FYI: Any blue text is a link. Click to check it out!
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12.8.16 Week: 49
\ Day: 343
December Averages:
44°\17°
86004 Today: H 47° \ L 28°
Average Sky Cover: 10%
Wind ave: 5mph\Gusts:
-mph Visibility: 10 mi
Record High: 62°[1976]
Record Low: -23°[1978]
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Quote of the Day
Love all, trust a
few, do wrong to none.
~William
Shakespeare
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Observances
Today
Official Lost & Found Day
Pretend To Be A Time Traveler Day
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Observances This
Week
3-10 Clerc-Gallaudet Week
4-10 National Hand Washing Awareness
Week Link
Recipe Greetings For The Holidays Week
Computer Science Education
Week Link
5-9 Cookie Exchange Week
International Coelenterate Biology
Week Link
Older Driver Safety Awareness Week Link
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Today’s US
Historical Highlights
▼ Today’s World Historical Highlights
▼1659 Mexican
border town Ciudad Juárez is founded by Fray García de San Francisco.
1776 George Washington's
retreating army crosses Delaware River from NJ
1792 1st cremation in US,
Henry Laurens
▼1863 2,500
reported killed as result of fire at Jesuit Church of La Compana, Santiago,
Chile
1863 Abraham
Lincoln issues his Amnesty Proclamation and plan for Reconstruction of the
South
1886 American Federation of
Labor (AFL) formed by 26 craft unions Samuel Gompers elected AFL
president
1902 Oliver Wendell Holmes Jr became
Associate Justice on US Supreme Court
1909 Bird banding society
found
▼ 1915 John
McCrae's poem "In Flanders Fields" appears anonymously in
"Punch" magazine
1941 President Roosevelt
delivers "Day of Infamy" speech to US Congress a day after the
bombing of Pearl Harbour
1952 1st TV acknowledgement of
pregnancy (I Love Lucy)
1953 Dwight D. Eisenhower gives
his "Atoms for Peace" speech at the UN in New York.
▼1956 16th
Olympic games close at Melbourne, Australia
1962 114-day newspaper strike
begins in NYC
1963 Frank Sinatra Jr is
kidnapped
1967 The Beatles'
"Magical Mystery Tour" album is released in UK
1978 "The Deer
Hunter", directed by Michael Cimino and starring Robert De Niro, Christopher
Walken and Meryl Streep, premieres in Los Angeles (Best Picture 1979)
1980 Annie Leibovitz has
a photo-shoot with John Lennon, the last person to professionally
photograph him before his death
▼1982 Colombian
writer Gabriel García Márquez receives the Nobel Prize for Literature
1987 US President Reagan &
Soviet General Secretary Gorbachev sign a treaty eliminating medium range
nuclear missiles
▼2002 The
Caribbean Community Heads of Government meet with the Government of Cuba and
declare the date to be "CARICOM-Cuba Day" - To celebrate diplomatic
ties between the Caribbean Community (CARICOM) and Cuba.
▼2004 The
Cuzco Declaration is signed in Cuzco, Peru, establishing the South American
Community of Nations.
2010 With the second launch of
the SpaceX Dragon, SpaceX becomes the first privately held company to
successfully launch, orbit and recover a spacecraft.
▼2012 UN
climate conference agrees to extend the Kyoto Protocol to 2020
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My Rambling
Thoughts
A real warm up is ahead. Ready for that.
Did my Sam’s Club and grocery store visit this morning. Ran into a
couple of friends while heading down the aisles. Always nice to randomly run
into people. One friend is headed to Vegas for Christmas. Another back up to
the Tuba. Neither could believe I was headed for Chicago…because of the
weather, but understood when I said I was going to see my brother and that we
have spent every Christmas together since forever. Life is good.
Had to laugh while listening to NPR. Some guy in a small town in Mexico
invited his daughter’s friends to her quinceañera (15th b-day). He
posted the invitation on Facebook. So far there are over one million people who
responded ‘interested’. He said the party was for all who wish to attend. Hmmm.
