FYI: Any blue
text is a link. Click to check it out!
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12.20.16 Week: 51 \ Day: 355
December Averages: 44°\17°
86004 Today: H 39° \
L 18° Average Sky Cover: 5%
Wind ave: 10mph\Gusts: 20mph Visibility: 10 mi
Record High: 61°[1917] Record Low: -12°[1924]
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Quote of the Day
Artists who seek
perfection in everything are those who cannot attain it in anything.
~Gustave Flaubert
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Observances Today
Cathode-Ray Tube Day
International Human Solidarity Day
Games Day Link
Go Caroling Day
Games Day Link
Go Caroling Day
Mudd Day- birthday of Dr.
Samuel Mudd. Helped John Wilkes Booth
National Sangria Day Link
Poet Laureat Day
National Sangria Day Link
Poet Laureat Day
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Observances This Week
14-1/5 Christmas
Bird Count Week Link
14-28 Halcyon
Days (Always 7 days before and 7 days after the Winter Solstice)
16-24 Las Posadas
(Mexico 12/16-24)
17-23 Saturnalia: ancient Roman festival honoring Saturn, God
of Agriculture
18-24 Gluten-free
Baking Week Link
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Today’s Significant US Historical Events
▼ Today’s Significant
International Historical Events
▼1606 Virginia
Company settlers leave London to establish Jamestown, Virginia
▼1699 Russian
Tsar Peter the Great ordered Russian New Year changed from Sept 1 to
Jan 1
▼1745 Bonnie
Prince Charlie's army reaches the river Esk
1790 1st successful US cotton mill to spin yarn
(Pawtucket, RI)
▼1803 French
flag lowered in New Orleans to mark formal transfer of Louisiana Purchase from
France to US for $27M
1▼812 "Grimm's
Fairy Tales" by Jacob and Wilhelm Grimm is published
1860 South Carolina secedes from the Union (US
Civil War)
1862 -Jan 3rd] Vicksburg campaign
1879 Tom Edison privately demonstrated incandescent
light at Menlo Park
1880 NY's Broadway lit by electricity, becomes
known as "Great White Way"
▼1883 Intl
cantilever railway bridge opens at Niagara Falls
1892 Pneumatic automobile tire patented, Syracuse,
NY
1920 Bob Hope becomes an American citizen
▼1922 14
republics form Union of Soviet Socialistic Republics (USSR)
▼1928 1st
international dogsled mail leaves Minot, Maine for Montreal, Quebec
1946 Frank Capra's "It's a Wonderful
Life" starring James Stewart and Donna Reed premieres in New York
1949 Maurice Ravel/John Cranko's ballet
"Beauty & the Beast" premieres
1950 "Harvey" starring James Stewart
premieres in NY
▼1955 Cardiff
is proclaimed the capital city of Wales
1957 Elvis Presley given draft notice to join
US Army for National Service
▼1963 Berlin
Wall opens for 1st time to West Berliners
1967 "The Graduate" starring Dustin
Hoffman & Anne Bancroft premieres
1967 474,300 US soldiers in Vietnam
1969 Peter, Paul & Mary's "Leaving on a
Jet Plane" reaches #1
1972 Neil Simons "Sunshine Boys"
premieres in NYC
1974 "The Godfather Part II", directed by Francis
Ford Coppola and starring Al Pacino and Robert De Niro, is
released (Best Picture 1975)
1985 Position of American Poet Laureate established
(Robert Warren is 1st)
1986 White teenagers beat blacks in New York City's
Howard Beach
▼1989 US
troops invade Panama & oust Manuel Noriega, but don't catch him
2002 US Senator Trnt Lott resigns as majority leader
2005 US District Court Judge John E. Jones III rules against mandating the teacher of 'intelligent design' in his ruling of Kitzmiller V Dover Area School District
▼2005 The
first same sex civil partnerships in Scotland are celebrated.
2005 2005 New York City transit strike: New York
City's Transport Workers Union Local 100 goes on strike, shutting down all New
York City Subway and Bus services.
