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Almanac: Week: 48 \ Day: 329
November
Averages: 51° \ 22°
Holiday Observances
Today:
Independence Day (Suriname)
National Day (Bosnia and Herzegovina)
¤ ¤
Blase´Day
International
Day For the Elimination of Violence Against Women Day
International
Hat Day
National Flossing Day
National Parfait Day
Shopping
Reminder Day
Observances This
Week:
21-27
National
Farm-City Week:
24-30
GERD
Awareness Week; National Bible Week; National Game & Puzzle Week; Better
Conversation Week; Church/State Separation Week; National Family Week
• • • •
Quote of
the Day
Historical
Highlights for Today
1491 - The
siege of Granada, last Moorish stronghold in Spain, begins
1667 - A
deadly earthquake rocks Shemakha, in the Caucasus, killing 80,000 people
1715 – 1st English patent granted to an American, for
processing corn
1792 - Farmer's
Almanac 1st published
1817 - 1st
sword swallower in US performs (NYC)
1841 - 35
survivors of the mutiny on the slave ship Amistad return to Africa
1864 - Confederate
plot to burn NYC, fails
1867 - Alfred
Nobel patents dynamite
1876 - Retaliation
for defeat at Battle of the Little Bighorn, Army troops sack Chief Dull Knife's
sleeping Cheyenne village at the headwaters of the Powder River
1894 - Group of 19 Hopi "hostiles" are
placed under arrest by the army for interfering with "friendly" Hopi Indian activities
1913 -
Irish Volunteers founded in Dublin to "secure the rights and liberties
common to all the people of Ireland"
1920 - 1st
Thanksgiving Parade (Phila)
1930 - 690
earthquake shocks recorded in 1 day (Ito, Japan)
1937 - World's
Fair of Paris closes (31.2 million visitors)
1940 - Woody
Woodpecker debuts with release of Walter Lantz's "Knock Knock"
1955 - Race
segregation forbidden on trains & buses between US states
1957 - President
Dwight Eisenhower suffers a mild stroke, impairing his speech
1963 - JFK laid
to rest at Arlington National Cemetery
1974 - Irish
Republican Army is outlawed in Britain following deaths of 21
1986 - Iran-Contra
affair erupts, President Reagan reveals secret arm deal
1990 - Lech Walesa
wins in Poland's first popular election
• • • •
♫
Birthdays Today: ♫
How many can you identify? Answers below in Birthday’s Today
My
Rambling Thoughts
Yesterday was very chilly with all the wind. Today should have
been better, according to the weatherman, but it was still pretty windy and
none too warm.
I did head out today, for a quick trip. When I moved to Flag I
went to Kohl’s on Black Friday to get a Christmas tree. It was nice, but too
big for my living room without stowing stuff somewhere else. Last year I didn’t
even set it up…just too much work. So I decided it was time to get a smaller
tree. I’ve been looking around, which is not a problem, since everyone had
their Christmas stuff out before Halloween. Turns out, there are very few trees
that are pre-lit, look nice, and are less than 6-1/2’ high. I found one today,
at Big Lots no less. It is only 5-1/2’ high and much narrower than the one I
had. Good deal. I came home, put the old tree in 3 trash bags along with the
cheap vacuum I had for upstairs and headed
for Savers—a division of Big Brothers/Big Sisters that takes donations and
resells them. The guy at the drop-off door was very nice, and commented on what
good shape both items were in. So now someone else can have a clean house and
someone can have a big tree. Cool! And I can have a decorated house without
having to stow things away.
CNN is saying that the Grand Jury has reached a decision in the
Ferguson case. Media has done so much hype about this case and the aftermath
and lately the guessing about the decision, I will be glad when it is over. I
sure hope that those involved can take the decision, and move forward through
the judicial process without causing harm or injury. There sure is a lot of
frustration with some of the people. The father of the victim has pleaded for
days that there be peace. I know Missouri is the ‘show me state’—but how can
anyone believe that the best idea is to release the Grand Jury results after
dark…knowing the result hours before the sun set?
• • • •
Brain
Teasers
(answers at the end of post)
Thirty
men with ladies, two,
Standing around with nothing to do,
Dressed in formal, black and white,
Yet when they move it begins a fight.
What happened?