I remember talking to my mother about Pearl Harbor Day when I was in
college. She recalled it quite well. The shock, the fear, and the fact that my
dad soon tried to re-join the Navy, but ended up in the Army. Then she moved
back to her parent’s house while my Dad spent his army time in both the
European and Pacific fronts. Thankfully he was not in combat, but was a desk
jockey in areas that had already been liberated. Good memory.
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Brain Teasers
(answers at the end of post)
What's in a Name?
Riddles are little poems or phrases that pose a question that needs
answering. Riddles frequently rhyme, but this is not a requirement.
Though my beauty is becoming, I can hurt you just the same.
I come in many colors.
You will always know my name.
Some love me for one reason.
Some may dislike me just as well.
More than one of any color of me will surely always sell.
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“Contronym”—word
that is its own antonym
Flog, meaning "to punish by caning or whipping," shows up in
school slang of the 17th century, but now it can have the contrary meaning,
"to promote persistently," as in “flogging a new book.” Perhaps that
meaning arose from the sense ‘to urge (a horse, etc.) forward by whipping,’
which grew out of the earliest meaning.
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Candy Cane Facts
The candy cane achieved widespread popularity thanks to a confectioner
named Bob McCormack, who started producing them in 1919 and became one of the
world’s leading candy cane producers by the 1950s. Before automation, however,
the hot candy had to be bent by hand,
and more than 20 percent of all canes broke during production.
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Today’s Trivia
Hive
(answers at the end of post)
Pop icon Britney Spears turned down what massive 2007 Billboard hit?
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…Harper’s Index…
1,400,000 – Estimated number
of US children responsible for the caretaking of a family member
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2 jokes for the
day
While I was dining in the restaurant of a large hotel, I heard a loud
crash. A waitress had dropped a whole tray of coffee cups, plates, and dishes.
Being only a couple tables away from her, I felt a stinging pain in my hand
where I was cut from the shattered debris. I was immediately escorted to the
hotel doctor.
"What happened?" he asked.
I said, "I was attacked by a flying saucer."
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After finishing an out-of-town errand, I discovered that my car wouldn't
start because it was out of gas. A passer-by told me there was a service
station a half-mile away, so I took a gas can from the trunk and trudged the
distance in the sweltering sun.
The attendant filled my two-gallon can, and I lugged it back and poured the gas
into the tank. But when I tried to unlock the car door, it wouldn't open. Just
then, I noticed an identical old car parked a short distance away. That was my
car; I had filled a stranger's gas tank.
Wearily I walked back to the station. "You know," the attendant
suggested helpfully, "instead of walking back and forth to fill the tank
from the can, you could put a couple of gallons in the tank and then drive the
car here."
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Yep, It Really
Happened
*--- Christmas Bulb Bandit Steals 150 Bulbs ---*
A Seattle woman whose home was targeted by a Christmas light-stealing
"bulb bandit" said she eventually caught the culprit on video -- a
neighborhood squirrel. Margaret Rican said the "Christmas bulb
bandit" stole more than 150 bulbs from her outdoor decorations in the
space of 24 hours before she managed to catch the thief on video. The video
shows the squirrel running while holding a yellow Christmas bulb, while a
second video shows the small animal jumping into a tree while carrying a blue
bulb. A third video shows the squirrel repeating the jump, this time with an
orange bulb. Rican wrote, "He has stolen 150 in 24 hours, carefully and
precisely chewing through the wires to steal the bulb and bury them around the
neighborhood. He's the hardest working rodent we've ever seen. and we are
really pulling for him, and hoping he survives this winter. He's a quick little
bandit, with really good hops."
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Somewhat Useless
Information
1995: Galileo probe arrives at Jupiter
The unmanned Galileo spacecraft arrives at the planet Jupiter on it's mission
to study the planet and its moons. The probe was launched 6 years earlier by
the Space Shuttle Atlantis.
