FYI: Any blue text is a link. Click to check it out!
Almanac: Week: 22 \ Day: 147
May
Averages: 68°\35°
86004
Today: H 72°\L 36° Average Sky Cover: 10%
Wind
ave: 4mph\Gusts: 18mph
Ave. High: 72° Record High: 87°
(1974) Ave. Low: 36° Record
Low: 23° (1916)
« » « »
Observances Today:
Body
Painting Arts Festival
Cellophane
Tape Day
National
Senior Health & Fitness Day
National
Wig Out Day
Sun
Screen Day
World
MS Day (Multiple Sclerosis)
« »
Observances This Week:
24-30
National
Tire Safety Week
Week of Solidarity With The People of Non-Self-Governing Territories
« »
Quote of the Day
« »
US Historical Highlights for Today
1607 - Virginia has
its first significant battle between Indians and European settlers
1930 - Richard
Drew invents masking tape
1930 - The 1,046-foot (319-meter) Chrysler Building
in New York City, the tallest man-made structure at the time, opens to the
public.
1931 - Phoenix teachers
took five percent cut in salaries to keep schools operating full time. The Board
of Education said the cut was voluntary.
1937 - Golden Gate Bridge, SF, dedicated
1943 - US forbids racial discrimination in war
industry
1961 - 1st
black light is sold
« »
Today’s World Events through History
1679 - Habeaus
Corpus Act (strengthening person's right to challenge unlawful arrest &
imprisonment) passes in England
1703 - St
Petersburg (Leningrad) founded by Russian TsarPeter the Great
1895 - British
inventor Birt Acres patents film camera/projector
1921 - After 84
years of British control, Afghanistan achieves sovereignty
1941 - German battleship Bismarck sunk by British
naval force
1951 - Chinese
Communists force Dalai Lama to surrender his army to Beijing
1994 - Alexander
Solzhenitsyn returned to Russia after 20 years in exile
« » « »
♫ Birthdays Today: ♫
How many can you identify? Answers below in Birthday’s Today
« » « »
My Rambling Thoughts
Very enjoyable day…no rain or moisture...nice to read the morning
paper on the deck for a change.
Now we are having problems with China…will it never end? Guess
that’s what politics and politicians are for. Saber rattling is not one of my
favorite pastimes.
« » « »
Brain Teasers
(answers at the end of post)
I
have T at my start,
I have T at my end.
I have T in my middle,
And it comes through my bend.
What am I?
« » « »
Found on You Tube with some
relevance to today
« » « »
…China
Facts…
In response to China's air pollution, a Chinese millionaire
started selling cans of fresh air for $0.80 and made over $6 million dollars in
10 months.
The Chinese government "encouraged" the country's
tallest female basketball player to marry the country's tallest man. Their
child was Yao Ming.
…Cool
Facts…
There is a sea snail that wears a suit of iron plated armor. It is
the only known animal to use iron sulphide as skeletal material.
In 1987, an 18 year old freshmen named Mike Hayes funded his
education by asking 2.8 million people for one penny.
In 2012, Redditor Laporkenstein forged his own wedding ring out of
a Gibeon meteorite.
…Flagstaff,
AZ History…
100 YEARS AGO- 1915
Colin Campbell in from Ash Fork says recent snow did not affect
the sheep on their way north for summer grazing -- in fact it was rather
beneficial.
Sand from the River de Flag is a valuable article these days. Many
teams are doing their best to get in a supply while it lasts for the many
building projects that are going to be built this year.
…Harper’s
Index…
10/22/14 – date on
which tobacco manufacturer Reynolds American announced a smoking ban in its
headquarters
…Revisited
History…
There are Bowhead whales living off the coast of Alaska that were
born over 200 years ago, considerably before "Moby Dick" was written
in 1851!
…Unusual
Fact of the Day…
An infant human has about 300 bones, some of which fuse together
as the youngster grows up. An adult human's body typically contains 206 bones.
…Water
Facts…
The United States uses about 346,000 million gallons of fresh
water every day.
The United States uses nearly 80 percent of its water for
irrigation and thermoelectric power.
« » « »
2 jokes
for the day
The female dormitory will be out-of-bounds for
all male students, so too the male dormitory to the female students.
Anybody caught breaking this rule will be fined $20 the first time. Anybody
caught breaking this rule the second time will be fined $60. Being caught a
third time will incur a hefty fine of $180. Are there any questions?"
At this, a male student in the crowd inquires, "How much for a season
pass?"
« »
An engineer dies and reports to the pearly
gates. St. Peter checks his dossier and says, "Ah, you're an engineer —
you're in the wrong place."
So the engineer reports to the gates of hell and is let in.
Pretty soon, the engineer gets dissatisfied with the level of comfort in hell,
and starts designing and building improvements. After a while, they've got air
conditioning, flush toilets and escalators, and the engineer is becoming a
pretty popular guy.
One day God calls Satan up on the telephone and asks with a sneer, "So,
how's it going down there in hell?" Satan replies, "Hey, things are
going great. We've got air conditioning, flush toilets and escalators, and
there's no telling what this engineer is going to come up with next."
