Feb 17

FYI: Any blue text is a link. Click to check it out!

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Feb 17, 2018 Week: 07\ Day: 48

86004 Today: H 46° \ L 21° \ Average Sky Cover: 80% 

Wind ave.:   3mph\Gusts:  9mph Visibility: 10 mi

Record High: 66°[1996]   Record Low: -3°[1990]

Feb Averages: 46°\19°

Feb Records: H: 71° (1986) L: -23° (1985)

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Today’s Quote

During all these years there existed within me

a tendency to follow Nature in her walks.

  John James Audubon

Harper’s Index

320-Number of immigrants Canada has rejected since 2013 for having disabilities

0.26-Percentage of asylum seekers Japan accepted last year

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Observances This Week

11-17

Celebration of Love Week Link 
Children of Alcoholics Week Link
International Friendship Week Link
Jell-O Week
National Secondhand Wardrobe Week
Random Acts of Kindness Week Link 

International Flirting Week

12-18

Love a Mensch Week

14-21

National Condom Week Link
National Nestbox Week
NCCDP Alzheimer's & Dementia Staff Education Week

15-19

American Association For The Advancement of Science Week  Link

16-25

Date (Fruit) Week

16-19

Great Backyard Bird Count Link

17-24

National Entrepreneurship Week Link
National FFA Week Link 

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Observances for Today

Champion Crab Races Day Link
My Way Day
National PTA Founders Day Link
Random Acts of Kindness Day Link  
World Human Spirit Day
World Whale Day Link  

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Today’s Significant US Historical Events

Today’s Significant International Historical Events 

1500’s                                          

1568 Holy Roman Emperor Maximilian II agrees to pay tribute to the Ottoman Empire for peace

1600’s                                          

1621 Myles Standish is elected as the first commander of the Plymouth Colony

1700’s                                          

1776 1st volume of Gibbon's "Decline & Fall of Roman Empire" published

1800’s                                          

1801 US House of Representatives breaks electoral college tie, chooses Thomas Jefferson President over Aaron Burr

1817 1st US city lit by gas (Baltimore)

1837 Charles Lyell makes his presidential address to the Geographical Society, London and announces that Richard Owen has concluded from Darwin's fossils that extinct species were related to current species in the same locality

1854 Britain recognizes independence of Orange Free State (South Africa)

1865 Columbia, South Carolina, burns down during American Civil War

1870 Esther Morris appointed first female in Justice of the Peace in the United States

1876 Sardines first canned by Julius Wolff in Eastport, Maine

1897 National Organization of Mothers forms (Parent Teacher Association)

1900’s                                          

1904 Giacomo Puccini's opera "Madama Butterfly" premieres in Milan

1913 1st minimum wage law in US takes effect (Oregon)

1913 NY Armory Show introduces Picasso, Matisse, Duchamp to US public

1931 1st telecast of a sporting event in Japan (baseball)

1934 1st high school auto driving course offered (State College, Penn)

1936 The world's first superhero, The Phantom, a cartoon strip by Lee Falk, makes his first appearance in comics.

1943 Dow Chemical and Corning Glass Works form a joint venture to explore and produce silicon materials, based off of the work of J. Franklin Hyde

1959 1st weather satellite launched, Vanguard 2, 9.8 kg

1962 Beach Boys introduced a new musical style with their hit "Surfin"

1967 Beatles release "Penny Lane" & "Strawberry Fields"

1969 Bob Dylan and Johnny Cash record an album; it was never released.

1969 Golda Meir sworn in as the first female Prime Minister of Israel

1972 TV comedy M*A*S*H, adapted from the movie, starring Alan Alda, Loretta Swit and Wayne Rogers debuts on CBS in the US

1972 Italian tenor Luciano Pavarotti receives record 17 curtain calls after his performance in "La fille du régiment" at New York's Metropolitan Opera

1974 Robert K. Preston, a disgruntled U.S. Army private, buzzes the White House with a stolen helicopter.

1981 Chrysler Corp reports largest corporate losses in US history

1989 6-week study of Arctic atmosphere shows no ozone "hole"

1995 Federal judge allows lawsuit claiming US tobacco makers knew nicotine was addictive & manipulated its levels to keep customers hooked

2000’s                                          

2004 "If I Ain't Got You" single released by Alicia Keys (Grammy Award Best Female R&B Vocal Performance 2005, Billboard Song of the Year 2004)

2012 Approximately 70 ancient Olympic artifacts are stolen from the Archaeological Museum of Greece

2014 US Secretary of State John Kerry claims climate change requires urgent action and that only a small "window of time" remained open

2016 Nike ends endorsement deal with Filipino boxer Manny Pacquiao after he made TV comments gay people are "worse than animals."