***
1988: Armenia earthquake
Two earthquakes, only minutes apart, hit Armenia killing 60,000 people and
destroying nearly half a million buildings. The tremors were measured at 6.9
and 5.8 in magnitude and were felt as far away as Georgia, Turkey and Iran.
***
1909: Leo H. Baekeland patents Bakelite
Chemist Leo H. Baekeland of Yonkers, New York, patents for Bakelite, the first
synthetic plastic.
***
1877: Edison demonstrates the first gramophone
Illustration of Thomas Edison presenting the first phonograph to the eager
editors of "Scientific American."
***
1787: First state to ratify US constitution
Delaware becomes the first state to ratify the Constitution of the United
States.
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Birthdays Today
▼ indicates age
at death
▼85- William
C. Durant, American industry pioneer, founded General Motors, Frigidaire, born
in Boston, Massachusetts (d. 1947)
▼77- Richard
Llewellyn, Wales, novelist (How Green Was My Valley) [d1983]
▼72- David
Carradine, actor (Kung Fu, Mean Streets, Kill Bill V.1 & 2), born in
Hollywood, [d2009]
▼72- James
MacArthur, actor (Danny Williams-Hawaii 5-0), born in Los Angeles, California [d2010]
▼70- Diego
Rivera, [Lenin of Mexico], Guanajuato Mexico, painter
("En el Arsenal") and wife of Frida Kahlo, (d. 1957)
69- Jimmy
Lai [Lai Chee-Ying], Chinese businessman (founder of
Giordano), born in Guangzhou, China
▼66- James
(Grover) Thurber, humorist (Men, Women & Dogs), born in Columbus, Ohio
[d1961]
▼64- Lee
J Cobb, actor (Virginian, 12 Angry Men, On the Waterfront), born in NYC, [d-1976]
▼64- Sammy
Davis Jr, singer/dancer/actor (Ocean's 11, Candy Man), born in NYC, [d1990]
▼64- Flip
Wilson, [Clerow], comedian (Flip Wilson Show), born in Jersey City, NJ [d1998]
63- Kim
Basinger, American actress
▼59- Eli
Whitney, Westborough Massachusetts, inventor (Cotton Gin)
[d1825]
▼56- Horace,
Venusia, Lucania, Roman Republican poet (Odes), (d. 8 BC)
55- Ann
Coulter, American author, political commentator, and attorney
52- Teri
Hatcher, actress (Lois & Clark, Desperate Housewives), born in Sunnyvale,
California
50- Sinéad
O'Connor, Irish musician
▼44- Mary
Stuart, Linlithgow Palace, Linlithgow, Queen of Scotland
(1560-1587), (d. 1587)
▼43- Elzie
C. Segar, American cartoonist (Popeye) (d. 1938)
34- Nicki
Minaj, Saint James, Port of Spain, Trinidadian-born
American rapper and singer (Super Bass, Starships)
▼27 Jim
Morrison, American poet, singer (The Doors) (d. 1971)
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Historical Obits
Today
@80-1978 Golda
Meir, Israel's PM (1969-74)
@79-1995 Mikki
Doyle, journalist
@75ish-1831 James Hoban, architect who
designed White House
@73-1942 Albert
Kahn, architect of Detroit
@64-1983 Slim
Pickins, actor (Blazing Saddles), after brain surgery
@57-1982 Marty
Robbins, American country singer (Devil Woman, I Walk Alone), complications
following cardiac surgery
@49-1864 George
Boole, British inventor of Boolean algebra, fever
@40-1980 John
Lennon, British musician, pop star and member of The
Beatles (Imagine), shot and killed in NY by Mark David Chapman
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Brain Teasers
Answers
A rose.
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Trivia Hive Answers
"Umbrella," Rihanna
Songwriter and producer The-Dream, aka Terius Nash, originally asked
Spears to record "Umbrella." The singer, after consulting with her
management team, turned down the track. The-Dream then offered
"Umbrella" to up-and-coming Barbadian artist Rihanna, who ultimately
decided to record it. The single rose to the top spot on the Billboard chart.
Source: Billboard
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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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