Today is April 27th. That means that in the U.S. it's National Prime Rib Day.

See why I used this smilie last year HERE.


2007: Estonian authorities removed the Bronze Soldier, a Soviet Red Army war memorial in Tallinn, amid political controversy with Russia.

2005: Russian President Vladimir Putin became the first Kremlin leader to visit Israel.

1994: The first democratic general election in South Africa in which black citizens could vote was held.

1992: Betty Boothroyd became the first woman to be elected Speaker of the British House of Commons in its 700-year history.

1992: The Federal Republic of Yugoslavia, comprising Serbia and Montenegro, was proclaimed.

1974: 10,000 people marched in Washington, D.C., calling for the impeachment of U.S. President Richard Nixon.

1970: The discovery of hahnium, element 105, was announced at the American Physical Society meeting in Washington, D.C.

1967: Expo 67 officially opened in Montreal, Canada with a large opening ceremony broadcast around the world. It opened to the public the next day.

1947: "Babe Ruth Day" at Yankee Stadium was held to honor the ailing baseball star.

1909: The Sultan of Turkey Abdul Hamid II was overthrown, and was succeeded by his brother, Mehmed V.

1887: George Thomas Morton performed the first U.S. operation to remove an appendix.

1871: The American Museum of Natural History in New York City was opened to the public.

1861: U.S. President Abraham Lincoln suspended the writ of habeas corpus.

1810: Beethoven composed his famous piano piece, Für Elise.

1805: During the first Barbary War, United States Marines and Berbers attacked the Tripolitan city of Derna (The "shores of Tripoli" part of the Marines' hymn).

1749: Handel's Fireworks Music was first performed in Green Park, London.

1124: David I became King of Scotland.

Births:
1495: Suleiman the Magnificent (Sultan of the Ottoman Empire)

1759: Mary Wollstonecraft (English author/philosopher/feminist) [A Vindication of the Rights of Woman]

1791: Samuel F.B. Morse (American painter/inventor) Developed the Morse Code and perfected an electric telegraph

1891: Sergei Prokofiev (Soviet composer)

1927: Coretta Scott King (American civil rights activist/wife of Martin Luther King, Jr.)

Deaths:
0630: Ardashir III (King of Persia)

1813: Zebulon Pike (American frontiersman/explorer)


Word of the day: roil \roil\
Etymology: Probably from Middle French rouiller "to rust, make muddy," from Old French rouil "mud, rust," from Vernacular Latin *robicula, from Latin robigo "rust". In Middle English roil meant "to roam or rove about."
(transitive verb)
1. To render (water, wine, etc.) turbid by stirring up sediment.
2. To disturb or disquiet; irritate; vex: to be roiled by a delay.
(intransitive verb)
3. To move or proceed turbulently.

Mistfox - who always though "roil" came from a combination of "rolling" and "boil"

Today is April 28th. That means that in the U.S. it's National Blueberry Pie Day.

See why I used this smilie last year HERE.


2005: Clovis, New Mexico police were called to a middle school when someone saw what appeared to be a weapon being carried in by a student. Police did not find any weapon, but finally an 8th grader realized that what someone had seen was his extra credit commercial advertising project - a 30 inch long steak burrito wrapped in tin foil and a T-Shirt.

2004: The first photos of the Abu Ghraib prisoner abuse scandal were shown on CBS' "60 Minutes II."

1994: Former Central Intelligence Agency official Aldrich Ames pleaded guilty to giving U.S. secrets to the Soviet Union and later Russia.

1978: President of Afghanistan Mohammed Daoud Khan was overthrown and assassinated in a coup led by pro-communist rebels.

1952: The United States occupation of Japan ended.

1952: Dwight D. Eisenhower resigned as Supreme Commander of NATO.

1930: The first night game in organized baseball history took place in Independence, Kansas.

1852: The first municipal electric fire alarm system using call boxes with automatic signaling indicating a fire's location was placed into operation in Boston.

1796: "American Cookery" by Amelia Simmons was published in Hartford. It is the first cookbook written by an American.

1796: Napoleon Bonaparte and Vittorio Amedeo III, the King of Sardinia, signed The Armistice of Cherasco expanding French territory along the Mediterranean coast.

1792: France invaded Austrian Netherlands (present day Belgium), beginning the French Revolutionary War.

1253: Nichiren, a Japanese Buddhist monk, propounded Nam Myoho Renge Kyo for the first time and declared it to be the essence of Buddhism, in effect founding Nichiren Buddhism.

Births:
1878: Lionel Barrymore [Lionel Herbert Blythe] (American actor/director) [A Free Soul , The Mysterious Island, Captains Courageous, Key Largo, Doctor Kildare, It's a Wonderful Life]

1908: Oskar Schindler (Austrian businessman)

1916: Ferruccio Lamborghini (Italian industrialist)

1922: Alistair MacLean (Scottish novelist) [The Guns of Navarone, Where Eagles Dare]

1928: Gene [Eugene Merle] Shoemaker (American planetary geologist) He co-discovered Comet P/Shoemaker-Levy 9, which collided with Jupiter.

1934: Lois Duncan [Lois Duncan Steinmetz] (American novelist) [I Know What You Did Last Summer, Killing Mr. Griffin, Who Killed My Daughter?]

Deaths:
1936: Fuad I (King of Egypt)


Word of the day: maelstrom \MAYL-struhm\
Etymology: From obsolete Dutch maelstroom, from malen, "to grind, hence to whirl round," + stroom, "stream."
(noun)
1. A large, powerful, or destructive whirlpool.
2. Something resembling a maelstrom; a violent, disordered, or turbulent state of affairs.

Mistfox - who wonders if it's going to rain all day like they predict

Today is April 29th. That means that in the U.S. it's National Shrimp Scampi Day.

See why I used this smilie last year HERE.


2007: The last Worldwide Pinhole Photography Day was celebrated around the planet

2004: Oldsmobile built its final car, ending 107 years of production.

2002: The United States was re-elected to the United Nations Commission on Human Rights, one year after losing the seat it had held for 50 years.

1991: A Bangladesh cyclone struck the Chittagong district of southeastern Bangladesh with winds of around 155 mph, killing at least 138,000 people and leaving as many as 10 million homeless.

1988: McDonald's announced it would be opening 20 Moscow restaurants.

1986: A fire broke out at the Central library of the City of Los Angeles Public Library damaging or destroying some 400,000 books and other items.

1986: Roger Clemens set a major league baseball record with 20 strikeouts in nine innings against the Seattle Mariners.

1981: Truck driver Peter Sutcliffe admitted in a London court to being the "Yorkshire Ripper," the killer of 13 women in northern England over five years.

1975: The last U.S. citizens began evacuation from Saigon prior to an expected North Vietnamese takeover. U.S. involvement in the war came to an end.

1970: United States and South Vietnamese forces invaded Cambodia to hunt Viet Cong.

1953: The first US experimental 3D-TV broadcast showed an episode of Space Patrol on Los Angeles ABC affiliate KECA-TV.

1946: Former Prime Minister of Japan Hideki Tojo and 28 former Japanese leaders were indicted for war crimes.

1945: The German Army in Italy unconditionally surrendered to the Allies.

1898: Funds for the first cancer laboratory in the U.S. were appropriated in New York State.

1856: A shipment of 33 camels arrived at the Texas port of Indianola. They had been purchased on the North African Coast, for the U.S. army to use in the deserts of the Southwest.

1699: The French Academy of Sciences held its first public meeting, in the Louvre.

1672: During the Franco-Dutch War, Louis XIV of France invaded the Netherlands.

Births:
534: Taliesin (Welsh poet)

1875: Rafael Sabatini (Italian/British writer) [Scaramouche, Captain Blood, The Sea Hawk]

1901: Hirohito (Emperor of Japan)

1933: Rod McKuen (American poet/composer) [Rusting in the Rain, Coming Close to the Earth]

1957: Daniel Day-Lewis (British-Irish actor) [There Will Be Blood , My Left Foot, Last of the Mohicans, Gangs of New York]

1970: Andre Agassi (American tennis player)

1970: Uma Thurman (American actress) [Dangerous Liaisons, Pulp Fiction, Gattaca, Kill Bill]

2003: Barbaro (American thoroughbred racehorse)

Deaths:
1768: Georg Brandt (Swedish chemist) The first person to discover a metal unknown in ancient times, which he isolated and named cobalt.

1937: Wallace Hume Carothers (American chemist) Developed nylon


Word of the day: gimcrack \JIM-krak\
Etymology: Uncertain origin. Perhaps an alteration of Middle English gibecrake, "a slight or flimsy ornament."
(noun)
1. A showy but useless or worthless object; a gewgaw.
2. Tastelessly showy; cheap; gaudy.

Mistfox - who is going to try to get off her butt and do some bike riding this morning

Today is April 30th. That means that in the U.S. it's National Oatmeal Cookie Day.

See why I used this smilie last year HERE.


2007: A British judge sentenced five al-Qaida-linked men, all British citizens, to life in prison for plotting to attack London targets, including a nightclub, power plants and shopping mall, with bombs.

2003: The United States declared the official end to combat operations in Iraq.

1997: ABC aired the "coming out" episode of the sitcom "Ellen," in which the title character, played by Ellen DeGeneres, admitted she is a lesbian.

1993: The World Wide Web was born at CERN (European Organization for Nuclear Research/Conseil Européen pour la Recherche Nucléaire).

1991: A tropical cyclone hit Bangladesh, killing an estimated 138,000 people.

1981: Dunkin Donuts opened its first store in the Philippines.

1955: The element 101 (Mendelevium), a new artificial element, was announced.

1939: RCA owned NBC began regularly scheduled television service from its New York station with the opening ceremonies of the 1939 New York World's Fair broadcast.

1927: The Federal Industrial Institute for Women, opened in Alderson, West Virginia, as the first women's federal prison in the United States.

1900: Train engineer John Luther "Casey" Jones of the Illinois Central Railroad died in a wreck near Vaughan, Miss., after staying at the controls in an effort to save the passengers. (The event was immortalized in song.)

1897: At the Royal Institution Friday Evening Discourse, Joseph John Thomson first announced the existence of electrons (as they are now named).

1838: Nicaragua declared independence from the Central American Federation.