▼2007 Her
Majesty Queen Elizabeth II becomes the oldest ever monarch of the
United Kingdom, surpassing Queen Victoria, who lived for 81 years, 7 months and
29 days.
▼2007 The
painting Portrait of Suzanne Bloch (1904), by the Spanish artist Pablo
Picasso, was stolen from the São Paulo Museum of Art, along with O Lavrador de
Café, by the major Brazilian modernist painter Candido Portinari.
2012 Apple is denied a patent for mobile pinch-to-zoom
gestures by the US patent authorities
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My Rambling Thoughts
Picked
up some last minute items for Christmas trip. Almost ready.
So
glad I am not in International relations. Must be really hard for those people
to figure out the US right now. The President of the United States tells China
that we want our drone that the Chinese took from International waters. Then
the President-elect tells the world that we don’t want the drone back. While I
am sure that most know that only the President can make any demands on another
country, but in a few weeks the new President will be in charge. Have to wonder
what China will do? Certainly there has to be a way to stop our President-elect
from making these very disruptive announcements. This is a very crazy time to be living.
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Brain Teasers
(answers
at the end of post)
The
Antisocial Club
Logic
puzzles require you to think. You will have to be logical in your reasoning.
The
Antisocial Club meets every week at Jim's Bar. Since they are so antisocial,
however, everyone always sits as far as possible from the other members, and no
one ever sits right next to another member. Because of this, the 25-stool bar
is almost always less than half full and unfortunately for Jim the members that
don't sit at the bar don't order any drinks. Jim, however, is pretty smart and
makes up a new rule: The first person to sit at the bar has to sit at one of
two particular stools. If this happens, then the maximum number of members will
sit at the bar. Which stools must be chosen? Assume the stools are numbered 1
to 25 and are arranged in a straight line.
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Today’s Trivia Hive
(answers
at the end of post)
At
the Battle of Bunker Hill who famously said, "Do not fire until you see
the whites of their eyes!"
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…Harper’s Index…
11→Tons of trash left in San Francisco’s Golden Gate
Park by people celebrating the marijuana themed 4/20 holiday
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2 jokes for the day
The
older police detective stopped by my house and asked where I was between 5
& 6?
I respectfully replied, "Kindergarten, sir."
I respectfully replied, "Kindergarten, sir."
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Two
snakes are walking down the street. "Oh man, I have to ask you
something!" the little one said.
"What is it?" replied the other snake.
"Are we poisonous?"
The other one replied, "Of course we are, why?"
"Because I just bit my lip."
"What is it?" replied the other snake.
"Are we poisonous?"
The other one replied, "Of course we are, why?"
"Because I just bit my lip."
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Somewhat Useless Information
The
first decorated Christmas tree was in Riga, Latvia in 1510. The first printed
reference to Christmas trees appeared in Germany in 1531.
***
Thomas
Edison's assistant, Edward Johnson, came up with the idea of electric lights
for Christmas trees in 1882. Christmas tree lights were first mass-produced in
1890.
***
The
official Christmas tree tradition at Rockefeller Center began in 1933. Since
2004 the tree has been topped with a 550-pound Swarovski Crystal star. And
since 2007, the tree has been lit with 30,000 energy-efficient LED's which are
powered by solar panels.
***
Live
Christmas trees have been sold commercially in the United States since about
1850. The first Christmas tree retail lot in the United States was started by
Mark Carr in New York, in 1851.
***
Artificial
Christmas trees were developed in Germany during the 19th century and later
became popular in the United States. These trees were made using goose feathers
that were dyed green and attached to wire branches. The wire branches were then
wrapped around a central dowel rod that acted as the trunk.
***
In
the United States, there are more than 15,000 Christmas tree farms. There are
approximately 350 million Christmas trees growing on U.S. farms. Approximately
100,000 people are employed full or part-time in the Christmas tree industry.
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Origin of Some Christmas Traditions
Christmas
Christmas,
as most of us know, is the Christian tradition honoring the birth of Christ –
though it is not celebrated solely as such in our modern society. To us,
Christmas represents a time of joy, gift-giving, and family. Christmas as we
know it evolved out of the Roman tradition of Saturnalia, a festival honoring
their god of agriculture, Saturn, on the winter solstice.