God replies, "What??? You've got an engineer? That's a mistake — he should
never have gotten down there; send him up here."
Satan says, "No way! I like having an engineer on the staff, and I'm
keeping him." God says, "Send him back up here or I'll sue."
Satan laughs uproariously and answers, "Yeah right. And just where are YOU
going to get a lawyer?"
« »
Yep, It
Really Happened
Papua New
Guinea: a woman was axed to death
- AXED - for practicing sorcery.
The woman known as "Misila" was one of four women who were accused in
January after a measles epidemic killed several people in a remote village.
These remote highlanders have very old, ancestral beliefs that sickness and
death are the result of spiritual beings that live inside of some people,
mostly women and their children.
After the measles outbreak the villagers hired a "witch-finder" to
identify the believed source of the measles outbreak. Some missionaries went to
the village to prevent an angry mob from hurting the women after the
witch-finder identified them. But apparently after the mob dispersed a smaller
group of men found Misila and attacked her with axes while she was with her
family.
Amazingly, as recently as 2 years ago Papua New Guinea allowed the
"sorcery defense" which allowed people accused of murder or serious
assault to rely on a victim's practice of sorcery as a defense.
Obviously there are still some areas where the people don't care about the
repeal of this law. Belief in black magic is widespread in the Commonwealth
nation, where unexplained deaths can often lead to accusations of sorcery,
typically against women.
« »
Somewhat
Useless Information
Memorial
Day was originally called Decoration Day. To honor the deceased, soldiers would
decorate graves of their fallen comrades with flowers, flags and wreaths. Hence
Decoration Day. Although Memorial Day became its official title in the 1880s,
the holiday wouldn't legally become Memorial Day until 1967.
After the Civil War, General John A. Logan, commander in chief of the Grand
Army of the Republic, called for a holiday commemorating fallen soldiers to be
observed every May 30. But due to the Uniform Monday Holiday Act, which took
effect in 1971, Memorial Day was moved to the last Monday of May to ensure long
weekends.
In December 2000, Congress passed a law requiring Americans to pause at 3 p.m.
local time on Memorial Day to remember and honor the fallen.
In addition to the national holiday, nine states officially set aside a day to
honor those who died fighting for the Confederacy in the Civil War: Texas,
South Carolina, North Carolina, Alabama, Virginia, Louisiana, Mississippi,
Tennessee and Georgia. The days vary, but only Virginia observes Confederate
Memorial Day on the last Monday of May, in accordance with the federal
observance of Memorial Day.
Waterloo, New York is considered the birthplace of Memorial Day. According to
the town's website, in 1966 Congress unanimously passed a resolution to
officially recognize Waterloo as the birthplace of the holiday. However, it
remains a contentious debate, with other towns, like Boalsburg, Pa., claiming
the title of "Birthplace of Memorial Day" as well.
On May 30, 1868, James A. Garfield addressed the several thousand people
gathered at Arlington National Cemetery. "If silence is ever golden,"
Garfield said, "it must be beside the graves of 15,000 men, whose lives
were more significant than speech, and whose death was a poem the music of
which can never be sung."
« »« »
Birthday’s Today
100 - Herman Wouk,
novelist (Caine Mutiny, Winds of War)
93 - Christopher Lee, London, actor (The
Lord of the Rings, The Hobbit)
92 - Henry Kissinger, Secretary of State
(1973-77)/Nobel Peace Prize (1973)
80 - Lee
Meriwether, Miss America (Time Tunnel, Barnaby Jones)
80 - Ramsey Lewis, Chic, pop jazz artist
(Hang on Sloopy)
79 - Louis
Gossett Jr, Brooklyn, actor (Officer & Gentleman)
72 - Bruce Weitz, Norwalk Ct, actor (Hill St
Blues)
50 - Todd
Bridges, SF CA, actor (Diff'rent Strokes)
« »
Remembered for being born today
- Julia Ward Howe,
US, author (Battle Hymn of the Republic) 1819-1910@91
- Sam Snead, PGA
golfer (PGA-1963, 65, 67, 70, 72, 73) 1912-2002@89
- Francis Beaufort,
admiral/hydrographer(Beaufort scale-wind) 1774-1857@83
- Tony
Hillerman, American writer 1925-2008@83
- Vincent
Price, actor (House on Haunted Hill, Fly, Laura) 1911-1993@82
- Cornelius Vanderbilt,
millionaire (B & O railroad) 1794-1877@82
- Amelia Jenks Bloomer,
suffragette known for her pantaloons 1818-1894@76
- John Douglas
Cockroft, English physicist (Radar, Nobel 1951) 1897-1970@70
- Conrad Elvehjem,
American biochemist (discovered niacin) 1901-1962@61
- Lisa
"Left Eye" Lopes, American
singer (TLC) 1971-2002@30
« » « »
Historical Obits Today
Jawaharial
Nehru, Independent India's 1st PM, heart attack-1964@74
Robert
Koch, German bacteriologist (TB, Cholera, Nobel)-1910@66
Jeff
Conaway, American actor-OD-2011@60
Jean Caulvin, [John Calvin],
priest/church reformer-1564@54
« » « »
Brain Teasers Answers
A teapot!
« » « »
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…§