1789: On the balcony of Federal Hall on Wall Street in New York City, George Washington took the oath of office to become the first elected President of the United States.

1006: Supernova SN 1006, the brightest supernova in recorded history, appeared in the constellation Lupus.

0711: Moorish troops led by Tariq ibn-Ziyad landed at Gibraltar to begin their invasion of the Iberian Peninsula (Al-Andalus).

Births:
1245: Philip III (King of France)

1662: Mary II (Queen of England)

1926: Cloris Leachman (American actress) [The Last Picture Show, The Mary Tyler Moore Show, Young Frankenstein]

1946: Carl XVI Gustaf (King of Sweden)

1938: Larry Niven (American author) [The Magic Goes Away, Ringworld]

Deaths:
1063: Renzong (Emperor of China)

1883: Édouard Manet (French painter)

1900: Casey Jones (American train engineer)

1994: Richard Scarry (American author) [Busytown, Best Word Book Ever]


Word of the day: dither \DITH-er\
Etymology: Alteration of didder, from Middle English didderen, to tremble.
(noun)
1. A trembling; vibration.
2. A state of flustered excitement or fear.
(intransitive verb)
3. To act irresolutely; vacillate.
4. North England. To tremble with excitement or fear.


Mistfox - who often dithers

Today is May 1st. That means that in the U.S. it's National Chocolate Parfait Day.

See why I used this smilie last year HERE.


2007: The Los Angeles May Day mêlée occurred, in which the Los Angeles Police Department response to a May Day pro-immigration rally became a matter of controversy.

2007: In only his second veto, President George W. Bush rejected legislation to pull U.S. troops out of Iraq in a showdown with Congress over whether the war should end or escalate.

2003: President George W. Bush landed in a jet on the aircraft carrier USS Abraham Lincoln off the California coast and, in a speech to the nation, declared major combat in Iraq over.

2005: A 9 foot, 640 pound freshwater catfish was caught by fishermen in northern Thailand on the Mekong River. According to many, this is the largest freshwater fish ever caught.

2004: Cyprus, Czech Republic, Estonia, Hungary, Latvia, Lithuania, Malta, Poland, Slovakia, and Slovenia joined the European Union, celebrated at the residence of the Irish President in Dublin.

1997: Tasmania became the last state in Australia to decriminalize homosexuality.

1991: Rickey Henderson would steal his 939th base, making him the all-time leader in this category. However, his accomplishment would be overshadowed later that evening by Nolan Ryan, who would pitch his seventh career no-hitter (breaking his own record).

1989: Disney-MGM Studios opened at Walt Disney World near Orlando, Florida.

1978: The first unsolicited bulk commercial e-mail (which would later become known as "spam") was sent by a DEC marketing representative to every ARPANET address on the west coast of the United States.

1978: Japan's Naomi Uemura, traveling by dog sled, became the first person to reach the North Pole alone.

1970: Protests erupted in Seattle, Washington, following the announcement by U.S. President Richard Nixon that U.S. Forces in Vietnam would pursue enemy troops into Cambodia, a neutral country.

1964: The first BASIC program was run on a computer.

1960: The Soviet Union shot down an American U-2 reconnaissance plane near Sverdlovsk and captured its pilot, Francis Gary Powers.

1958: The discovery of the powerful Van Allen radiation belts that surround Earth was published in the Washington Evening Star.

1940: The 1940 Summer Olympics were cancelled due to war.

1931: Empire State Building opened. It was built on the site of the Waldorf-Astoria Hotel

1930: The dwarf planet Pluto was officially named.

1927: Imperial Airways became the first British airline to serve hot meals.

1924: The first iodized table salt in the U.S. went on sale at grocers in Michigan.

1915: RMS Lusitania departed New York City on her two hundred and second and final crossing of the North Atlantic. Six days later, the ship was torpedoed off the coast of Ireland with the loss of 1,198 lives, including 128 Americans, rousing American sentiment against Germany.

1841: The first wagon train left Independence, Missouri for California.

1785: Kamehameha defeated Kalanikupule and established the Kingdom of Hawaii

1753: Carolus Linnaeus published the first edition of his Species Plantarum in which he gave systematic names to plants that are still in use today.

1328: During the Treaty of Edinburgh-Northampton, England recognized Scotland as an independent nation.

0305: Diocletian and Maximian retired from the office of Roman Emperor.

Births:
1218: Rudolph I of Germany (Emperor of the Holy Roman Empire)

1845: Lawson Tait (British surgeon) He was the first to both diagnose and remove a diseased appendix (1880).

1909: Kate Smith (American singer) ["God Bless America"]

1925: M. Scott Carpenter (American astronaut)

1967: Tim [Samuel Timothy] McGraw (American musician) ["Indian Outlaw", "Don't Take the Girl", "Just To See You Smile", "Something Like That", "It's Your Love", "Live Like You Were Dying"]

Deaths:
0408: Arcadius (Eastern Roman emperor)

1998: Eldridge Cleaver (American activist/author) [Soul on Ice]


Word of the day: mayday \MEY-dey\
Etymology: From French (venez) m'aider, "(come) help me!".
(noun)
1. An international radiotelephone distress signal, used by ships and aircraft.


Mistfox - who's feeling a bit chilly this morning

Today is May 2nd. That means that in the U.S. it's National Truffles Day.

See why I used this smilie last year HERE.


2006: The Puerto Rican government ran out of money and was forced to impose a partial public sector-shutdown.

2001: A federal jury in the U.S. indicted the former chairmen of the world's two largest auction houses, Sotheby's and Christies, on charges of overcharging their customers.

2000: Her Royal Highness Princess Margriet of the Netherlands unveiled the Man With Two Hats monument in Apeldoorn, the Netherlands. She unveiled another in Ottawa, Canada on May 11, 2002, symbolically linking both the Netherlands and Canada, thanking Canada for their assistance throughout the Second World War.

1998: The European Central Bank was founded in Brussels in order to define and execute the EU's monetary policy.

1986: The 1986 World Exposition in Vancouver, British Columbia, Canada, opened.

1946: Alcatraz Federal prison, San Francisco was taken over by six inmates following a failed escape attempt.


1933: Adolf Hitler banned trade unions.

1932: Comedian Jack Benny's radio show aired for the first time.

1920: The first game of the Negro National League baseball was played in Indianapolis, Indiana.

1885: Cree and Assiniboine warriors won the Battle of Cut Knife, their largest victory over Canadian forces during the North-West Rebellion.

1808: The Peninsular War began when the people of Madrid rose up in rebellion against French occupation.

1800: English chemist William Nicholson was the first to produce a chemical reaction by electricity.

1775: Benjamin Franklin completed the first scientific study of the Gulf Stream.

1194: King Richard I of England gave Portsmouth its first Royal Charter.

Births:
1360: Yongle (Emperor of China)

1660: Alessandro Scarlatti (Italian composer)

1892: Manfred von Richthofen [the Red Baron] (German World War I pilot)

1896: Helen of Greece and Denmark (Queen of Romania)

1935: Faisal II (King of Iraq)

Deaths:
0756: Shomu (Emperor of Japan)

1957: Joseph McCarthy (U.S. Senator)

1999: Oliver Reed (English actor) [Oliver!, The Trap, The Devils, The Three Musketeers, Tommy, The Prince And The Pauper]

2006: Louis Rukeyser (American columnist/economic commentator/television personality) [Wall $treet Week with Louis Rukeyser]


Word of the day: cajolery \kuh-JOH-luh-ree\
Etymology: From French cajoler, possibly blend of Old French cageoler, "to chatter like a jay" and Old French gaioler, "to lure into a cage".
(noun)
1. Persuasion by flattery or promises; wheedling; coaxing.


Mistfox - who didn't have to use cajolery to get the dh to take her to dinner tonight

Today is May 3rd. That means that in the U.S. it's National Raspberry Popover Day.

See why I used this smilie last year HERE.


2007: Jamison Stone, 11 years old, bagged a "wild hog" that weighed in at over 1050 pounds. He was hunting on a commercial hunting preserve with his father and several guides in eastern Alabama. The animal measured 9 feet 4 inches long, nose to tail.

1999: The Dow Jones Industrial Average closed above 11,000 for the first time in its history at 11,014.70.

1999: Stephen Hendry defeated Mark Williams 18-11 to win the World Snooker Championship for a record seventh time.

1999: Oklahoma City was slammed by an F5 tornado killing 42 people, injuring 665, and causing $1 billion in damage. The tornado was one of 66 from the 1999 Oklahoma tornado outbreak.

1973: The Sears Tower in Chicago was topped out as the world's tallest building.

1971: Anti-war protesters calling themselves the Mayday Tribe began four days of demonstrations in Washington, D.C., aimed at shutting down the nation's capital.

1968: Dr. Denton Cooley of the Texas Heart Institute performed the first successful heart transplant in the United States on Everett Thomas.

1963: The police force in Birmingham, Alabama switched tactics and responded with violent force to stop the "Birmingham campaign" protestors. Images of the violent suppression were transmitted worldwide, bringing newfound attention to the African-American Civil Rights Movement.

1960: The Anne Frank House opened in Amsterdam, The Netherlands.

1957: Walter O'Malley, the owner of the Brooklyn Dodgers, agreed to move the team from Brooklyn, New York, to Los Angeles, California.

1956: The judo World Championships were first held.

1944: Most wartime meat rationing ended in the United States.

1936: Baseball Hall of Famer Joe DiMaggio made his major league debut with the New York Yankees.

1916: The British executed Irish nationalist Padraic Pearse and two others for their roles in the Easter uprising.

1867: The Hudson's Bay Company gave up all claims to Vancouver Island.

1860: Charles XV of Sweden-Norway was crowned king of Sweden.

1830: The Canterbury and Whitstable Railway was opened. This was the first steam hauled passenger railway to issue season tickets and to include a tunnel.

1791: The May Constitution of Poland (the first modern constitution in Europe) was proclaimed by the Polish Sejm.

1491: Kongo monarch Nkuwu Nzinga was baptised by Portuguese missionaries, adopting the baptismal name of João I.