2016 Oldest known case of human-Neanderthal sex (100,000 yrs ago) revealed by Max Planck Institute for Evolutionary Anthropology (Leipzig), 50,000 yr old Neanderthal woman's remains from Altai mountains show traces of Homo Sapiens DNA

2017 Discovery of a new mostly underwater continent Zealandia in the South Pacific announced in research journal "GSA Today"

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My Rambling Thoughts

Still cloudy, but no moisture. Should clear up soon. Then we get wind to bring in the next storm.

The Washington Post had an article this morning that many are reporting that the Florida shooting was number 18 this year. Well, yes and no. A gun has been fired on a school campus 18 times. One was a suicide in a car at an abandoned school, one was a shot through a window at night when no kids were present. Well, as a former teacher, anytime a gun is discharged on a school campus, it is a school shooting in my book. While there is certainly more trauma when students or teachers are injured or killed, there is still concern by students and teachers whenever it happens.

The idea of arming school staff and teachers has reared its ugly head again. This is not the answer. I don’t want future generations growing up knowing or wondering if their instructor is carrying. I do know a few teachers who could be armed, but most of the teachers I worked with would not want to be armed. They went into education to prepare the next generation, not to kill anyone.

Again I was shocked to learn that an 18- year-old could purchase an AR-15 assault rifle but could not buy a handgun or hunting rifle until they were 21. That is insane.

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Birthdays Today

@-  indicates age at death

90’s

93- Hal Holbrook,

actor (All the President's Men, Mark Twain),

born in Cleveland

@90- William Cadbury,

British chocolate manufacturer (Cadbury),

born in Edgbaston, England

(d. 1957)

80’s

@84- Walter L "Red" Barber,

sports announcer (Bkln Dodgers, NY Yanks)

(d. 1992)

81- Jim Brown,

American NFL Running Back(Cleveland Browns),

born in St. Simons, Georgia

70’s

@75- Arthur Kennedy,

American actor (Fantastic Voyage, Peyton Place),

born in Worcester, Mass

brain tumor (d. 1990)

@70- Jock Mahoney [Jacques Joseph O'Mahoney],

American actor and stuntman

(Dallas, Yancy Derringer, Day of Fury),

born in Chicago

stroke (d. 1989)

60’s

@66- Gene Pitney,

vocalist/songwriter (Town Without Pity),

born in Hartford, CT heart attack

(d. 2006)

50’s

55- Michael Jordan,

American NBA guard/forward (Chicago Bulls)

sports superstar,

born in Chicago

55- Larry the Cable Guy [Daniel Lawrence Whitney],

American comedian (Blue Collar Comedy Tour),

born in Pawnee City, Nebraska

@51- Raphaelle Peale,

American painter (After the Rain-1823),

alcohol disease

40’s

@47- Huey Newton,

Black Panther leader

murdered during drug deal (d. 1989)

47- Denise Richards,

American actress

46- Billie Joe Armstrong, 

singer/musician (Green Day),

born in Oakland, CA

30’s

37- Paris Hilton,

American actress and heiress (The Simple Life),

born in NYC

37- Joseph Gordon-Levitt,

actor (Tommy Solomon-Third Rock From the Sun)

20’s

26- Bonnie Wright,

British actress (Ginny Weasley in "Harry Potter" franchise),

born in London

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Historical Obits Today

90’s

@94-2018 Arno Motulsky,

German-born founder of medical genetics,

known as the "father of pharmacogenomics"

80’s

@85-2005 Daniel "Dan" O'Herlihy,

Irish actor (Twin Peaks, Fail Safe, Last Starfighter, Robocop)

@80-1982 Lee Strasberg,

Austrian acting coach and actor

(The Godfather: Part II, Somewhere in the Night)

70’s

@79-1909 Geronimo [one who yawns],

Apache chief, pneumonia

(deathbed quote: "I should have never surrendered.

I should have fought until I was the last man alive.")

@74-1907 Henry Steel Olcott,

US co-founder (Theosophist Society)

50’s

@57-1980 Jerry Fielding,

composer (Bewitched, Hogan's Heroes)

heart attack

@57-1924 Henry Bacon,

American architect (Lincoln Memorial)

@51-1673 Molière, [Jean Baptiste Poquelin],

French playwright (The Misanthrope),

TB

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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…☼☼☼☼