Tuesday March 11, 2014 Today is: Dream 2014 Day, Johnny Appleseed Day, Organize Your Home Office Day, World Plumbing Day, National Oatmeal-Nut Waffle Day This Week is: Turkey Vultures Return to the Living Sign 11-17 For my Catholic friends Today is a Feast Day for: St. Aurea, St. Constantine, St. Sophronius of Jerusalem, St. Aengus, St. Amunia, St. Benedict Crispus, St. Vigilius, St. Vindician, St. Teresa Margaret Redi, Sts. Trophimus & Thalus, St. Candidus, St. Eulogius of Cordoba, St. Euthymius of Sardis, St. Firmian, St. Heraclius and Zosimus, St. Peter the Spaniard On This Day in History: 1779 - Congress establishes the U.S. Army Corps of Engineers to help plan, design and prepare environmental and structural facilities for the U.S. Army. Made up of civilian workers, members of the Continental Army and French officers, the U.S. Army Corps of Engineers played an essential role in the critical Revolutionary War battles at Bunker Hill, Saratoga and Yorktown. 1791 - Samuel Mulliken of Philadelphia, Pennsylvania received a patent for a machine to thresh corn and grain. 1818 - Frankenstein; or, The Modern Prometheus is published. The book, by 21-year-old Mary Wollstonecraft Shelley, is frequently called the worlds first science fiction novel. In Shelleys tale, a scientist animates a creature constructed from dismembered corpses. The gentle, intellectually gifted creature is enormous and physically hideous. Cruelly rejected by its creator, it wanders, seeking companionship and becoming increasingly brutal as it fails to find a mate. Mary Shelley created the story on a rainy afternoon in 1816 in Geneva, where she was staying with her husband, the poet Percy Bysshe Shelley, and their friend Lord Byron. Byron proposed they each write a gothic ghost story, but only Mary Shelley completed hers. Although serving as the basis for the Western horror story and the inspiration for numerous movies in the 20th century, the book Frankenstein is much more than pop fiction. The story explores philosophical themes and challenges Romantic ideals about the beauty and goodness of nature. 1853 - Self rising flour was supposedly invented by Henry Jones of Bristol, UK. (Other sources cite Jones as patenting self-rising flour in 1845.) 1861 - In Montgomery, Alabama, delegates from South Carolina, Mississippi, Florida, Alabama, Georgia, Louisiana, and Texas adopt the Permanent Constitution of the Confederate States of America. 1862 - President Abraham Lincoln issues War Order No. 3, a measure making several changes at the top of the Union Army command structure. Lincoln created three departments, placing Henry Halleck in charge of the West, John C. Fremont in command of troops in the Appalachian region, and George McClellan in charge in the East. 1865 - General William T. Sherman captures the town of Fayetteville, North Carolina, and destroys the arsenal there. 1888 - In the Northeastern U.S. the Great Blizzard of 1888 began 3 days of snow, wind and freezing weather killing more than 400 people and dumping as much as 4 feet of snow fell with drifts exceeding 20 feet, shutting down all communication and transportation. New York City ground to a near halt in the face of massive snow drifts and powerful winds from the storm. At the time, approximately one in every four Americans lived in the area between Washington D.C. and Maine, the area affected by the Great Blizzard of 1888. 1901 - The Cincinnati Enquirer reports the signing of a mysterious player named Chief Tokohama to baseball’s Baltimore Orioles by manager John McGraw. Chief Tokohama was later revealed to be Charlie Grant, an African-American second baseman. McGraw was attempting to draw upon the great untapped resource of African-American baseball talent in the face of baseball’s unspoken rule banning black players from the major leagues. 1918 - The first U.S. cases of the deadly Spanish Influenza were reported at the Army hospital in Fort Riley, Kansas. The pandemic killed more than 600,000 Americans, and almost 40 million people worldwide. 1941 - President Franklin D. Roosevelts Lend-Lease program, which provides money and materials for allies in the war, goes into effect. 1942 - After struggling against great odds to save the Philippines from Japanese conquest, U.S. General Douglas MacArthur abandons the island fortress of Corregidor under orders from President Franklin Roosevelt. Left behind at Corregidor and on the Bataan Peninsula were 90,000 American and Filipino troops, who, lacking food, supplies, and support, would soon succumb to the Japanese offensive. 