Found on
You Tube with some relevance to today
OK Then…
• • • •
Paraphernalia
4 the Brain:
Actor
Facts…
¤ Keanu Reeves has a private cancer foundation to help children’s
hospitals and cancer research, but he does not attach his name to it. He also
has spent over 5 million dollars to help his sister in her fight against
leukemia.
¤ Keanu Reeves gave $75 million of his matrix sequels paycheck to
the film’s SFX team and bought the entire stunt crew Harley Davidson
motorcycles.
Flagstaff,
AZ History…
NOTE: All
these Flagstaff posts are from the local newspaper at the time of the event. I enjoy
the way news used to be reported in our small town. When I first started coming
to Flag, back in the early 1970’s the paper published all the names of people
who had been admitted to or released from the local hospital. Real small town.
100 YEARS
AGO
¤ Sharp Fellows big outfit is now being hauled though town and our
new reservoir is ready to be filled.
¤ Nick Baca is wearing his hand in a sling, the result of an
accident on Wednesday at the Flagstaff Lumber Mill.
¤ Frank Smith came in from the mountains with a Cactus Buck had
grown a curious set of antlers. It is partly grown into points and partly
clustered about this head. It's been sent to Los Angeles for be mounted.
¤ Wanted: 2 head of horses to winter at $4 a head. Address: C. C.
Calloway, Camp Verde.
Harper’s
Index…
Number of firefighters required to free an American student
trapped in a 32-ton sculpture of a vagina in German: 33
Pilgrim
Fact…
Old
Comers
Even though we know the Plymouth settlers now as Pilgrims, they
were not called that. At first they were called “Old Comers.” This terminology
changed after a manuscript written by William Bradford, Plymouth Colony
governor, was discovered. There, he called his fellow settlers who left Holland
“saints” and “pilgrimes.” Two hundred years later, at a bicentennial
celebration of the colony’s founding, orator Daniel Webster referred to them as
“Pilgrim Fathers.” The term stuck.
Rules of
Thumb…
RULES
OF ROMANCE
To stay married,
patch up your arguments before you go to bed.
Unusual
Fact of the Day…
Though
dragonflies possess 6 legs like any other insect, they cannot walk.
• • • •
Joke-of-the-day
A panda bear walks into a restaurant and
orders a meal. After eating he pulls out a gun, shoots the place to the ground,
and runs away.
Quickly the bartender runs after him yelling,
"HEY YOU CAN'T DO THIS!!!"
The panda turns around and yells "Yes I can.
Look me up in the encyclopedia!"
So, the bartender looks up "Panda"
in the encyclopedia, and it reads "Panda: increasingly rare species of
bear that can be found in the eastern part of Asia. It eats shoots and leaves.”
Yep, It
Really Happened
I have heard of worse reasons to eat a species to extinction.
Suffering from stress? Not feeling sexy? High in the Andean mountains of Peru,
some locals believe putting frogs in a blender is the answer.
Unfortunately, there is no scientific evidence confirming any medicinal
benefits from frog juice. And the frogs that Peruvians use are from the
Telmatobius culeus species, a water frog from remote Lake Titicaca that is
listed as critically endangered by the International Union for Conservation of
Nature.
Entire frogs are the main ingredient in a juice blend some people in Peru and
Bolivia believe can cure asthma, bronchitis, sluggishness and a low sex drive.
To make the mix at her food stand in Peru's capital, vendor Maria Elena Cruz
grabs a frog from a small aquarium, and whacks its head on the countertop until
it's dead.
Then she peels off its skin and drops the frog into a blender with carrots, the
Peruvian maca root and honey.
The juice comes out light green in color. Cruz serves it in glasses to her
customers.
"Frog juice is good for anemia, bronchitis, bones, the brain, fatigue,
stress and it is mostly children, adults, persons with anemia, respiratory
issues and sometimes tuberculosis" who come to her stand, Cruz claims.
Customer Cecilia Cahuana, 35, believes this.
"I always come here to drink frog juice because it's good for the
children, for anemia, bronchitis and also for older persons, it's extremely
good," she said.
Dr. Tomy Villanueva, dean of the Medical College of Lima, says there is
"no scientific evidence" that frog juice is a cure for anything, even
though it has a place in Andean culture.
