January 02, 2016

Jan 3

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1.3.16 Week: 01 \ Day: 3
January Averages: 43°\16°
86004 Today: H 42° \ L 13° Average Sky Cover: 10% 
Wind ave:   7mph\Gusts:  15mph
Ave. High: 42° Record High: 62°[1918] Ave. Low: 16° Record Low: -19°[1937]
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Quote of the Day 

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Observances Today:                        
Drinking Straw Day

J.R.R. Tolkien Day
Memento Mori "Remember You Die" Day
National Chocolate Covered Cherry Day Link

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Observances This Week:
1-7
Celebration of Life Week Link
Diet Resolution Week 
Silent Record Week
1-8

New Year's Resolutions Week
2-8

Someday We'll Laugh About This Week
3-9

Home Office Safety and Security Week
National Folic Acid Awareness Week Link
3-10

National Lose Weight/Feel Great Week
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Statehood day-Alaska-1959-49th state
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US Historical Highlights for Today
1777 - General George Washington's revolutionary army defeats British forces at Battle of Princeton, NJ
1823 - Stephen F. Austin receives a grant of land in Texas from the government of Mexico.
1825 - Scottish factory owner Robert Owen buys 30,000 acres in Indiana as site for New Harmony utopian community
1831 - 1st US building & loan association organized, Frankford, PA
1834 - The government of Mexico imprisons Stephen F. Austin in Mexico City.
1852 - 1st Chinese arrive in Hawaii
1870 - Construction begins on Brooklyn Bridge in New York; completed May 24, 1883
1871 - Oleomargarine patented by Henry Bradley, Binghamton, NY
1872 - 1st patent list issued by US Patent Office
1879 - U.S.Army Captain Henry Wessells at Fort Robinson, in northwestern Nebraska, receives orders from General Sheridan and Secretary of the Interior Carl Schurz which states that Dull Knife and his CHEYENNEs return to their reservation.
1890 - 1st US college-level dairy school opens at University of Wisconsin
1899 - The first known use of the word automobile, was seen in an editorial in The New York Times.
1938 - March of Dimes established to fight polio
1944 - World War II: Top Ace Major Greg "Pappy" Boyington is shot down in his Corsair by Captain Masajiro Kawato flying a Zero.
1970 - "Mame" closes at Winter Garden Theater NYC after 1508 performances
1977 - Apple Computer, Inc incorporates
1987 - Rock & Roll Hall of Fame inducts 1st female artist Aretha Franklin
1992 - 32 Cubans defect to the US via helicopter
1777 - General George Washington's revolutionary army defeats British forces at Battle of Princeton, NJ
1823 - Stephen F. Austin receives a grant of land in Texas from the government of Mexico.
1825 - Scottish factory owner Robert Owen buys 30,000 acres in Indiana as site for New Harmony utopian community
1831 - 1st US building & loan association organized, Frankford, PA
1834 - The government of Mexico imprisons Stephen F. Austin in Mexico City.
1852 - 1st Chinese arrive in Hawaii
1870 - Construction begins on Brooklyn Bridge in New York; completed May 24, 1883
1871 - Oleomargarine patented by Henry Bradley, Binghamton, NY
1872 - 1st patent list issued by US Patent Office
1879 - U.S.Army Captain Henry Wessells at Fort Robinson, in northwestern Nebraska, receives orders from General Sheridan and Secretary of the Interior Carl Schurz which states that Dull Knife and his CHEYENNEs return to their reservation.
1890 - 1st US college-level dairy school opens at University of Wisconsin
1899 - The first known use of the word automobile, was seen in an editorial in The New York Times.
1938 - March of Dimes established to fight polio
1944 - World War II: Top Ace Major Greg "Pappy" Boyington is shot down in his Corsair by Captain Masajiro Kawato flying a Zero.
1970 - "Mame" closes at Winter Garden Theater NYC after 1508 performances
1977 - Apple Computer, Inc incorporates
1987 - Rock & Roll Hall of Fame inducts 1st female artist Aretha Franklin
1992 - 32 Cubans defect to the US via helicopter
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World Historical Highlights for Today
1431 - Joan of Arc handed over to Bishop Pierre Cauchon
1496 - Leonardo da Vinci unsuccessfully tests a flying machine.
1521 - Martin Luther excommunicated by Pope Leo X from the Roman Catholic Church
1746 - Bonnie Prince Charlies army leaves Glasgow
1956 - A fire damages the top part of the Eiffel Tower.
1972 - The Irish Republican Army (IRA) explodes a bomb in Callender Street, Belfast, injuring over 60 people
1988 - Margaret Thatcher becomes longest-serving British PM this century
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Birthdays Today:
How many can you identify? Answers below in Birthdays Today 