1967 - U.S. 1st Infantry Division troops engage in one of the heaviest battles of Operation Junction City. The fierce fighting resulted in 210 reported North Vietnamese casualties. Operation Junction City was an effort to smash the communist stronghold in Tay Ninh Province and surrounding areas along the Cambodian border northwest of Saigon. The purpose of the operation was to drive the Viet Cong and North Vietnamese troops away from populated areas and into the open, where superior American firepower could be more effectively used. Junction City was the largest operation of the war to date, involving more than 25,000 troops. 1985 - Capping his rapid rise through the Communist Party hierarchy, Mikhail Gorbachev is selected as the new general secretary and leader of the Soviet Union, following the death of Konstantin Chernenko the day before. Gorbachev oversaw a radical transformation of Soviet society and foreign policy during the next six years. 1989 - COPS, a documentary-style television series that follows police officers and sheriffs deputies as they go about their jobs, debuts on Fox. COPS went on to become one of the longest-running shows in television history. 1990 - Lithuania proclaims its independence from the USSR, the first Soviet republic to do so. The Soviet government responded by imposing an oil embargo and economic blockade against the Baltic republic, and later sent troops. 1991 - Janet Jackson signs a $32 million three-album record deal with Virgin Records. 1993 - Janet Reno is confirmed by the Senate as the first female attorney general in U.S. history. 1997 - Paul McCartney, a former member of the most successful rock band in history, The Beatles, was knighted by Queen Elizabeth II for his services to music. The 54-year-old lad from Liverpool became Sir Paul in a centuries-old ceremony of pomp and solemnity at Buckingham Palace in central London. Fans waited outside in a scene reminiscent of Beatlemania of the 1960s. Crowds screamed as McCartney swept through the gates in his chauffeur-driven limousine and he answered with a thumbs-up. 2004 - 191 people are killed and nearly 2,000 are injured when 10 bombs explode on four trains in three Madrid-area train stations during a busy morning rush hour. The bombs were later found to have been detonated by mobile phones. The attacks, the deadliest against civilians on European soil since the 1988 Lockerbie airplane bombing, were initially suspected to be the work of the Basque separatist militant group ETA. This was soon proved incorrect as evidence mounted against an extreme Islamist militant group loosely tied to, but thought to be working in the name of, al-Qaida. 2008 - San Francisco passed a law requiring chain restaurants (with 20 or more locations in California) to post nutrition information on their menus. 2009 - The Toyota Motor Company announces that it has sold over 1 million gas-electric hybrid vehicles in the U.S. under its six Toyota and Lexus brands. The sales were led by the Prius, the worlds first mass-market hybrid car, which was launched in Japan in October 1997 and introduced in America in July 2000. Born on This Day: 1885 - Sir Malcolm Campbell, English racing motorist and motoring journalist. He gained the world speed record on land and on water at various times during the 1920s and 1930s using vehicles called Blue Bird. He broke the land speed record for the first time in 1924 at 146.16 mph (235.22 km/h) at Pendine Sands near Carmarthen Bay in a 350HP V12 Sunbeam, now on display at the National Motor Museum, Beaulieu. Campbell broke nine land speed records between 1924 and 1935, with three at Pendine Sands and five at Daytona Beach. His first two records were driving a racing car built by Sunbeam. On 4 February 1927 Campbell set the land speed record at Pendine Sands, covering the Flying Kilometre (in an average of two runs) at 174.883 mph (281.447 km/h) and the Flying Mile in 174.224 mph (280.386 km/h), in the Napier-Campbell Blue Bird. He set his final land speed record at the Bonneville Salt Flats in Utah on 3 September 1935, and was the first person to drive an automobile over 300 mph, averaging 301.337 mph (484.955 km/h) in two passes. 1890 - Vannevar Bush, American engineer, inventor and science administrator, whose most important contribution was as head of the U.S. Office of Scientific Research and Development (OSRD) during World War II, through which almost all wartime military R&D was carried out, including initiation and early administration of the Manhattan Project. His office was considered one of the key factors in winning the war. He is also known in engineering for his work on analog computers, for founding Raytheon, and for the memex, an adjustable microfilm viewer with a structure analogous to that of the World Wide Web. In 1945, Bush published As We May Think in which he predicted that wholly new forms of encyclopedias will appear, ready made with a mesh of associative trails running through them, ready to be dropped into the memex and there amplified. The memex influenced generations of computer scientists, who drew inspiration from its vision of the future. 