Births:
612: Constantine III (Byzantine Emperor)

1844: Richard D'Oyly Carte (English theatrical impresario)

1903: "Bing" [Harry Lillis] Crosby (American singer and actor) [White Christmas, Going My Way, The Country Girl, Road to Morocco, Robin and the 7 Hoods]

Deaths:
1270: Béla IV (King of Hungary)

2007: "Wally" Walter Marty Schirra, Jr. (American astronaut)


Word of the day: cloy \KLOY\
Etymology: Short for obsolete accloy, "to clog," alteration of Middle English acloien, "to lame," from Middle French encloer, "to drive a nail into," from Medieval Latin inclavare, from Latin in, "in" + clavus, "nail."
(transitive verb)
1. To weary by excess, especially of sweetness, richness, pleasure, etc.
2. To become distasteful through an excess usually of something originally pleasing.


Mistfox - who doesn't think she'd have to eat too many Raspberry Popovers before they began to cloy

Today is May 4th. That means that in the U.S. it's National Homebrew Day and National Candied Orange Peel Day.

See why I used this smilie last year HERE.


2007- Greensburg, Kansas was almost completely destroyed by a 1.7m wide EF-5 Tornado.

2003: The first cloned equine, a mule foal named Idaho Gem, was born at the University of Idaho.

2000: Londoners elected their mayor for the first time.

1994: Israeli Prime Minister Yitzhak Rabin and PLO leader Yasser Arafat signed a peace accord regarding Palestinian autonomy granting self-rule in the Gaza Strip and Jericho.

1974: An all-female Japanese team reached the summit of Manaslu, becoming the first women to climb an 8,000-meter peak.

1972: The "Don't Make A Wave Committee", a fledgling environmental organization founded in Canada in 1971, officially changed its name to "Greenpeace Foundation".

1970: The Ohio National Guard, sent to Kent State University after the ROTC building was burnt down, opened fire killing four students and wounding nine others. The students were protesting the United States' invasion of Cambodia.

1942: War time food rationing began in the U.S.

1927: The Academy of Motion Picture Arts and Sciences was founded.

1910: The Royal Canadian Navy was created.

1871: The National Association, the first professional baseball league, opened its first season in Fort Wayne, Indiana.

1814: Emperor Napoleon I of France arrived at Portoferraio on the island of Elba to begin his exile.

1780: The first U.S. national arts and science society (the American Academy of Arts and Sciences) was incorporated.

1675: King Charles II of England ordered the construction of the Royal Greenwich Observatory.

1494: Columbus landed at Jamaica and met the Arawak Indians.

1493: Pope Alexander VI divided the New World between Spain and Portugal along the Demarcation Line.

1256: The Augustinian monastic order was constituted at the Lecceto Monastery when Pope Alexander IV issued a papal bull Licet ecclesiae catholicae.

Births:
1654: Kangxi (Emperor of China)

1852: Alice Pleasance Liddell (English schoolgirl model for Alice in Wonderland)

1940: Robin Cook (American physician/novelist) [Critical, Acceptable Risk, Fatal Cure, Coma]

1959: Randy Travis [Randy Bruce Traywick] (American musician) ["Three Wooden Crosses", "On the Other Hand", "No Place Like Home", "Faith In You"]

Deaths:
1519: Lorenzo II de' Medici (Duke of Urbino)

1849: [Katsushika] Hokusai (Japanese artist)


Word of the day: sub rosa \suhb-ROH-zuh\
Etymology: From the Latin, literally "under the rose," from the ancient association of the rose with confidentiality, the origin of which traces to a famous story in which Cupid gave Harpocrates, the god of silence, a rose to bribe him not to betray the confidence of Venus. Hence the ceilings of Roman banquet-rooms were decorated with roses to remind guests that what was spoken sub vino (under the influence of wine) was also sub rosa.
(adverb)
1. Secretly; privately; confidentially.
2. Designed to be secret or confidential; secretive; private.

Mistfox – who is mourning Eight Belles today

Today is May 5th. That means that in the U.S. it's National Chocolate Custard Day and National Hoagie Day.

See why I used this smilie last year HERE.


2007: In Turkey, Republic protests in support of the Kemalist ideals of state secularism and anti-imperialism took place.

2000: A conjunction of the five bright planets - Mercury, Venus, Mars, Jupiter and Saturn - formed a rough line across the sky with the Sun and Moon.

1981: Irish Republican Army hunger striker Bobby Sands died at the Maze Prison in Northern Ireland on his 66th day without food.

1963: The world's first human liver transplant was performed in America at a Denver, Col., hospital.

1950: Bhumibol Adulyadej was crowned as King Rama IX of Thailand.

1949: The Council of Europe in Strasbourg was founded through the Treaty of London as the first European institution working for European integration. Since 1964, May 5 has been designated Europe Day by the Council of Europe and has been celebrated since then to commemorate its founding on May 5, 1949.

1940: In London, a Norwegian government-in-exile was formed.

1930: Amy Johnson left Croydon on the first solo flight by a woman between England and Australia. She landed in Darwin, Australia on May 24th.

1925: Afrikaans was established as an official language in South Africa.

1916: American marines invaded the Dominican Republic.

1902: The Commonwealth Public Service Act created the Australian Public Service.

1877: Sitting Bull led his band of Lakota into Canada to avoid harassment by the United States Army under Colonel Nelson Miles.

1865: In North Bend, Ohio (a suburb of Cincinnati), the first train robbery in the United States took place.

1862: In Mexico, troops led by Ignacio Zaragoza halted a French invasion in the Battle of Puebla (celebrated as Cinco de Mayo).

1835: In Belgium, the first railway in continental Europe opened between Brussels and Mechelen.

1260: Kublai Khan became ruler of the Mongol Empire.

Births:
0867: Uda (Emperor of Japan)

1865: Nellie Bly (Elizabeth Jane Cochran) (American journalist/author)

1903: James Beard (American culinary expert/cookbook author) [How to Eat Better for Less Money, Love and Kisses and a Halo of Truffles, Beard on Bread]

1943: Michael Palin (British writer/actor/comedian) [Monty Python's Flying Circus, Ripping Yarns, A Fish Called Wanda, Great Railway Journeys of the World, Michael Palin: Around the World in 80 Days]

Deaths:
1194: Casimir II (King of Poland)

1600: Jean Nicot (French diplomat) Introduced tobacco to the French court. The tobacco plant, Nicotiana tabacum, and its active substance, nicotine, derive their names from his.

1994: Tom Blake (American inventor) Invented the hollow-core surfboard.

2007: Theodore Maiman (American physicist) Built the first working laser.


Word of the day: lilliputian \lil-i-PYOO-shuhn\
Etymology: After Lilliput, a fictional island nation in Jonathan Swift's satirical novel Gulliver's Travels. Everything was diminutive in Lilliput -- its inhabitants were six inches in height.
(adjective)
1. Very small.
(noun)
2. A very small person.


Mistfox - who can't seem to shake this *#%^ cold

Today is May 6th. That means that in the U.S. it's Beverage Day and National Crepe Suzette Day.

See why I used this smilie last year HERE.


2007: Conservative Nicolas Sarkozy won the French presidency by a comfortable margin over socialist opponent Segolene Royal.

2001: During a trip to Syria, Pope John Paul II became the first pope to enter a mosque.

1997: The Bank of England was given independence from political control, the most radical shake-up in the bank's 300-year history.

1996: The body of former CIA director William Colby was found washed up on a riverbank in southern Maryland, eight days after he disappeared.

1981: A jury of architects and sculptors unanimously selected Maya Ying Lin's design for the Vietnam Veterans Memorial from 1,421 other entries.

1962: The first U.S. nuclear warhead fired from a Polaris submarine was launched. The submerged USS Ethan Allen test-fired a Polaris A-2 missile with a live nuclear warhead across the Pacific Ocean toward Christmas Island, 1,700 miles (2,700 km) away.

1960: More than 20 million viewers watched the first ever televised royal wedding when Princess Margaret married Anthony Armstrong-Jones at Westminster Abbey.

1959: Icelandic gunboats fired on British trawlers during their "Cod War" over fishing rights.

1942: On Corregidor, the last American forces in the Philippines surrendered to the Japanese.

1941: At California's March Field Bob Hope performed his first USO show.

1915: Babe Ruth of the Boston Red Sox hit the first of his 714 major league home runs in a 4-3 loss to the New York Yankees at the Polo Grounds.

1851: John Gorrie patented an ice-making machine, the first U.S. patent for a mechanical refrigerator.

1840: A tornado that touched down in eastern Louisiana and crossed the Mississippi River into Natchez, Miss., killed 317 people - most of them on boats in the river - making it the second deadliest tornado in U.S. history.

1682: Louis XIV of France moved his court to Versailles.

1536: King Henry VIII ordered translated Bibles be placed in every church.

Births:
1758: Maximilien Robespierre (French Revolutionary)

1868: Nicholas II (Tsar of Russia)

Deaths:
1859: Alexander von Humboldt (German naturalist/explorer)

1952: Maria Montessori (Italian educator)


Word of the day: pantagruelian \pan-tuh-groo-EL-ee-uhn\
Etymology: After Pantagruel, a giant king with an enormous appetite, depicted in a series of novels by François Rabelais.
(adjective)
1. Enormous.
2. Displaying extravagant and coarse humor.

Mistfox - who doesn't have a pantagruelian appetite with this *#%^ cold

Today is May 7th. That means that in the U.S. it's National Roast Leg of Lamb Day and National Home Brewer's Day.

See why I used this smilie last year HERE.


2007: The tomb of Herod the Great was discovered.

2001: Ronnie Biggs, the "Great Train Robber" who had eluded capture for decades following his prison escape in 1965, returned to Britain, where he was arrested and jailed to complete the 28 remaining years of his sentence.

1999: A jury found The Jenny Jones Show and Warner Bros. liable in the shooting death of Scott Amedure, after the show purposely deceived Jonathan Schmitz to appear on a secret same-sex crush episode. Schmitz later killed Amedure and the jury awarded Amedure's family US$25 million.

1992: Three employees at a McDonald's Restaurant in Sydney, Nova Scotia, Canada, were brutally murdered and a fourth permanently disabled after a botched robbery. It was the first fast-food murder in Canada.

1992: Space Shuttle Endeavour was launched on its maiden voyage (STS-49).

1963: The United States launched the Telstar II communications satellite on behalf of its private owner, AT&T.

1953: The world record swordfish (1,182 pounds) was caught in Chile.