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My Rambling Thoughts
Quiet Saturday. Laundry done, folded, and put away. Last of Christmas decorations gone. Ready for 2016. Sinus remains stuffed up. Trying OTC meds for a few days before heading to Urgent Care. All will get better…sooner than later, I hope.
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Brain Teasers
(answers at the end of post)
Sylalist
Language brain teasers are those that involve the English language. You need to think about and manipulate words and letters.
Use the syllables in the sylalist to complete the clues below. Each clue gives how many syllables the answer of it has. Can you complete every question?

Sylalist: com con dent e el el er fort junc man ment na nov o or or phant pi ro rus sat sau scor the tion urn

Clues:
1. Sign of the zodiac (3)
2. A Planet (2)
3. A Mammal (3)
4. Decoration (3)
5. Mansion (2)
6. Long Fiction (2)
7. Rat, Squirrel, etc. (2)
8. Quilted Bedcover (3)
9. Book of Synonyms (3)
10. and, but, for, so, etc. (3)

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Found on You Tube with some relevance to today
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…Bet You Didn’t Know…
Pirates did not wear eye patches as a fashion accessory or to hide a missing eye but to see properly below and above decks. When they moved from brighter area to darkness, they just switched the eye patch to see better.
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…Civil War Facts You May Not Know…
3. The titan of prose Walt Whitman was a nurse during the Civil War.
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…Grammar Craziness…
The English language includes an interesting category of words and phrases called contronyms— terms that, depending on context, can have opposite or contradictory meanings.
4. Bolt: To secure, or to flee
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…Harper’s Index…
67 – Number of countries that the US is bound by treaties to defend
1 – Number that China is
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…Instagram Photo of the Day… 

We love the festive New Year’s celebration in Central Park for the #MidnightRun. Fireworks kick off the four mile run sponsored by the New York Road Runners. 

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2 jokes for the day
Sam And His Homework
One day teacher asked Sam if his father helped him with his homework.
Sam simply said - “No, he did it all by himself”!
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Girl or Boy -
A: Just look at that young person with the short hair and blue jeans. Is it a boy or a girl?
B: It’s a girl. She’s my daughter.
A: Oh, I’m sorry, sir. I didn’t know that you were her father.
B: I’m not. I’m her MOTHER. 
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Yep, It Really Happened
ST. CLOUD, Minn. - A Minnesota woman was arrested after biting a piece of her husband's ear off during an argument regarding beer. Jamie Elrod, 37, was arrested and charged with first degree assault after police entered her home, finding overturned furniture, blood and a piece of her husband's ear. The victim originally claimed that the ear was injured during a fight downtown, but later told police that the two were arguing over a beer when Elrod followed him into the bedroom and attacked him. Elrod was believed to have been drinking and had no recollection of the attack when asked about her husband's ear. She is being held on $30,000 bond.
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Somewhat Useless Information
It is hard to pin down exactly what happened. A huge range of differing oral accounts, diary entries and letters home from those who took part make it virtually impossible to speak of a 'typical' Christmas truce as it took place across the Western front. To this day historians continue to disagree over the specifics.

