February 1, 2016

Monday, February 1, 2016

The 32 day of the year

334 days left to go 

THIS WEEK IS 

• African Heritage & Health Week
• Burn Awareness Week
• Children's Authors & Illustrators Week
• International Coaching Week
• Just Say No to PowerPoint Week
• Solo Diners Eat Out Weekend
• Women's Heart Week
• National School Counseling Week
• International Networking Week
• International Hoof-Care Week
• Publicity for Profit Week

TODAY IS

• Car Insurance Day
• Change Your Password Day 
• Decorating With Candy Day
• G.I. Joe Day
• Hula in The Coola Day
• International Face & Body Art Day  
• Freedom Day
• Robinson Crusoe Day
• Serpent Day 
• Spunky Old Broads Day (also all month)
• National Baked Alaska Day
• National Cake Pop Day 

ON THIS DATE...

1788: Isaac Briggs and William Longstreet patented the steamboat.

1861: Texas, a U.S. state for only 16 years, voted to secede from the Union.
1862: "The Battle Hymn of the Republic," by Julia Ward Howe, was first published in "Atlantic Monthly."
1887: Harvey Wilcox of Kansas started selling off 120 acres he owned in Southern California as a real estate development. His wife, Daeida, named it Hollywood.
1919: The first Miss America was crowned, in New York City.

1920: The Royal Canadian Mounted Police, the Mounties, were created (Link).

1920: The first armored car was introduced. 
1930: The Times published its first crossword puzzle
1949: RCA Victor introduced the 45, a smaller record with a larger hole than the long-play 33-and-a-third disc introduced earlier by Columbia Records.
1960: Four black college students began a sit-in protest at a lunch counter in Greensboro, North Carolina, where they'd been refused service.

1964: The governor of Indiana declared that the Kingsmen's hit "Louie Louie" was a filthy song. He asked the state's radio stations not to play it (Read More) (Song)

1982: ''Late Night with David Letterman'' premiered on NBC-TV.
2001: Sparks generated by bottom static may have caused two gas station fires in Hannibal, Missouri. Experts think the energy built up when drivers slid from their seats and sparks flew from their fingers. Nobody was hurt but both cars were burned. A fire department spokesman said static should be removed by touching the car's body before picking up the pump handle.
2003: A Taiwanese man who suffered from a severe cough for many years was cured when surgeons removed a sewing needle from his back. The man could not recall ever feeling a needle sticking him in the back, but his wife said she had lost a needle on their bed several years earlier. Doctors said the needle irritated the man's lungs.
2006: A 100-pound woman ate 26 grilled cheese sandwiches in 10 minutes at a New York restaurant to win the World Grilled Cheese Eating Championship. Sonya Thomas won $8,000 but said she was disappointed in her performance. She wanted to eat 30 sandwiches. 

2007: Antonio Vasconcelos, born in Cancun, Mexico, was an enormous 22 inches long and weighed 14 and-a-half pounds! "Super Tonio" had to wear diapers designed for 6-month-olds. Doctors said he was relatively healthy, but his blood sugar was higher than the average newborn (Read more)




HISTORY SPOTLIGHT 

First Publication of the Oxford English Dictionary in 1884  (Source) 

On February 1, 1884, editors published the first volume of what would become the Oxford English Dictionary. The fascicle—one part of a larger book, this one 352 pages covering “a” through “ant”—sold only 4,000 copies. Since then, the OED has become one of the most respected and comprehensive dictionaries in the world.

The book, originally titled A New English Dictionary on Historical Principles; Founded Mainly on the Materials Collected by The Philological Society, was far from the first dictionary of the English language. (That would probably be Thomas Elyot’s “wordbook,” published in 1538.) However, an elite group of intellectuals was dissatisfied with the existing dictionaries, and set out to correct mistakes and add more words.

The last printed edition of the OED was published in 1989, and contained 20 volumes. Always being updated, the current OED—from “a” through “Zyzzogeton” (a type of South American insect!)—only exists in an electronic format available to subscribers.



QUICK TRIVIA 
Five Food Finds about Cake Pops (Source)

A cake pop is cake, baked in an appealing shape, hand dipped in frosting, and decorated to taste, all on a stick to be eaten as candy.
While there is no recorded date for the creation of cake pops. Most people say that Bakerella, a popular baking blog, helped make then a “pop” phenomenon. See Pinterest below
In 2011, cake pops were considered the newest and most popular confectionery food trends
Other variations of cake pops are cake balls, cakesicles, cupcake pops, and cake-on-a-stick.
Cake pops in recent years have become ubiquitous to Starbucks coffee shops.



WORD OF THE DAY

Verboten
[ver-boht-n; Ger. fer-boht-n] –adjective 

forbidden, as by law; prohibited.

"Eve ate of the verboten fruit and gave some to her husband"




WORD FROM THE WORD

And He spake a parable unto them to this end, that men ought always to pray, and not to faint.--Luke 18:1


Read "Our Daily Bread"