/Candy Azzara/Unemployment Office

Books that Changed the World

The Communist Manifesto by Karl Marx and Friedrich Engels

This iconic political work divided the world for half a century. Written in 1848 by a German philosopher, Marx’s controversial political tome had a far greater effect in other countries than his native Germany.

While the communism espoused in Marx and Engels’ book promised a society free of “capitalist dictatorship,” the reality wasn’t as promised. The Communist Manifesto’s influence on the Soviet Union, Maoist China, and other countries makes it one of the world’s most influential books.

Breakthroughs that Changed the World

Penicillin, 1928

Accidentally discovered in 1928, though antibiotics were not widely distributed until after World War II, when they became the silver bullet for any number of formerly deadly diseases

OK Then…

 

Harper’s Index 

Estimated number of domestic workers employed in NYC homes: 200,000

Unusual Fact of the Day

A yellow baseball (thought to be more visible to batters, fielders and spectators) was tested in a 1938 college game in New York City, between Fordham and Columbia.

Joke-of-the-day

Two men were walking through the woods and came upon a big black, deep hole. One man picked up a rock and tossed it into the hole and stood listening for the rock to hit bottom. There was no sound.

He turned to the other guy and said "that must be a deep hole...let's throw a bigger rock in there and listen for it to hit bottom." The men found a bigger rock and both picked it up and lugged it to the hole and dropped it in.

They listened for some time and never heard a sound. Again, they agreed that this must be one deep hole and maybe they should throw something even bigger into it.

One man spotted a rail-road tie nearby. They picked up the tie, grunting and groaning, and lugged it to the hole. They tossed it in. No sound. All of a sudden, a goat came flying out of the woods, running like the wind, and flew past the men and jumped straight into the hole. The men were amazed.

About that time, an old hayseed farmer came out of the woods and asked the men if they had seen a goat. One man told the farmer of the incredible incident they had just witnessed...they had just seen this goat fly out of the woods and run and leap into the big hole. The man asked the farmer if this could have been his goat.

The old farmer said "naw, that can't be my goat...he was chained to a railroad tie."  

Rules of Thumb:   

Easy shortcuts to make an ‘educated’ guess

STACKING MAGAZINES

To prevent a stack of magazines from falling over, change the direction of the binding every sixth issue.    

Yeah, It Really Happened

BIRMINGHAM, England - A robot created by a pair of British engineers broke a world record by solving a Rubik's cube in 3.253 seconds. David Gilday, a principal engineer at ARM, and Mike Dobson, a security systems engineer for Securi-Plex, said they spent 18 months building the CubeStormer 3 robot and the device made its debut at the Big Bang Fair at the National Exhibition Center in Birmingham, England, the Birmingham Mail reported Monday. The robot was able to beat the record of 5.27 seconds set by the duo's previous robot, CubeStormer II, two years ago. "The record-breaking attempt is a bit of fun for us," Gilday said. "Our real focus is to demonstrate what can be achieved with readily available technology to inspire young minds into taking a greater interest in science, technology, engineering and mathematics. There is now potential for robots to cope with disruption." "Our big challenge now is working out if it's possible to make it go even faster," he said.  

Somewhat Useless Information   

• Leonardo da Vinci was a vegetarian and animal rights activist; he would buy caged birds and set them free.

• Salvador Dali believed he was his dead brother's reincarnation. There is also a portrait or a silhouette of Dali in every one of his paintings.

• Auguste Rodin's "The Age of Bronze" was so realistic people though he sacrificed a real person inside the cast.

• Georges Braque was the first living person to have art displayed in Louvre.

• Claude Monet's father disapproved of his painting; he wanted him to be a grocer.

• Henri Matisse's Le Bateau was put the right way up after hanging upside-down for 46 days without anyone noticing at the Museum of Modern Art in New York.

Calendar Information        

Happening This Week:
16-22 

American Chocolate Week

Campfire USA Birthday Week
Health Information Professionals Week
National Animal Poison Prevention Week
National Inhalant and Poisons Awareness Week
Termite Awareness Week
Flood Safety Awareness Week
17-23

Act Happy Week
Flood Awareness Week
Wellderly Week
Wildlife Week
World Folktales & Fables Week
21-27

Week of Solidarity with People's Struggling Against Racism & Discrimination

Today Is                                                                      

·        Afghanistan Day

·        Brain Injury Awareness Day

·        International Day for the Elimination of Racial Discrimination

·        International Day of Forests and The Tree

·        International Day of Nowruz [Iranian/Persian New Year]

·        Memory Day

·        National Common Courtesy Day

·        National Day of Action On Syringe Exchange

·        National Puppy Day

·        National Single Parent Day

·        Poetry Day

·        Spring Fairy Fun Day

·        World Downs Syndrome Day

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·        Canberra Day (Australia-1913 naming of area)

·        Independence Day (Namibia-1990 from South Africa)

·        Human Rights Day (South Africa)

Today’s Events through History  

1697 - Czar Peter the Great begins tour through West-Europe

1984 - NFL owners passed the infamous anti-celebrating rule

Today’s Birthdays                                                           

Timothy Dalton, North Wales, actor (James Bond-Living Daylights) is 70

Eddie Money, [Mahoney], Bkln, singer/guitarist (Take Me Home Tonight) is 65

Gary Oldman, actor (Criminal Law, State of Grace) is 56

Matthew Broderick, actor (WarGames, Biloxi Blues) is 52

Rosie O'Donnell, comedienne (League of Their Own, Flintstones, Rosie) is 52

Kevin Federline, American dancer/hip hop artist is 36

Remembered for being born today

1768-1830 - Jean-Baptiste-Joseph Fourier, mathematician/Egyptologist

1806-1872 - Benito Pablo Juarez, Oaxaca Mexico, president of Mexico

1869-1932 - Florenz Ziegfeld, producer (Ziegfield Follies)

1906-1978 - John D Rockefeller III, billionaire philanthropist (oil)

1929-1987 - James Coco, Bronx, actor (Man of La Mancha, Murder by Death)

Today’s Historical Obits                                                           

Chinua Achebe, Nigerian poet and novelist, 2013, @82

Macdonald Carey, actor (Days of Our Lives), 1994, @81

Michael Redgrave, actor (Goodbye Mr Chips), Parkinson's, 1985, @77

Thomas Cranmer, archbishop of Canterbury, burned at stake, 1556, @66

Dack Rambo, actor (Jack Ewing-Dallas), AIDs, 1994, @52

Dean Paul Martin, actor (Billy-Misfits of Science), Nat’l Guard crash, 1987, @35

Pocahontas, Tsenacommacah Alliance, smallpox? TB?, 1617, @25

Brain Teasers

Because it's extinct!

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  §