Due
to the already-rampant celebration taking place on the date and the revering of
light and the sun, it was a natural development to celebrate the birth of
Christ on the same date. Many Roman writers give references to the date of
December 25th and Christianity between the 2nd and 3rd centuries, and it is
believed that the holiday was widely celebrated by Christians by the turn of
the 4th century. Though Christmas is celebrated as the birth of Jesus Christ,
we don’t know the exact date, or even the year of his birth.
Gift
Giving
It
is sometimes said that the tradition of gift-giving started with the 3 wise
men, who visited Jesus and gave him gifts of myrrh, frankincense, and gold. If
you want to start a Christmas tradition, I suppose the first Christmas would be
a good date to start. As with many other entries on this list though, the true
origin of gift-giving lies in Pagan beliefs.
During
Saturnalia, children would often be given gifts of wax dolls – an act with a
rather macabre history itself; the dolls were used to represent human
sacrifices that Rome had given to Saturn in the past as payment for good
harvests. Boughs of certain trees and other plant matter were also a common
gifts during Saturnalia, and were used to represent bounty and good harvests.
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Birthdays Today
§→ indicates age
at death
§49→ Samuel A Mudd,
doctor, convicted of giving medical aid to JW Booth [d1883]
§86→ Maude Gonne,
Irish nationalist (Irish Joan of Arc) [d1953]
§87→ Kim Young-sam,
politician and activist - President of South Korea (1993-98), born in Geoje (d.
2015)
70- Uri Geller, Tel Aviv,
Israel, psychic (bends forks)
70- Dick Wolf, New York,
American television series creator (Miami Vice, Law & Order)
§69→ Harvey
Firestone, Columbiana Ohio, Industrialist and founder of Firestone Tire and
Rubber Company ("where the rubber meets the road") [d1938]
33- Jonah Hill, American actor
(Superbad, Moneyball, The Wolf of Wall Street), born in Los Angeles, California
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Historical Obits Today
@85-1994 Dean Rusk, US
Sect of State (1961-69)
@78-1971 Roy O Disney,
brother of Walt, cerebral hemorrhage
@74-2010 Steve Landesberg,
American actor and comedian (barney miller), colon cancer
@74-1976 Richard J Daley,
(Mayor-D-Chicago), heart attack
@66-1968 John Steinbeck, author (Grapes
of Wrath, Nobel Prize 1940, 1962), heart disease
@62-1996 Carl Sagan,
scientist (Contact), pneumonia
@57-1961 Moss Hart, American
dramatist (You can't take it with you), heart attack
@54-1954 James Hilton,
English author (Lost Horizon), liver cancer
@49-1988 Max Robinson, 1st African
American network TV anchor (ABC), AIDS
@37-1973 Bobby Darin,
singer (Mack the Knife), heart failure
@24
or 96-1812 Sacagawea, Shoshone interpreter for Lewis & Clark, @24-unknown
sickness; @96-oral history of tribes
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Brain Teasers Answers
The
first person must take either stool 9 or 17 (because of symmetry, it doesn't
matter which). Assume they pick seat 9. The next person will pick seat 25,
since it is the furthest from seat 9. The next two people will take Seats one
and 17. The next three will occupy 5, 13, and 21. The next six will occupy 3,
7, 11, 15, 19, and 23. This seats the maximum of 13 people, and no one is
sitting next to another person. If a seat other than 9 or 17 is chosen first,
the total bar patrons will be less than 13.
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Trivia Hive
Answers
William
Prescott
William
Prescott! Although the British defeated the colonial troops at the Battle of
Bunker Hill, the latter showed fearlessness. The British suffered severe
casualties, giving colonial troops tremendous confidence in their ability to
stand up to the Red Coats. After Colonial troops learned that the British were
sending troops to Boston to occupy hills around the city, the former built
fortifications on Breed's Hill. They were originally going to build on Bunker
Hill. Source: History.com
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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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