1947: Kraft Television Theater debuted, running for the next 11 years.

1920: At the Treaty of Moscow, Soviet Russia recognized the independence of the Democratic Republic of Georgia, only to invade the country six months later.

1915: A German submarine U-20 sank the RMS Lusitania, killing 1,198 people, including 128 Americans. Public reaction to the sinking turned many formerly pro-Germans in the United States of America against the German Empire.

1895: In Saint Petersburg, Russian scientist Alexander Stepanovich Popov demonstrated to the Russian Physical and Chemical Society his invention - the first in the world radio receiver. In the former Soviet Union this day is celebrated as the Day of Radio.

1840: The Great Natchez Tornado struck Natchez, Mississippi, killing 317 people. It is the second deadliest tornado in U.S. history.

1697: Stockholm's royal castle (dating back to medieval times) was destroyed in a huge fire (it was replaced with the current Royal Palace in the 18th century).

0558: In Constantinople, the dome of the Hagia Sophia collapsed. Justinian I immediately ordered the dome rebuilt.

Births:
1847: Archibald Primrose (Prime Minister of the U.K.)

1892: Archibald MacLeish, (American poet/writer/Librarian of Congress) ["Ars Poetica"]

1901: "Gary" [Frank James] Cooper (American actor) [Sergeant York, High Noon, Mr. Deeds Goes to Town, Friendly Persuasion, The Naked Edge]

1909: Edwin Herbert Land (American inventor/physicist) Invented a one-step process for developing and printing photographs (the Polaroid Land Camera).

Deaths:
1682: Feodor III (Tsar of Russia)

1925: William Lever, 1st Viscount Leverhulme (British soap manufacturer/philanthropist) Helped form the Lever Brothers soap manufacturing company. From 1888, Lever established Port Sunlight, a model community providing housing and support for the company's workers, who enjoyed conditions, pay, hours, and benefits far better than found in similar industries.

1941: Sir James George Frazer (Scottish anthropologist/folklorist/classical scholar/author) [The Golden Bough]

1998: Eddie Rabbitt (American country music singer) [“Every Which Way But Loose", "I Love a Rainy Night", "Step By Step", "I Wanna Dance With You"]


Word of the day: contrite \KON-tryt; kuhn-TRYT\
Etymology: Derives from Latin conterere, "to rub away, to grind," hence "to obliterate, to abase," from con- + terere, "to rub, to rub away."
(adjective)
1. Deeply affected with grief and regret for having done wrong; penitent; as, "a contrite sinner."
2. Expressing or arising from contrition; as, "contrite words."


Mistfox - who is going to see if she can do aqua aerobics without coughing up a lung

Today is May 8th. That means that in the U.S. it's National Coconut Cream Pie Day.

See why I used this smilie last year HERE.


2007: A new Northern Ireland Executive was formed under the leadership of Ian Paisley of the Democratic Unionist Party as First Minister and Martin McGuinness of Sinn Féin as Deputy First Minister.

1984: Cpl. Denis Lortie entered the Quebec National Assembly and opened fire, killing three and wounding 13. René Jalbert, sergeant-at-arms of the assembly, succeeded in calming Lortie, for which he would later receive the Cross of Valour.

1984: The Soviet Union announced that it would boycott the 1984 Summer Olympics in Los Angeles, California.

1970: The Hard Hat riot occurred in the Wall Street area of New York City as blue-collar construction workers clashed with anti-war demonstrators protesting the Vietnam War.

1968: Jim "Catfish" Hunter of the Oakland Athletics pitched a perfect game against the Minnesota Twins in Oakland. Hunter also drove in three of the Athletics' four runs.

1961: The first practical seawater conversion plant in the U.S. was opened in Freeport, Texas

1951: Dacron men's suits were introduced in New York City. Dacron was the first commercially marketed polyester fiber.

1942: The Battle of the Coral Sea came to an end. This was the first time in naval history where two enemy fleets fought without visual contact between warring ships.

1919: Edward George Honey first proposed the idea of a moment of silence to commemorate The Armistice of World War I, which later resulted in the creation of Remembrance Day.

1794: Branded a traitor during the Reign of Terror by revolutionists, French chemist Antoine Lavoisier, who was also a tax collector with the Ferme Générale, was tried, convicted, and guillotined all on one day in Paris.

1790: Acting on a motion by a bishop, Charles Maurice de Talleyrand, the French National Assembly decided to create a simple, stable, decimal system of measurement units - the metric system.

1450: Kentishmen revolted against King Henry VI during Jack Cade's Rebellion.

Births:
1842: Emil Christian Hansen (Danish botanist) Revolutionized beer making through the development of new ways to culture yeast. He financed his education by writing novels.

1847: Oscar Hammerstein I (American theater producer/impresario/inventor/cigar maker) He was the grandfather of lyricist Oscar Hammerstein II.

1926: David Attenborough, (English naturalist/broadcaster) [Life on Earth, The Living Planet, The Trials of Life]

1953: Alex Van Halen (Dutch-American drummer) [Van Halen]

Deaths:
1278: Duanzong (Emperor of China)

1319: Haakon V (King of Norway)

1819: Kamehameha I (King of Hawaii)


Word of the day: gargantuan \gar-GAN-choo-uhn\
Etymology: After Gargantua, a voracious giant, the father of Pantagruel, in a series of novels by François Rabelais,
(adjective)
1. Gigantic.


Mistfox - who overslept this morning

Today is May 9th. That means that in the U.S. it's National Butterscotch Brownie Day.

See why I used this smilie last year HERE.


2006: Estonia ratified the European Constitution.

2006: Apple Computer won a suit filed by The Beatles' Apple Corps enabling them to continue using an apple as the iTunes logo.

1992: The record brown trout, weighing over 40 pounds, was caught in Arkansas.

1988: The new Australian Parliament House opened in Canberra.

1974: The United States House of Representatives Judiciary Committee opened formal and public impeachment hearings against President Richard M. Nixon.

1974: Bruce Springsteen performed a concert in Cambridge, Mass., that prompted rock critic Jon Landau to write, "I saw rock and roll future and its name is Bruce Springsteen."

1962: MIT scientists bounced a laser beam off the moon from earth. The area of the light beam on the surface was estimated at a diameter of 4 miles.

1961: Jim Gentile of the Baltimore Orioles became the first player in baseball history to hit grand slams in consecutive innings.

1955: “Sam and Friends” debuted on a local U.S. television channel, marking the first television appearance of both Jim Henson and what would become Kermit the Frog and the Muppets.

1950: Robert Schuman presented his proposal on the creation of an organized Europe, indispensable to the maintenance of peaceful relations. This proposal, known as the "Schuman declaration", is considered by some people to be the beginning of the creation of what is now the European Union.

1945: The final German surrender to Marshal Georgy Zhukov at Berlin-Karlshorst was signed by Colonel-General Hans-Jürgen Stumpff as the representative of the Luftwaffe, Field Marshal Wilhelm Keitel as the Chief of Staff of OKW, and Admiral Hans-Georg von Friedeburg as Commander-in-Chief of the Kriegsmarine. General Alexander Löhr, commander of German Army Group E in Topolšica signed unconditional surrender of German occupying forces in former Yugoslavia, ending World War II in Slovenia. The Red Army entered Prague

1941: The German submarine U-110 was captured by the Royal Navy. On board was the latest Enigma cryptography machine which Allied cryptographers later use to break coded German messages.

1936: Italy formally annexed Ethiopia after taking the capital Addis Ababa on May 5.

1887: Buffalo Bill Cody's Wild West Show opened in London.

1882: A stethoscope of the now classic design, invented by William F. Ford, was issued a U.S. patent

1877: Mihail Kogalniceanu read, in the Chamber of Deputies, the Declaration of Independence of Romania. This day became the Independence Day of Romania

1457 BCE: The Battle of Megiddo between Thutmose III and a large Canaanite coalition under the King of Kadesh was fought. It is the first battle to have been recorded in what is accepted as relatively reliable detail.

Births:
1860: J. M. [James Matthew] Barrie (Scottish novelist/dramatist) [Peter Pan]

1920: Richard Adams (English author) [Watership Down, Shardik, The Plague Dogs]

1942: John Ashcroft (U.S. Attorney General)

Deaths:
1657: William Bradford (Governor of Plymouth Colony)

1914: C. W. (Charles William) Post (American industrialist) He founded the Postum Cereal Co. in 1895 (renamed General Foods Corp. in 1922) to manufacture Postum cereal beverage and Grape-Nuts cereal.

1986: Tenzing Norgay (Nepalese sherpa) One of the first people known to have reached the summit of Mount Everest.


Word of the day: harpy \HAR-pee\
Etymology: After the Harpies, monsters in Greek mythology, who had a woman's head and a bird's body. The gods ordered them to snatch food from Phineus, a king who was punished for revealing secrets. From Greek harpazein "to snatch".
(noun)
1. A predatory person.
2. A bad-tempered woman.


Mistfox - who is not a harpy, even though she woke up late again this morning, because she had a good excuse (dh didn't get in until 2 am from a business trip)

Today is May 10th. That means that in the U.S. it's National Shrimp Day.

See why I used this smilie last year HERE.


2007: The Atlantic hurricane season started early, when the first named storm (Subtropical Storm Andrea) formed off the southeastern U.S. coast.

2005: Germany dedicated a national Holocaust memorial.

2005: A hand grenade allegedly thrown by Vladimir Arutinian landed about 65 feet (20 meters) from United States President George W. Bush while he was giving a speech to a crowd in Tbilisi, Georgia, but it malfunctioned and did not detonate.

1979: The Federated States of Micronesia became self-governing.

1970: The Boston Bruins won their first Stanley Cup since 1941 when Bobby Orr made an overtime winning goal followed by a leap in the air that would become one of the most famous photographs in ice hockey ("The Goal").

1969: The Battle of Dong Ap Bia began with an assault on Hill 937. It would ultimately become known as Hamburger Hill.

1949: The first planetarium in the U.S. owned by a university (the Morehead Planetarium) opened at the University of Chapel Hill, North Carolina.

1940: Germany invaded Belgium, the Netherlands, and Luxembourg.

1940: Winston Churchill was appointed Prime Minister of the United Kingdom.

1922: The United States annexed the Kingman Reef.

1824: The National Gallery in London opened to the public.

