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| Peach Melba Day |
Fun Facts for Tuesday, January 13, 2015
The 13 day of the year
352 days left to go
THIS WEEK IS
- Universal Letter Writing Week
- Cuckoo Dancing Week
- National Vocation Awareness Week
- National Soccer Coaches of America Week
- No Tillage Week
TODAY IS
- Bean Day
- Make Your Dream Come True Day
- National Poetry at Work Day
- Public Radio Broadcasting Day
- Rubber Duckie Day
- National Peach Melba Day (Recipe)
ON THIS DATE...
1815: War of 1812: British troops capture Fort Peter in St. Marys, Georgia, the only battle of the war to take place in the state.
1830: The Great fire of New Orleans, Louisiana begins.
1840: The steamship Lexington burns and sinks four miles off the coast of Long Island with the loss of 139 lives.
1842: Dr. William Brydon, an assistant surgeon in the British East India Company Army during the First Anglo-Afghan War, becomes famous for being the sole survivor of an army of 4,500 men and 12,000 camp followers when he reaches the safety of a garrison in Jalalabad, Afghanistan.
1854: the accordion was patented by Anthony Faas of Philadelphia, Pennsylvania (Just for fun)
1906: radio receivers were advertised for the first time ever in "Scientific American" magazine. They sold for $7.50.
1910: New York's Metropolitan Opera took part in the first live radio broadcast of opera.
1931: The bridge connecting New York and New Jersey was named the George Washington Memorial Bridge.
1942: Henry Ford patented the plastic-bodied automobile. It allowed for a 30 percent decrease in car weight.
1964: Capitol Records released the Beatles' first single in the USA; "I Wanna Hold Your Hand" sold one million copies in the first three weeks (Song Live)
1966: Robert C. Weaver became the first black Cabinet member. Weaver was appointed Secretary of Housing and Urban Development by President Lyndon B. Johnson.
1966: Elizabeth Montgomery's character Samantha on "Bewitched" gave birth to a baby girl. The child was given the name Tabitha.
1974: the Miami Dolphins defeated the Minnesota Vikings 24-7 in Super Bowl Eight (Link)
1979: singer Donny Hathaway died in a mysterious fall from a 15th floor New York City hotel room. He was 33. The police said Hathaway's death was a suicide, but his friends said it was an accident.
1982: Hank Aaron and Frank Robinson were elected to the Baseball Hall of Fame.
1982: Air Florida Boeing 727 plunges into the Potomac River in Washington, D.C., killing 78 people. The crash, caused by bad weather, took place only two miles from the White House.
1989: the soap opera "Ryan's Hope" aired for the final time on ABC.
1993: President Bush bestowed the Presidential Medal of Freedom on former President Reagan.
1994: FBI agents arrested Tonya Harding's bodyguard and another man in the attack on figure skater Nancy Kerrigan.
1997: seven black soldiers received Medals of Honor for valor during World War Two. Six were awarded posthumously. Former Lieutenant Vernon Baker received his medal from President Clinton at the White House.
1998: the Spice Girls topped Mr. Blackwell's annual Worst-Dressed List. Other artists making the infamous list included Madonna and Marilyn Manson.
1999: the National Basketball Association (NBA) superstar Michael Jordan of the Chicago Bulls announces his retirement from professional basketball, for the second time, in front of a crowd at Chicago’s United Center.
2000: Microsoft chairman Bill Gates stepped aside as chief executive and promoted company president Steve Ballmer to the position.
2003: Who guitarist Pete Townshend was arrested in London in connection with an Internet child pornography investigation.
2012: several people were killed when the 42-hundred passenger cruise liner the Costa Concordia ran aground and capsized off the small island of Giglio off the coast of Italy. The sinking ship and the dramatic rescue efforts drew comparisons to the sinking of the ill-fated Titanic 100 years earlier 1912.
2013: "Argo" and "Les Miserables" were the big winners in the film categories at the 70th Golden Globe Awards.
HISTORY SPOTLIGHT
On this date in 1931, the bridge connecting New York and New Jersey was named the George Washington Memorial Bridge (Source)
The George Washington Bridge stands high above the Hudson River, its eastern end resting on the shores of Manhattan, its western end embedded in the wooded bluffs of New Jersey's Palisades. Twice as long as any previous suspension bridge, it was the marvel of its time and, to some, it will always be the noblest of all bridges. Spanning the river to link New York City and New Jersey had challenged planners and engineers for over 100 years before Othmar Ammann, the brilliant, Swiss-born architect and engineer, proposed a bridge design in 1923 that ultimately was chosen above all others. Ammann's design, bold and foresighted, was an engineering tour de force, with an extraordinary 3,500-foot center span suspended between two 570-foot steel towers, and the strength to carry two levels of roadway or rail.
The physical construction of the bridge is itself a marvel of engineering. The four main cables are each composed of a single strand carried back and forth across the river 61 times. Each strand-itself a bundle of 434 individual wires-wraps around a strand shoe in the anchorage before looping back toward the opposite shore. Each shoe connects to a bar sunk deep into the anchorage that holds the strand in place.
The George Washington Bridge was first opened to traffic in 1931. During the first full year of operation in 1932 more than 5.5 million vehicles used the original six-lane roadway. As traffic demand increased, additional construction became necessary. The two center lanes of the bridge, which had been left unpaved in the original construction, were opened to traffic in 1946, increasing capacity of the bridge by one-third. The six lanes of the lower roadway were completed in 1962.
QUICK TRIVIA
Happy Rubber Duckie Day! (Source)
In January of 1992, a shipment of 29,000 rubber duckies fell off a cargo ship in the Pacific Ocean? By 2007, the “Friendly Floatees” had traveled 17,000 miles around the world on the ocean currents. Some are still afloat today! Over the years, people reported sightings in Indonesia, Australia, South America, the Bering Straight, the Arctic, and (eventually) the Atlantic Ocean.
WORD OF THE DAY
Accord
[uh-kawrd] Noun or Verb
to be in agreement or harmony; agree
"And when they heard this, they lifted their voices to God with one accord and said, "O Lord , it is You who MADE THE HEAVEN AND THE EARTH AND THE SEA, AND ALL THAT IS IN THEM" (Acts 4:24).
INTRIGUING BIBLE FACT
The disciples rejoiced that they were able so suffer for Jesus’ sake
….and after calling the apostles in, they flogged them and ordered them not to speak in the name of Jesus, and then released them. So they went on their way from the presence of the Council , rejoicing that they had been considered worthy to suffer shame for His name. And every day, in the temple and from house to house, they kept right on teaching and preaching Jesus as the Christ (Acts 5:40-42 )
WORD FROM THE WORD
I cried out to God . . . . Who is so great a God as our God? —Psalm 77:1,13
Read today's "Our Daily Bread"
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