Graham Williams of the Fifth London Rifle Brigade described it like this: 

"First the Germans would sing one of their carols and then we would sing one of ours, until when we started up 'O Come, All Ye Faithful' the Germans immediately joined in singing the same hymn to the Latin words Adeste Fideles. And I thought, this is really a most extraordinary thing -- two nations both singing the same carol in the middle of a war."

The next morning, in some places, German soldiers emerged from their trenches, calling out 'Merry Christmas' in English. Allied soldiers came out warily to greet them. In others, Germans held up signs reading 'You no shoot, we no shoot.' Over the course of the day, troops exchanged gifts of cigarettes, food, buttons and hats. The Christmas truce also allowed both sides to finally bury their dead comrades, whose bodies had lain for weeks on 'no man's land,' the ground between opposing trenches.


As the Great War resumed, it wreaked such destruction and devastation that soldiers became hardened to the brutality of the war. While there were occasional moments of peace throughout the rest of World War I, they never again came on the scale of the Christmas truce in 1914.

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Birthdays Today
“()” indicates age at death
(91) - Victor Borge, [Borge Rosenbaum], Copenhagen Denmark, pianist/comedian (d.2000)
(86) - Helen Parkhurst, US educator (Education on the Dalton plan) (d.1973)
(85) - Robert Loggia, actor (Officer & a Gentleman, Scarface), born in Staten Island, New York (d. 2015)
(81) - John Ronald Reuel Tolkien, South Africa, philologist/writer (Lord of Rings) (d.1973)
(79) - Ray Milland, Neath Wales, actor (Lost Weekend-Acad Award 1945) (d.1986)
(78) - Betty Furness, actress/journalist/consumer activist (Studio 1), born in NYC, New York (d.1994)
(77) - Glen Larson, American television producer & writer (Battlestar Galactica, Magnum PI, & Knight Rider), born in Long Beach, CA, (d. 2014)
76 - Thelma Schoonmaker, actress/editor (Casino, Cape Fear, Good Fellas)
71 - Stephen Stills, songwriter/guitarist (Cosby Stills & Nash), born in Dallas, Texas
70 - John Paul Jones [John Baldwin], rock bassist (Led Zeppelin - Stairway to Heaven)
(69) - ZaSu Pitts, American actress (d. 1963)
66 - Victoria Principal, American actress (Earthquake, Pamela-Dallas), born in Fukuoka Japan
(62) - Cicero, Roman statesman and philosopher (d. 43 BC)
(60) - Sergio Leone, Italian, director (Fist Full of Dollars) (d.1989)
60 - Mel Gibson, Peekskill NY, actor (Mad Max, Mrs Soffel, Lethal Weapon)
35 - Eli Manning, American football player and quarterback (NY Giants)
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Historical Obits Today

@91-1979 - Conrad Hilton, US founder (Hilton Hotels)
@74-2014 - Phillip "Phil" Everly, American musician ("The Everly Brothers"), pulmonary disease
@72-1895 - James Merritt Ives, American lithographer with Nathaniel Currier
@69-1980 - Joy Adamson, Czech conservationist and author (Born Free), killed by her servant
@67-1945 - Edgar Cayce, American psychic, stroke
@55-1967 - Jack Ruby, assassin who killed assassin Lee Harvey Oswald, pulmonary embolism
@44-1543 - Juan Cabrillo, conqueror of Cen America, discoverer of California
@39-1946 - William Joyce, (Lord Haw Haw), American hanged in Britain for treason
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Brain Teasers Answers
1. Scorpio (scor pi o)
2. Saturn (sat urn)
3. Elephant (el e phant)
4. Ornament (or na ment)
5. Manor (man or)
6. Novel (nov el)
7. Rodent (ro dent)
8. Comforter (com fort er)
9. Thesaurus (the sau rus)
10. Conjunction (con junc tion)

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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 ╫╫╫╫

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