1768: John Wilkes was imprisoned for writing an article for the North Briton severely criticizing King George III. This action provokes rioting in London.

Births:
1265: Fushimi (Emperor of Japan)

1838: John Wilkes Booth (American actor/assassin)

1850: Sir Thomas Johnstone Lipton (Scottish grocer/tea merchant/yachtsman)

1933: Barbara Taylor Bradford (English author) [A Woman of Substance, The Ravenscar Dynasty, The Triumph of Katie Byrne]

1947: Caroline Cooney (American author) [Both Sides of Time, The Face on the Milk Carton, Burning Up, Code Orange, Rearview Mirror]


Deaths:
1424: Go-Kameyama (Emperor of Japan)

1737: Nakamikado (Emperor of Japan)

1977: Joan Crawford [Lucille Fay LeSueur] (American actress) [Mildred Pierce, Possessed, Grand Hotel, Forsaking All Others, What Ever Happened To Baby Jane?]


Word of the day: besom \BEE-zuhm\
Etymology: From Old English besma "bundle of twigs" (used as a broom or a flail), from W. Germanic besmon of unknown origin.
(noun)
1. A bundle of twigs attached to a handle and used as a broom.
2. (Sports) The broom used to sweep the ice from the path of a curling stone.


Mistfox - who gets to go into work a bit later this morning, since she worked 3 hours last Saturday

Today is May 11th. That means that in the U.S. it's National Mocha Torte Day. Happy Mother's Day to all the moms out there.


There was no On This Day last year.


2007: North and South Korea adopted a military agreement, enabling the first train crossing of their border in more than half a century.

2007: Pope Benedict XVI canonized the first Brazilian-born saint, Frei Galvão.

2002: Her Royal Highness Princess Margriet of the Netherlands unveiled the Man With Two Hats monument in Ottawa (the first had been unveiled in the Netherlands in 2000) symbolically linking both Netherlands and Canada for their assistance throughout the Second World War.

2000: The last performance of the musical Cats in London's West End was held.

1998: A French mint produced the first coins of Europe's single currency, the euro.

1997: IBM Deep Blue, a chess-playing supercomputer, defeated Garry Kasparov in the last game of the rematch, becoming the first computer to beat a world-champion chess player in a classic match format.

1995: Scientists confirmed that Ebola, one of the world's deadliest viruses, had broken out in Zaire.

1995: In New York City, more than 170 countries decided to extend the Nuclear Nonproliferation Treaty indefinitely and without conditions.

1987: The first heart-lung transplant took place in Baltimore, Maryland. Dr. Bruce Reitz, of Stanford University School of Medicine, performed the surgery.

1987: Klaus Barbie went on trial in Lyon for war crimes committed during World War II.

1960: The first contraceptive pill was made available on the market.

1960: In Buenos Aires, Argentina, four Israeli Mossad agents captured fugitive Nazi Adolf Eichmann, living under the assumed name Ricardo Klement.

1949: Israel joined the United Nations.

1949: The first Polaroid camera was sold for $89.95 in New York City.

1946: The first CARE (Cooperative for American Remittances to Europe) packages for survivors of WW II in Europe arrived at Le Havre, France.

1949: Siam officially changed its name to Thailand, a name in use since 1939.

1934: One of the worst dust storms ever to hit the Great Plains occurred. It lasted 2 days and the area lost massive amounts of topsoil.

1928: Radio station WGY, in Schenectady, NY, began America’s first regularly scheduled TV broadcasts. The programs lasted from 1:30 to 2:00 p.m. on Tuesdays, Thursdays, and Fridays. Most of the viewers were on the technical staff at nearby General Electric, which had designed the system and was using the broadcasts to refine its equipment. A handful of hobbyists who had built their own sets were also able to watch.

1924: Gottlieb Daimler and Karl Benz merged their two companies to form Mercedes-Benz.

1910: An act of the U.S. Congress established Glacier National Park in Montana.

1867: Luxembourg gained its independence.

1858: Minnesota was admitted as the 32nd U.S. state.

1813: In Australia, Lawson, Blaxland and Wentworth, led an expedition westwards from Sydney. Their route opened up inland Australia for continued expansion throughout the 19th century.

1812: John Bellingham assassinated Prime Minister Spencer Perceval in the lobby of the House of Commons, London.

1310: Fifty-four members of the Knights Templar were burned at the stake in France for being heretics.

0868: The first known dated printed book was the Diamond Sutra, a Buddhist scripture. It was made as a 16-ft scroll with six sheets of text printed from wood blocks and one sheet with a woodcut showing the Buddha with disciples and a pair of cats.

0330: Byzantium was renamed Nova Roma during a dedication ceremony, but was more popularly referred to as Constantinople.

Births:
1811: Chang and Eng Bunker (Siamese-American famous conjoined twins)

1888: Irving Berlin [Israel Isidore Beilin] (American composer) ["God Bless America", "White Christmas", "Anything You Can Do", "There's No Business Like Show Business"]

1904: Salvador Dalí [Salvador Domingo Felipe Jacinto Dalí i Domènech, 1st Marquis of Púbol] (Spanish painter)

1918: Richard Feynman (American physicist) [Surely You're Joking, Mr. Feynman; What Do You Care What Other People Think?]

1946: Robert K. Jarvik (American surgeon) Invented the Jarvik-7, the first artificial heart used as a permanent implant in a human.

Deaths:
0912: Leo VI (Byzantine Emperor)

1778: William Pitt, the Elder (Prime Minister of the U.K.)

1960: John D. Rockefeller, Jr. (American philanthropist)

1981: Bob Marley, (Jamaican musician/singer-songwriter/Rastafarian) ["I Shot the Sheriff", "Exodus", "Could You Be Loved", "Stir It Up", "Jamming"]

2001: Douglas Adams (English author) [Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy]



Word of the day: babbitt \BAB-it\
Etymology: After the main character in Sinclair Lewis's 1922 novel Babbitt.
(noun)
1. A self-satisfied narrow-minded person who conforms to conventional ideals of business and material success.


Mistfox - who is looking forward to the family making dinner for Mother's Day

Today is May 12th. That means that in the U.S. it's National Nutty Fudge Day.


There was no On This Day last year.


2006: Justin Gatlin tied the 100 metres sprint world record with a time of 9.77 seconds in Doha, Qatar.

2003: Fifty-nine Democratic lawmakers brought the Texas Legislature to a standstill by going into hiding in a dispute over a Republican congressional redistricting plan.

2002: Former President Jimmy Carter arrived in Cuba for a five-day visit with Fidel Castro becoming first President of the United States, in or out of office, to visit the island since Castro's 1959 revolution.

1981: Francis Hughes starved to death in the Maze Prison in a republican campaign for political status to be granted to IRA prisoners.

1972: The album "Exile on Main St." by the Rolling Stones was released.

1967: At Queen Elizabeth Hall, England, Pink Floyd staged the first-ever quadraphonic rock concert.

1965: West Germany and Israel established diplomatic relations.

1937: The Coronation of King George VI of Britain was held at Westminster Abbey.

1936: Dvorak and Dealey patented the Dvorak typewriter keyboard in the U.S.

1932: Ten weeks after his abduction, the infant son of Charles Lindbergh was found dead in Hopewell, New Jersey just a few miles from the Lindberghs' home.

1873: Oscar II of Sweden-Norway was crowned King of Sweden.

1870: The Manitoba Act was given the Royal Assent, paving the way for Manitoba to become a province of Canada on July 15.

1821: The first big battle of the Greek War of Independence against the Turks occurred in Valtetsi.

1777: The first ice cream advertisement appeared in the New York Gazette on this date.

1551: The National University of San Marcos, the oldest university in the Americas, was founded in Lima, Peru.

1364: Jagiellonian University, the oldest university in Poland, was founded in Kraków, Poland.

1264: The Battle of Lewes, between King Henry III of England and the rebel Simon de Montfort, 6th Earl of Leicester, began.

1191: Richard I of England married Berengaria of Navarre.

Births:
1496: Gustav I [Gustav Eriksson, Gustav Vasa] (King of Sweden)

1812: Edward Lear (English author/poet/landscape artist)

1820: Florence Nightingale (English nurse)

1828: Dante Gabriel Rossetti [Gabriel Charles Dante Rossetti] (English poet/illustrator/painter/translator.) ["The Blessed Damozel", "Nuptial Sleep"]

1907: Katharine Hepburn (American actress) [Morning Glory, Alice Adams, Bringing Up Baby, Stage Door, The Philadelphia Story, Woman of the Year, Adam's Rib]

1937: George Carlin (American comedian) ["Seven Dirty Words"]

1968: Tony Hawk (American skateboarder)

Deaths:
1889: John Cadbury (English chocolate entrepreneur)

2001: "Perry" [Pierino Ronald] Como (American singer) ["Catch a Falling Star", "Look To Your Heart"]


Word of the day: pogonotrophy \po-guh-NAW-truh-fee\
Etymology: From Greek pogon "beard" + -trophy "nourishment or growth".
(noun)
1. The growing of a beard


Mistfox - who is glad her dh decided not to practice pogonotrophy

Today is May 13th. That means that in the U.S. it's National Apple Pie Day.


There was no On This Day last year.


2007: Construction of the Calafat-Vidin Bridge between Romania and Bulgaria began.

2003: The government unveiled a new version of the $20 bill - the first to be colorized in an effort to thwart counterfeiters.

1989: Large groups of students occupied Tiananmen Square and began a hunger strike.

1985: Philadelphia, Pennsylvania police stormed MOVE headquarters to end a standoff, killing 11 MOVE members and destroying the homes of 250 city residents.

1981: Mehmet Ali Agca attempted to assassinate Pope John Paul II in St. Peter's Square in Rome. The Pope was rushed to the Agostino Gemelli University Polyclinic to undergo emergency surgery.

1960: Hundreds of UC Berkeley students congregated for the first day of protest against a visit by the House Un-American Activities Committee. 31 students were arrested, and the Free Speech Movement was born.

1958: Velcro was trademarked.

1952: The Rajya Sabha, the upper house of the Parliament of India, held its first sitting.

1940: Queen Wilhelmina of the Netherlands fled the Nazi invasion in the Netherlands to Britain. Princess Juliana took her children to Canada for their safety.