1903 - Lawrence Welk, American musician, accordionist, bandleader, and television impresario, who hosted The Lawrence Welk Show from 1955 to 1982. His style came to be known to his large number of radio, television, and live-performance fans (and critics) as champagne music. In 1996, Welk was ranked #43 on TV Guides 50 Greatest TV Stars of All Time. 1931 - Keith Rupert Murdoch, Australian American business magnate. Murdoch became managing director of Australias News Limited, inherited from his father, in 1952. He is the founder, Chairman and CEO of global media holding company News Corporation, the worlds second-largest media conglomerate, and its successors News Corp and 21st Century Fox after the conglomerate split on 28 June 2013. 1934 - Samuel Andrew Sam Donaldson Jr., American reporter and news anchor, serving with ABC News from 1967 to the present. He is best known as the networks White House Correspondent (1977–89 and 1998–99) and as a panelist and later co-anchor of the networks Sunday Program This Week. 1936 - Antonin Gregory Scalia, Associate Justice of the Supreme Court of the United States. As the longest-serving justice currently on the Court, Scalia is the Senior Associate Justice. Appointed to the Court by President Ronald Reagan in 1986, Scalia has been described as the intellectual anchor of the Courts conservative wing. 1950 - Robert Keith Bobby McFerrin Jr., American vocalist and conductor. He is best known for his 1988 hit song Dont Worry, Be Happy. He is a ten-time Grammy Award winner. He is known for his unique vocal techniques, including giving the illusion of polyphony by singing an accompaniment alongside the melody, making use of percussive effects and making large jumps in pitch; as well as improvising much of his performed music, including melody, chords and sounds in a form of scat singing. He is nearly unique in having performed and recorded regularly as an unaccompanied solo vocal artist. However, he also collaborated frequently with other artists, from both the jazz and classical worlds. 1968 - Lisa Anne Loeb, American singer-songwriter and actress. She launched her career in 1994 with the song, Stay (I Missed You), which was included in the film Reality Bites. She was the first artist to have a number one single in the United States while not signed to a recording contract. Her five studio CDs include her major label debut, the gold-selling Tails and its follow-up, the Grammy-nominated, gold-selling Firecracker. 1982 - Thora Birch, American actress. She got her first role at the age of 6 in the short-lived sitcom Day by Day, that performance was followed by an appearance in the motion picture Purple People Eater (1988), for which she received a Young Artist Award for Best Young Actress Under Nine Years of Age. Birchs profile was raised significantly with major parts in films such as All I Want for Christmas (1991), Patriot Games (1992), Hocus Pocus (1993), Monkey Trouble (1994), Now and Then (1995), and Alaska (1996). Died on This Day: 1845 - John Chapman a.k.a. Johnny Appleseed, American pioneer nurseryman who introduced apple trees to large parts of Pennsylvania, Ohio, Indiana, and Illinois, as well as the northern counties of present day West Virginia. He became an American legend while still alive, due to his kind, generous ways, his leadership in conservation, and the symbolic importance he attributed to apples. He was also a missionary for The New Church (Swedenborgian) and the inspiration for many museums and historical sights such as the Johnny Appleseed Museum in Urbana, Ohio and the Johnny Appleseed Heritage Center in between Lucas, Ohio and Mifflin, Ohio. 1884 - Ben Thompson,Gunman, gambler, and sometimes lawman of the Old West. He was a contemporary of Buffalo Bill Cody, Bat Masterson, John Wesley Hardin and Wild Bill Hickock, some of whom considered him a friend, others an enemy. Thompson fought for the Confederacy during the American Civil War, and for the emperor in Mexico. When hired in 1881 as marshal in Austin, Texas, the crime rate reportedly dropped sharply during his term. Thompson was murdered at the age of 40 in San Antonio, Texas during the Vaudeville Theater Ambush. 1955 - Sir Alexander Fleming, Scottish biologist, pharmacologist and botanist. He wrote many articles on bacteriology, immunology, and chemotherapy. His best-known discoveries are the enzyme lysozyme in 1923 and the antibiotic substance penicillin from the mould Penicillium notatum in 1928, for which he shared the Nobel Prize in Physiology or Medicine in 1945 with Howard Florey and Ernst Boris Chain. 