Somewhat
Useless Information
¤
Wishing on eyelashes was common folklore in the mid-19th century. A fallen
eyelash is placed on the back of the hand before the wisher throws it over
their shoulder. If the eyelash gets stuck, the wish does not come true. A
Cornish schoolgirl version dictates that the eyelash should be placed on the
tip of the nose; if she blows it off, she'll get her wish.
¤ Ptolemy, Greco-Egyptian writer and astronomer, believed that shooting stars
were a sign that the gods were looking down and listening to wishes.
¤ The origin of society's fascination with the number sequence 11:11 is murky
at best, but it's safe to say it has to do with its satisfying symmetry.
Numerologists like Uri Geller believe that the number follows people and occurs
too frequently to be coincidence.
¤ In the mid-19th century, many British children believed that if you crossed
paths with a white horse, you could make a wish. Others would count the white
horses they saw and would make a wish after reaching a hundred.
¤ Young girls commonly used dandelions in the 1800s for romantic and oracular
purposes. It was believed that if you blew on a dandelion and all the seeds
flew away, your loved one returned the feelings; if any seeds remained, they
might have reservations or no feelings at all.
¤ According to European folklore, wishing wells were homes for deities, or
gifts from gods. Water is a valuable commodity; many early European tribes
treated wells as shrines and often placed small statues of gods nearby. People
would come to the wells to pray and ask for assistance from the gods.
•
• • •
Today’s
Events through History
1834 - Delmonico's,
one of NY's finest restaurants, provides a meal of soup, steak, coffee &
half a pie for 12 cents
1839 - A
cyclone slams India with high winds and a 40 foot storm surge, destroyss port
city of Coringa (never to be entirely rebuilt again), sweeps inland, taking
with it 20,000 ships,estimated 300,000 deaths result from the disaster
1867 - US Congress looks
into "impeachment" of President Andrew Johnson
1971 - Leader of the
British Labour Party Harold Wilson proposes that Britain should work towards a
withdrawal from Northern Ireland, with the consent of Protestants, after a
period of 15 years; as part of the proposal the Republic of Ireland would
rejoin the British Commonwealth
1975 - A loyalist
gang nicknamed the "Shankill Butchers" undertakes its first
"cut-throat killing"; the gang was named for its late-night
kidnapping, torture and murder (by throat slashing) of random Catholic
civilians in Belfast
Birthday’s
Today
Percy Sledge, soul
singer (When A Man Loves A Woman) is 74
Joe Gibbs, football
coach (Washington Redskins) is 74
Ben Stein, writer,
lawyer, actor is 70
John Larroquette, actor
(Dan Fielding-Night Court) is 67
Amy Grant, gospel/rock
singer (Glory of Love, Baby Baby) is 54
Dougray Scott,
Scottish television and film actor is 49
Christina Applegate, actress
(Kelly-Married With Children) is 43
Barbara and Jenna Bush,
twin daughters of George W. Bush are 33
Remembered
for being born today
Andrew Carnegie, Scottish/American
industrialist/philanthropist(1835-1919)
Carrie Nation, temperance
advocate (1846-1911)
Pope John XXIII [Angelo
Roncalli], Bergamo Italy, 261st pope (1881-1963)
Rudolf Höß (Höss), commandant of the
Auschwitz concentration camp (1901-1947)
"Joltin'" Joe DiMaggio, Yankee Clipper (56
game hitting streak), (1914-1999)
Ricardo Montalban, Mexican
actor (Fantasy Island) (1920-2009)
Rene Enriquez, actor
(Ray Calletano-Hill Street Blues) (1933-1990)
John F. Kennedy Jr, lawyer,
magazine publisher (George) (1960-1999)
• • • •
Historical
Obits Today
Upton Beall Sinclair, US author
(Jungle), 1968, @90
Tom Wicker,
American journalist and author, 2011, @85
Jack Albertson, actor
(Chico & the Man), cancer, 1981, @74
Isaac Watts, British
hymn writer (Joy to the World), 1748, @74
Luther "Bill" Robinson, "Bojangles" famed tap
dancer, heart failure, 1949, @71
[Sithu] U Thant, UN Sec-General (1961-72),
cancer, 1974, @65
Gaston Chevrolet,
French-born American race car driver\automobile pioneer, racing accident, 1920,
@28
•
• • •
Brain Teasers Answers
A chess match
• • • •
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…§