1939: The first commercial FM radio station in the United States was launched in Bloomfield, Connecticut. The station later became WDRC-FM.

1917: Three peasant children near Fatima, Portugal, reported seeing a vision of the Virgin Mary.

1913: Igor Sikorsky became the first man to pilot a four-engine aircraft.

1912: In the United Kingdom, the Royal Flying Corps (now the Royal Air Force) was established.

1861: During the American Civil War, Queen Victoria of Britain issued a "proclamation of neutrality" which recognized the breakaway states as having belligerent rights.

1846: The United States declared war on Mexico.

1787: Captain Arthur Phillip left Portsmouth, England with eleven ships full of convicts (First Fleet) to establish a penal colony in Australia.

1607: An English colony was settled at Jamestown in present-day Virginia.

1568: At the Battle of Langside, the forces of Mary Queen of Scots were defeated by a confederacy of Scottish Protestants under James Stewart, Earl of Moray, her half-brother.

Births:
1842: Arthur Sullivan (English composer) [H.M.S. Pinafore, The Pirates of Penzance, The Mikado]

1907: Dame Daphne du Maurier (British playwright/author) [Rebecca, The Birds, The House on the Strand]

1937: Roger Zelazny (American author) [Lord of Light, The Chronicles of Amber, Doorways in the Sand]

1941: Ritchie Valens [Richard Steven Valenzuela] (American singer) ["La Bamba"]

1950: Stevie Wonder [Stevland Hardaway Judkins, Stevland Hardaway Morris] (American singer/musician) ["For Once in My Life", "My Cherie Amour", "Superstition", "You Are the Sunshine of My Life"]

Deaths:
1884: Cyrus McCormick (American inventor)


Word of the day: dundrearies \dun-DREER-eez\
Etymology: After the bushy sideburns worn by actor Edward A. Sothern who played the part of Lord Dundreary in the play Our American Cousin. This was the play being performed at Ford's Theatre in Washington DC during which Abraham Lincoln was shot.
(noun)
1. Long flowing sideburns.


Mistfox - who is feeling extraordinarily lazy this morning

Today is May 14th. That means that in the U.S. it's National Buttermilk Biscuit Day and National Dance Like a Chicken Day.


There was no On This Day last year.


2007: DaimlerChrysler said it was selling almost all of Chrysler to private equity firm Cerberus Capital Management for $7.4 billion, backing out of a troubled 1998 takeover.

2007: The trial of suspected al-Qaida operative Jose Padilla opened in Miami. (Padilla and two co-defendants were convicted in August of terrorism conspiracy; Padilla was sentenced to 17 years in prison.)

2005: The former USS America, a decommissioned super carrier of the United States Navy, was deliberately sunk in the Atlantic Ocean after four weeks of live-fire exercises. She was the largest ship ever to be disposed of as a target in a military exercise.

2004: The marriage of Frederik, Crown Prince of Denmark and Mary Donaldson took place in Copenhagen.

2001: The Supreme Court ruled that there was no exception in federal law for people to use marijuana to ease their pain from cancer, AIDS or other illnesses.

1991: The world's largest burrito (1,126 pounds) was created.

1985: The first McDonald’s restaurant, in Des Plains, Illinois, became the first fast food museum.

1973: Skylab, the United States' first space station, was launched. This was the last launch of the Saturn V rocket.

1963: A laser light beam link first carried the TV signal during a network broadcast.

1955: Eight communist bloc countries, including the Soviet Union, signed a mutual defense treaty called the Warsaw Pact.

1948: Israel was declared to be an independent state and a provisional government was established. Immediately after the declaration, Israel was attacked by the neighboring Arab states. The War of Independence began.

1940: The Netherlands surrendered to Germany.

1939: Lina Medina became the world's youngest confirmed mother in medical history at the age of five. ( SNOPES )

1925: Virginia Woolf's novel Mrs. Dalloway was published.

1904: The first Olympic games to be held in the United States opened in St. Louis.

1878: Robert August Chesebrough trademarked Vaseline petroleum jelly.

1856: Charles Darwin began writing his book, The Origin of Species.

1850: The first U.S. patent for a dishwashing machine was issued

1811: Paraguay gained independence from Spain.

1804: The Lewis and Clark Expedition departed from Camp Dubois and began their historic journey by traveling up the Missouri River.

1796: Edward Jenner administered the first smallpox vaccination.

1787: In Philadelphia, Pennsylvania, delegates began to meet to write a new Constitution for the United States.

1643: Four-year-old Louis XIV became King of France upon the death of his father, Louis XIII.

1264: Henry III of England was captured in France during the Battle of Lewes, making Simon de Montfort the de facto ruler of England.

Births:
1265: Dante Alighieri (Italian poet) [Divina Commedia]

1686: Gabriel Fahrenheit (German instrument maker/glassblower) Invented the Fahrenheit temperature scale thermometer. It was the first thermometer to use mercury instead of alcohol, which also extended the temperature range of thermometers.

1953: Norodom Sihamoni (King of Cambodia)

Deaths:
1610: Henry IV (King of France)

1643: Louis XIII (King of France)

1925: H. Rider Haggard (English author) [King Solomon's Mines, Allan Quatermain, She]

1998: Frank [Francis Albert] Sinatra (American singer/actor) ["Strangers in the Night", "My Way"]


Word of the day: sessile \SES-il, -ahyl\
Etymology: From Latin sessilis "pertaining to sitting," from sessum, past participle of sedere "to sit". Meaning "sedentary" first recorded 1860.
(adjective)
1. Botany. Attached by the base, or without any distinct projecting support, as a leaf issuing directly from the stem.
2. Zoology. Permanently attached; not freely moving.


Mistfox - who wishes she didn't have aqua aerobics this morning because she's feeling sessile

Today is May 15th. That means that in the U.S. it's National Chocolate Chip Day.

There was no On This Day last year.


2006: The Pentagon disclosed the names of everyone detained at the Guantanamo Bay prison since it opened four years earlier.

2006: A defiant Saddam Hussein refused to enter a plea at his trial, insisting he was still Iraq's president as a judge formally charged him with crimes against humanity.

1991: Edith Cresson became France's first female prime minister.

1989: Hershey's reduced the size of the Hershey bar to 1.55 ounces. The price remained 40 cents.

1972: The island of Okinawa, under U.S. military governance since its conquest in 1945, reverted to Japanese control.

1970: President Richard Nixon appointed Anna Mae Hays and Elizabeth P. Hoisington the first female United States Army Generals.

1963: Mercury-Atlas 9, the final mission of the Mercury series with astronaut L. Gordon Cooper on board, was launched. He became the first American to spend more than a day in space

1948: Hours after declaring its independence, the new state of Israel was attacked by Transjordan, Egypt, Syria, Iraq and Lebanon.

1941: Baseball player Joe DiMaggio started his record-breaking 56-game hitting streak.

1941: Britain's first jet-propelled aircraft, the Gloster-Whittle E.28/39, flew for the first time, taking off from RAF Cranwell on a historic 17 minute flight.

1940: McDonald's opened its first restaurant in San Bernardino, California.

1940: Nylon stockings went on sale for the first time in the U.S. in Wilmington, Delaware.

1935: The Moscow Metro was opened to public.

1930: Mrs. Ellen Church, a registered nurse, became the world’s first airline stewardess (flight attendant). She served 11 passengers who were flying on a United Airlines tri-motor Boeing 80A from San Francisco to Cheyenne, Wyoming.

1923: Listerine was registered as a trademark.

1918: U.S. airmail began service between Washington, Philadelphia and New York.

1911: The United States Supreme Court declared Standard Oil to be an "unreasonable" monopoly under the Sherman Antitrust Act and ordered the company to be broken up.

1905: Las Vegas, Nevada, was founded when 110 acres, in what later would become downtown, were auctioned off.

1869: In New York, Susan B. Anthony and Elizabeth Cady Stanton formed the National Woman's Suffrage Association.

1862: President Abraham Lincoln signed a bill into law creating the United States Bureau of Agriculture (later renamed the USDA).

1851: Rama IV was crowned King of Thailand.

1817: The first private mental health hospital in the United States, the Asylum for the Relief of Persons Deprived of the Use of Their Reason (now Friends Hospital), opened in Philadelphia, Pennsylvania.

1756: The Seven Years' War began when England declared war on France.

1718: James Puckle, a London lawyer, patented the world's first machine gun.

1567: Mary Queen of Scots married James Hepburn, Earl of Bothwell, her third husband.

1501: Ottaviano Petrucci of Venice founded the first modern-style music publishing house, by producing the first book of music made from movable type.

1252: Pope Innocent IV issued the papal bull ad exstirpanda, which authorized, but also limited, the torture of heretics in the Medieval Inquisition.

Births:
1856: L. Frank Baum (American author) [The Wonderful Wizard of Oz]

1859: Pierre Curie (French physical chemist) He and his wife, Marie Curie, discovered radium and polonium in their investigation of radioactivity.

1936: Paul Zindel (American author/playwright/educator) [The Effect of Gamma Rays on Man-in-the-Moon Marigolds, The Pigman, Attack of the Killer Fishsticks, Camp Megadeath]

1937: Madeleine Albright (U.S. Secretary of State)

Deaths:
1036: Go-Ichijo (Emperor of Japan)

1886: Emily Dickinson (American poet)

1992: Robert Morris Page (American physicist) Invented the technology for pulse radar.

2003: June Carter Cash (American musician/singer)

2007: Jerry Falwell (American evangelist)


Word of the day: diacritical \dahy-uh-KRIT-i-kuhl\
Etymology: From Greek diakritikos, "distinguishing", from diakritos, "distinguished", from diakrinein, to "distinguish"
(adjective)
1. Serving to distinguish; distinctive.
2. Capable of distinguishing.
3. Phonetics. Serving as a diacritic.


Mistfox - who wonders if it's okay to pig out on chocolate chips because it's Nat. Choc. Chip day

Today is May 16th. That means that in the U.S. it's National Coquilles St. Jacques Day.


There was no On This Day last year.


2007: The General Assembly of the United Nations, recognizing that genuine multilingualism promotes unity in diversity and international understanding, proclaimed 2008 the International Year of Languages.

2007: Nicolas Sarkozy took over from Jacques Chirac as France's president.