1957 - Rear Admiral Richard Evelyn Byrd, Jr., USN, American naval officer who specialized in feats of exploration. He was a pioneering American aviator, polar explorer, and organizer of polar logistics. Aircraft flights, in which he served as a navigator and expedition leader, crossed the Atlantic Ocean, a segment of the Arctic Ocean, and a segment of the Antarctic Plateau. Byrd claimed that his expeditions had been the first to reach the North Pole and the South Pole by air. However, majority of polar experts are now of the opinion that Roald Amundsen has the first verifiable claim to each pole. Byrd was a recipient of the Medal of Honor, the highest honor for heroism given by the United States. 1970 - Erle Stanley Gardner, American lawyer and author of detective stories. Best known for the Perry Mason series. 1971 - Philo Taylor Farnsworth, American inventor and television pioneer. He made many contributions that were crucial to the early development of all-electronic television. He is perhaps best known for inventing the first fully functional all-electronic image pickup device (video camera tube), the image dissector, as well as the first fully functional and complete all-electronic television system. He was also the first person to demonstrate such a system to the public. Farnsworth developed a television system complete with receiver and camera, which he produced commercially in the firm of the Farnsworth Television and Radio Corporation, from 1938 to 1951. In later life, Farnsworth invented a small nuclear fusion device, the Farnsworth–Hirsch fusor, or simply fusor, employing inertial electrostatic confinement (IEC). Although not a practical device for generating nuclear energy, the fusor serves as a viable source of neutrons. The design of this device has been the acknowledged inspiration for other fusion approaches including the Polywell reactor concept in terms of a general approach to fusion design. Farnsworth held 165 patents, mostly in radio and television. 2006 - Slobodan Milošević, Serbian and Yugoslav politician who was the President of Serbia (originally the Socialist Republic of Serbia) from 1989 to 1997 and President of the Federal Republic of Yugoslavia from 1997 to 2000. Among his supporters, Milošević was known by the nickname of Sloba. He also led the Socialist Party of Serbia from its foundation in 1990. His presidency was marked by the breakup of Yugoslavia and the subsequent Yugoslav Wars. In the midst of the NATO bombing of Yugoslavia in 1999, Milošević was charged with war crimes including genocide, and crimes against humanity in connection to the wars in Bosnia, Croatia and Kosovo by the International Criminal Tribunal for the former Yugoslavia (ICTY). 2007 - Betty Hutton (Born Elizabeth June Thornburg), American stage, film, and television actress, comedienne and singer. When Buddy DeSylva became a producer at Paramount Pictures, Hutton was signed to a featured role in The Fleets In (1942), starring Paramounts number one female star Dorothy Lamour. Hutton was an instant hit with the movie-going public. Paramount did not immediately promote her to major stardom, however, but did give her second leads in a Mary Martin film musical, Star Spangled Rhythm (1943), and another Lamour film. In 1943 she was given co-star billing with Bob Hope in Lets Face It and with the release of The Miracle of Morgans Creek the following year, Hutton attained major stardom. By the time Incendiary Blonde was released in 1945, she had supplanted Lamour as Paramounts number one female box office attraction. If you were born on this day in 1976 your parents may have been listening to the radio while The Miracles were at the top of Billboard Magazines Hot 100 with their hit single Love Machine (Part 1). Love Machine is a 1975 single recorded by Motown group The Miracles, taken from their album City of Angels.This song was a # 1 Pop smash on the Billboard Hot 100, and the biggest-selling hit single of The Miracles career. This single was one of two Billboard Hot 100 Top 20 hits recorded by The Miracles with Billy Griffin as lead vocalist; the other is 1973s Do It Baby. Griffin had replaced Miracles founder Smokey Robinson as lead singer in 1972. The song features a growling vocal by Miracle Bobby Rogers, with group baritone Ronnie White repeating Yeah Baby throughout the song. Love Machine was a multi-million selling Platinum single, and a number-one smash hit on the U.S. Billboard Hot 100, and, with 4.5 million copies sold, was the best-selling single of The Miracles career. The single went to #5 on the Hot Soul Singles chart, and went to #20 on Record Worlds National Disco file Top 20 chart. It was also a Top 10 hit in the UK, peaking at number three on the UK Singles Chart.
Posted on: Tue, 11 Mar 2014 16:26:53 +0000