2005: The U.S. Supreme Court ruled that Michigan and New York could not prohibit people from buying wine online from out of state wineries. Some 23 other states have similar laws that presumably would also be affected by the ruling.

2005: Kuwait permitted women's suffrage in a 35-23 National Assembly vote.

2004: The Day of Mourning at Bykivnia forest, just outside of Kiev, Ukraine was held. During the 1930s and early 1940s communist bolsheviks executed over 100,000 Ukrainian civilians here.

1991: Queen Elizabeth II became the first British monarch to address the U.S. Congress.

1988: A report by United States' Surgeon General C. Everett Koop stated that the addictive properties of nicotine are similar to those of heroin and cocaine.

1975: India annexed Sikkim after the mountain state held a referendum in which the popular vote was in favor of merging with India.

1975: Japanese climber Junko Tabei became the first woman to reach the summit of Mount Everest.

1974: Josip Broz Tito was re-elected president of the Socialist Federal Republic of Yugoslavia. This time he was elected for life.

1967: The city of Jerusalem was returned to the nation of Israel

1965: Campbell Soup Company introduced SpaghettiOs under its Franco-American brand.

1960: The first synthetic ruby crystal laser was operated at Hughes Research Laboratories in Malibu, California.

1951: The first regularly scheduled transatlantic flights began between New York and London, operated by El Al Israel Airlines.

1948: Chaim Weizmann was elected the first President of Israel.

1946: The musical "Annie Get Your Gun" opened on Broadway.

1946: Jack Mullin demonstrated the world’s first magnetic tape recorder for the first time.

1929: In Hollywood, California, the first Academy Awards were handed out.

1918: The U.S. Congress passed The Sedition Act of 1918, making criticism of the government an imprisonable offense.

1868: President Andrew Johnson was acquitted in his impeachment trial by one vote in the United States Senate.

1866: Charles Elmer Hires invented root beer.

1866: The U.S. Congress eliminated the half-dime coin and replaced it with the five cent piece, or nickel.

1843: The first major wagon train heading for the Northwest set out on the Oregon Trail with one thousand pioneers from Elm Grove, Missouri.

1836: Edgar Allan Poe married his 13-year-old cousin Virginia.

1815: The Governor of New South Wales, Lachlan Macquarie, officially named the town of Blackheath in the upper Blue Mountains.

1811: During the Peninsular War the allies Spain, Portugal and Britain, defeated the French at the Battle of Albuera.

1771: The Battle of Alamance, a pre-American Revolutionary War battle between local militia and a group of rebels called "The Regulators", occurred in present-day Alamance County, North Carolina.

1770: 14-year old Marie Antoinette married 15-year-old Louis-Auguste who later became king of France.

1568: Mary Queen of Scots fled to England.

1527: The Florentines drove out the Medici for a second time and Florence re-established a republic.

Births:
1718: Maria Gaetana Agnesi (Italian mathematician/philosopher) [Propositiones Philosophicae] The first woman in the Western world considered to be a mathematician.

1912: "Studs" [Louis ] Terkel (American author/historian/actor/broadcaster) [Touch and Go, My American Century, The Good War, Giants of Jazz]

1919: Liberace [Wladziu Valentino Liberace] (American pianist)

1966: Janet Damita Jo Jackson (American singer-songwriter/record producer/dancer/actress)

Deaths:
1703: Charles Perrault (French author) [Le Petit Chaperon rouge (Little Red Riding Hood), La Belle au bois dormant (Sleeping Beauty), Le Maître chat ou le Chat botté (Puss in Boots), Cendrillon ou la petite pantoufle de vair (Cinderella)]

1938: Joseph B. Strauss (American civil engineer) The chief engineer for the construction of the Golden Gate Bridge, San Francisco.

1990: Jim Henson (American puppeteer)



Word of the day: Jericho \JER-i-ko\
Etymology: After Jericho, an ancient city of Palestine, northwest of the Dead Sea, where David had his servants wait until their beards had grown. As in Samuel, a book of the Bible, "And the king said, Tarry at Jericho until your beards be grown."
(noun)
1. A place out of the way; an unspecified place; a place of concealment. Often used in the phrase "go to Jericho".


Mistfox - who sometimes wishes “trouble patrons” to Jericho

Today is May 17th. That means that in the U.S. it's National Cherry Cobbler Day.


See why I used this smilie last year HERE.


2007: Trains from North and South Korea crossed the 38th Parallel in a test-run agreed by both governments. This was the first time that trains have crossed the Demilitarized Zone since 1953.

2007: World Bank President Paul Wolfowitz announced he would resign following controversy over his handling of a pay package for his girlfriend.

1999: Labor Party leader Ehud Barak unseated Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu in Israeli elections.

1992: In Thailand, the so-called Black May began. Thai police and protesters started attacking one another. By midnight, the current Thai government declared a state of emergency, and military troops opened fire.

1985: The largest salmon, a Chinook salmon (weighing over 97 pounds), caught with rod and reel was caught in Alaska.

1974: Police in Los Angeles, California, raided the Symbionese Liberation Army's headquarters, killing six members, including Camilla Hall.

1967: Tennessee repealed its 1925 law making it illegal to teach evolution in public schools.

1955: Fermi and Szilard patented an atomic reactor.

1940: Germany occupied Brussels, Belgium.

1849: A fire threatened to burn St. Louis, Missouri to the ground.

1809: Napoleon I of France ordered the annexation of the Papal States to the French Empire.

1733: England passed the Molasses Act, putting high tariffs on rum and molasses imported to the colonies from anyplace other than Britain and its possessions.

1590: Anne of Denmark was crowned Queen of Scotland.

Births:
1868: Horace Elgin Dodge (American automobile manufacturer) Helped invent one of the first all-steel cars in America.

1886: Alfonso XIII [Alfonso León Fernando Maria Jaime Isidro Pascual Antonio de Borbon y Austria-Lorena] (King of Spain)

1939: Gary Paulsen (American author) [Hatchet, The Case of the Dirty Bird, Nightjohn, Mr. Tucket, Dogsong]

Deaths:
1336: Go-Fushimi (Emperor of Japan)

1822: Armand-Emmanuel du Plessis, Duc de Richelieu (French-Russian statesman)

1829: John Jay (First Chief Justice of the U.S. Supreme Court)

1992: Lawrence Welk (American accordionist/bandleader/television impresario) [The Lawrence Welk Show]

2007: Lloyd Alexander (American author) [The Chronicles of Prydain, Westmark, Time Cat, Gypsy Rizka]


Word of the day: latitudinarian \lat-uh-too-din-AIR-ee-un; -tyoo-\
Etymology: From Latin latitudo, latitudin-, "latitude" (from latus, "broad, wide") + the suffix -arian.
(adjective)
1. Having or expressing broad and tolerant views, especially in religious matters.
2. A person who is broad-minded and tolerant; one who displays freedom in thinking, especially in religious matters.
3. [Often capitalized] A member of the Church of England, in the time of Charles II, who adopted more liberal notions in respect to the authority, government, and doctrines of the church than generally prevailed.


Mistfox - who wishes the weather would decide if it's going to be cool (53 this morning) or warm (supposed to be in the 80s this afternoon)

Today is May 18th. That means that in the U.S. it's National Cheese Soufflé Day.


See why I used this smilie last year HERE.


2006: The post Loktantra Andolan government passed a landmark bill curtailing the power of the monarchy and making Nepal a secular country.

2001: Hong Kong ordered more than 1 million chickens and other poultry killed to halt the spread of another bird flu epidemic.

1992: The Archivist of the United States officially announced the 27th Amendment to the U.S. Constitution.

1991: The first Briton into space, Helen Sharman, was launched with two cosmonauts in a Soyuz spacecraft.

1990: In France, a modified TGV train achieved a new rail world speed record: 515.3km/h.

1980: Following a weeklong series of earthquakes and smaller explosions of ash and smoke, the long-dormant Mount St. Helens volcano erupted in Washington state, U.S., hurling ash 15,000 feet into the air and setting off mudslides and avalanches. The eruptions caused minimal damage in the sparsely populated area, but about 400 people - mostly loggers and forest rangers - were evacuated. The explosion was characterized as the equivalent of 27,000 atomic bombs. The cloud of ash eventually circled the globe.

1969: Apollo 10 was launched on a mission that served as a dress rehearsal for the first moon landing.

1967: The first legalization of human artificial insemination in the U.S. was enacted by the state of Oklahoma and signed this day by the governor.

1933: President Franklin Delano Roosevelt signed an act creating the Tennessee Valley Authority.

1917: The Selective Service Act of 1917 was passed, giving the President the power of conscription.

1897: Dracula, a novel by Irish author Bram Stoker was published.

1869: Ulysses S. Grant signed The Public Credit Act as one of his first actions as President of the United States,.

1803: The United Kingdom revoked the Treaty of Amiens and declared war on France.

1765: Fire destroyed a large part of Montreal, Quebec.

1642: The Canadian city of Montreal, Quebec was founded.

1631: In Dorchester, Massachusetts, John Winthrop took the oath of office and became the first Governor of Massachusetts.

1498: Vasco da Gama reached the port of Calicut, India

1268: The Principality of Antioch, a crusader state, fell to the Mamluk Sultan Baibars in the Battle of Antioch.

1152: Henry II married Eleanor of Aquitaine.

Births:
1868: Nicholas II (Tsar of Russia)

1872: Bertrand Russell, 3rd Earl Russell (Welsh mathematician, writer and philosopher) [Common Sense and Nuclear Warfare, My Philosophical Development, A History of Western Philosophy and Its Connection with Political and Social Circumstances from the Earliest Times to the Present Day, Why I Am Not a Christian]

1902: Meredith Willson (American composer) [The Music Man]

1919: Dame Margot Fonteyn (English ballet dancer)

1952: Diane Duane (American-Irish writer) [So You Want to be a Wizard, Book of Night With Moon, Spock's World, The Door into Fire]

Deaths:
1808: Elijah Craig (American Baptist minister/businessman/distiller) He is an important figure in the invention of Bourbon Whiskey. He ran a paper mill and started a distillery in 1789. Legend credits him with being the first to use new charred oak barrels to age corn whiskey, which is a key step in making bourbon.

1995: Alexander Godunov (Russian ballet dancer/actor)


Word of the day: tirade \TY-raid; tih-RAID\
Etymology: From French, from Italian tirada, properly, "a pulling"; hence, "a lengthening out, a long speech, a tirade," from tirare, "to pull, to draw."
(noun)
1. A long angry speech; a violent denunciation; a prolonged outburst full of censure or abuse.


Mistfox - who is feeling extraordinarily lazy and incapable of any tirade today

Today is May 19th. That means that in the U.S. it's National Devil's Food Cake Day.


See why I used this smilie last year HERE.


2006: The Black Jack, Missouri city government made a controversial decision to remove an unmarried couple and their children from their own home on the grounds that the couple was not related enough to each other to satisfy a municipal ordinance. An unmarried couple with one child would qualify as a family, whereas an unmarried couple with multiple children would not.

2004: Specialist Jeremy C. Sivits received a year in prison and a bad conduct discharge in the first court-martial stemming from abuse of Iraqis at the Abu Ghraib prison.

2003: WorldCom Inc. agreed to pay investors $500 million to settle civil fraud charges.

1991: Croatians voted for independence at their independence referendum.

1959: The first submarine with two nuclear reactors was completed. The Triton was 447 feet long, 37 feet wide and was manned by 148 officers and crew.

1919: Mustafa Kemal Atatürk landed at Samsun on the Anatolian Black Sea coast, initiating what was later termed the Turkish War of Independence. The anniversary of this event is the official date of commemoration of the Pontic Greek Genocide in Greece and Cyprus.

1910: The Earth passed through the tail of Halley's Comet and nothing happened. There had been dire predictions that everyone would die, and many hucksters sold “comet pills” to counter the effects of the “comet gas.”

1906: The Simplon Tunnel was officially opened as the world's longest railroad tunnel. Cutting through the Alps between Italy and Switzerland, it was officially opened by the King of Italy and the president of the Swiss Republic.

1802: Napoleon Bonaparte founded the Légion d’Honneur.

1649: An Act declaring England a Commonwealth was passed by the Long Parliament. England would be a republic for the next eleven years.

1568: Queen Elizabeth I of England had Mary Queen of Scots arrested.

Births:
1795: Johns Hopkins (American entrepreneur/philanthropist/abolitionist) Created the Johns Hopkins University, Johns Hopkins Hospital and Johns Hopkins School of Medicine.

1925: Pol Pot [Saloth Sar] (Cambodian dictator)

1959: Nicole Brown Simpson (Ex-wife of O.J. Simpson/murder victim)

Deaths:
1526: Go-Kashiwabara (Emperor of Japan)

1895: José Martí (Cuban independence leader/poet/writer)

1898: William Ewart Gladstone (Prime Minister of the U.K.)


Word of the day: cicerone \sis-uh-RO-nee\
Etymology: After Marcus Tullius Cicero (106-43 BCE), the Roman statesman, orator, and writer, who was known for his knowledge and eloquence. He's one of the rare people who have given two eponyms to the English language.
Another word coined after his name is ciceronian, meaning marked by ornate language, expansive flow, and forcefulness of expression.
(noun)
1. A tour guide.


Mistfox - who did some volunteer work as a cicerone at Ca d'zan

Today is May 20th. That means that in the U.S. it's National Quiche Lorraine Day.


See why I used this smilie last year HERE.


2006: Iraq's new unity government took office, five months after elections.

2006: San Francisco Giants slugger Barry Bonds tied Babe Ruth for second place on the career list with his 714th home run.

2005: Governor Jeb Bush signed a bill making the orange the official State Fruit of Florida. The orange blossom and orange juice have been previously declared the official state flower and official state beverage.

1995: President Bill Clinton announced that the two-block stretch of Pennsylvania Avenue in front of the White House would be permanently closed to traffic as a security measure.

1993: The last episode of 'Cheers' aired on TV.

1990: The Hubble Space Telescope sent its first photograph from space, an image of a double star 1,260 light years away.

1989: The Chinese authorities declared martial law in the face of pro-democracy demonstrations, setting the scene for the Tiananmen Square massacre.

1983: Luc Montagnier and Robert Gallo made the first publications of the discovery of the virus that causes AIDS individually in the journal Science.

1969: U.S. and South Vietnamese forces captured Apbia Mountain, referred to as Hamburger Hill by the Americans, following one of the bloodiest battles of the Vietnam War.

1964: The first U.S. atomic-powered lighthouse was put into operation in the Chesapeake Bay, Baltimore Harbor, Md.

1956: The first hydrogen fusion bomb (H-bomb) to be dropped from an airplane exploded over Namu Atoll at the northwest edge of the Bikini Atoll. The fireball was four miles in diameter. It was designated as "Cherokee," as part of "Operation Redwing."

1954: The National Assembly selected Chiang Kai-shek for another term as President of the Republic of China

1927: By the Treaty of Jedda, the United Kingdom recognized the sovereignty of King Ibn Saud in the Kingdoms of Hejaz and Nejd, which later merged to become the Kingdom of Saudi Arabia.

1892: George Sampson patented a clothes dryer.

1883: Krakatoa began to erupt. The volcano's final explosion would happen on August 26.

1835: Otto was named the first modern king of Greece.

1810: On this day Dolly Madison, wife of president James Madison, supposedly served the first ice cream at the White House, for a reception.

1690: England passed the Act of Grace, forgiving followers of Roman Catholic James II.

1631: The city of Magdeburg in Germany was seized by forces of the Holy Roman Empire and most of its inhabitants massacred, in one of the bloodiest incidents of the Thirty Years' War.

1609: The publisher Thomas Thorpe first published Shakespeare’s Sonnets in London, perhaps illicitly.

1570: Cartographer Abraham Ortelius issued the first modern atlas.

0685: The Battle of Dunnichen or Nechtansmere was fought between a Pictish army under King Bridei III and the invading Northumbrians under King Ecgfrith, who were decisively defeated.

Births:
1806: John Stuart Mill (English philosopher)

1818: William Fargo (Co-founder of Wells, Fargo & Company)

1883: Faisal I (King of Iraq)

1913: William Hewlett (American electrical engineer) Founder with David Packard of Hewlett Packard Company.

1967: Pavlos de Grecia (Crown Prince of Greece, Prince of Denmark)

Deaths:
1503: Lorenzo de Medici ["the Popolano"] (Italian banker/politician)

1648: Wladislaus IV (King of Poland)

1896: Clara Schumann (German pianist/composer)


Word of the day: obtrude \uhb-TROOD; ob-\
Etymology: from Latin obtrudere, "to thrust upon, to force," from ob, "in front of, before" + trudere, "to push, to thrust."
(transitive verb)
1. To thrust out; to push out.
2. To force or impose (one's self, remarks, opinions, etc.) on others with undue insistence or without solicitation.
3. To thrust upon a group or upon attention; to intrude.


Mistfox - who always gets this out late when the dh doesn't have to set the alarm to go to work

Today is May 21st. That means that in the U.S. it's National Waitstaff Day and National Strawberries & Cream Day.


See why I used this smilie last year HERE.


2006: The Republic of Montenegro held a referendum proposing independence from the State Union of Serbia and Montenegro. The Montenegrin people chose independence by the majority of 55%.

2006: The Swedish ice hockey team Tre Kronor took the gold in the World Championship, becoming the first nation to hold both the World and Olympic titles separately in the same year.

1991: Mengistu Haile Mariam, president of the People's Democratic Republic of Ethiopia, fled Ethiopia, effectively bringing the Ethiopian Civil War to an end.

1980: President Carter declared a state of emergency at Love Canal in Niagara Falls, New York. The property had been a dumping site for Hooker Chemicals and Plastics.

1972: A vandal damaged Michelangelo’s Pietà, in St. Peter’s Basilica in Rome.

1955: George B. Hansburg of Walker Valley, N.Y. was issued a U.S. patent for his invention of an improved pogo stick

1941:The freighter SS Robin Moor was sunk 950 miles off the coast of Brazil, becoming the first United States ship sunk by a German U-boat.

1936: DuPont began commercial production of Lucite in the U.S. Lucite is their trademark name for the plastic (polymethyl methacrylate) that is crystal clear. Other manufacturers in the world now use other names for this plastic, including Perspex and Plexiglass.

1934: Oskaloosa, Iowa, became the first municipality in the United States to fingerprint each of its citizens.

1916: Daylight Saving Time was introduced in Britain as a wartime measure to save fuel.

1901: The first U.S. State motor car legislation was an act to regulate the speed of motor vehicle, passed in Connecticut. A limit was established of 12 mph within city limits and 15 mph outside, which were higher than the 8 mph city and 12mph country speeds in the bill as originally presented. Also, the car driver was required to reduce speed upon meeting or passing a horse-drawn vehicle, and if necessary, to stop to avoid frightening the horse.

1864: Russia declared an end to the Russian-Circassian War and many Circassians were forced into exile. The day is designated to be the Circassian Day of Mourning.

1853: The Aquatic Vivarium, the world's first public aquarium, was opened in Regent's Park, London,

1832: The first Democratic National Convention got under way, in Baltimore.

1674: The nobility elected John Sobieski King of Poland and Grand Duke of Lithuania.

0996: Sixteen-year-old Otto III was crowned Holy Roman Emperor.

Births:
1527: Philip II (King of Spain)

1844: Henri Rousseau (French artist)

1922: Robert A. Good (American surgeon) A pioneer of modern immunology who performed the world's first successful human bone marrow transplant in 1968.

1952: Mr. T [Laurence Tureaud] (American actor) [The A-Team, Rocky III]

Deaths:
0987: Louis V (King of France)

1895: Franz von Suppé [Francesco Ezechiele Ermenegildo Cavaliere Suppé Demelli] (Dalmatian-Austrian composer) [Poet & Peasant, Light Cavalry]


Word of the day: boulevardier \boo-luh-var-DYAY; bul-uh-\
Etymology: From French, from boulevard, from Old French bollevart, "rampart converted to a promenade," from Middle Low German bolwerk, "bulwark."
(noun)
1. A frequenter of city boulevards, especially in Paris.
2. A sophisticated, worldly, and socially active man; a man who frequents fashionable places; a man-about-town.


Mistfox - who is a feeling bit off schedule since she has to go in to work this morning instead of tonight (and she'd rather go back to sleep)