On this day

On This Day:
Friday July 19, 2013

This is the 200th day of the year, with 165 days remaining in 2013.

Fact of the Day: figure of speech

Figures of speech include any intentional deviation from the literal that emphasizes, clarifies, or embellishes both written and spoken language. An important part of language, figures of speech are found in primitive oral literature as well as in polished poetry and prose and in everyday speech.

Holidays

Feast day of Saints Justa and Rufina, St. Ambrose Autpert, St. Macrina the Younger, St. Arsenius the Great, St. James of Nisibia, St. Symmachus, pope, and St. John Plesington.
Nicaragua: National Liberation Day.

Events

1799 - During Napoleon Bonaparte's Egyptian campaign, a French soldier discovered the Rosetta Stone, a black basalt slab inscribed with ancient writing, about 35 miles north of Alexandria.
1848 - In Seneca Falls, New York, a women's rights convention called by Elizabeth Cady Stanton and Lucretia C. Mott -- the first ever held in the U.S. -- convened.
1870 - The Franco-Prussian War began. 
1903 - The first Tour de France cycle race was won by Maurice Garin.
1941 - British Prime Minister Winston Churchill launched his "V for Victory" campaign in Europe.
1969 - Apollo 11 and its astronauts, Neil Armstrong, Edwin "Buzz" Aldrin, and Michael Collins, went into orbit around the Moon. 
1986 - Caroline Kennedy, daughter of President John F. Kennedy, married Edwin A. Schlossberg in Centerville, Massachusetts. 
1989 - United Airlines flight 232 crashes in Sioux City, Iowa killing 112 of 296 passengers on board.
2006 - Dublin City FC ceased trading and resigned from the Eircom League.

Births

1814 - Samuel Colt, American inventor of the revolver.
1834 - Edgar Degas, French artist.
1846 - Edward Charles Pickering, American physicist and astronomer.
1865 - Charles Mayo, American surgeon, founded Mayo Clinic / Mayo Foundation with his brother.
1946 - Ilie Năstase, Romanian tennis player.
1962 - Anthony Edwards, American actor.

Deaths

1374 - Petrarch, Italian scholar and poet.
1814 - Captain Matthew Flinders, English explorer of Australia.
1896 - Abraham H. Cannon, American Mormon apostle.
1910 - Johann Gottfried Galle, German astronomer.
2004 - Zenko Suzuki, Japanese politician and the 70th Prime Minister of Japan.

On This Day:
Saturday July 20, 2013

This is the 201st day of the year, with 164 days remaining in 2013.

Fact of the Day: Mount Everest

Mount Everest is the highest mountain in the world. It is 29,035 feet high and lies on the border between Nepal and Tibet. It was recognized as the highest place on Earth in 1852 and is named after Sir George Everest, who was the British Surveyor-General of India from 1830 to 1843. New Zealand mountain climber Sir Edmund Hillary, along with Sherpa guide Tenzing Norgay, became the first to reach the summit of Mount Everest on May 29, 1953.

Holidays

Feast day of St. Margaret of Antioch, St. Elias of Jerusalem, St. Ansegisus, St. Aurelius of Carthage, St. Flavian of Antioch, St. Wulmar, St. Gregory Lopez, St. Wilgefortis or Liberata, and St. Joseph Barsabas the Just.
Colombia: Independence Day.
Japan: Marine Day.

Events

1810 - Colombia declared its independence from Spain. 
1861 - The Congress of the Confederate States began holding sessions in Richmond, Virginia. 
1871 - British Columbia entered Confederation as a Canadian province. 
1881 - Sioux Indian leader Sitting Bull, a fugitive since the Battle of the Little Big Horn, surrendered to federal troops. 
1917 - The draft lottery in World War I went into operation.
1940 - "Billboard" magazine published its first "Top Ten Singles" record chart.
1942 - The first detachment of the Women's Army Auxiliary Corps began basic training at Fort Des Moines, Iowa. 
1944 - An attempt by a group of German officials to assassinate Adolf Hitler with a bomb failed as the explosion at Hitler's Rastenburg headquarters only wounded the Nazi leader. 
1968 - During a BBC radio interview, actress Jane Asher announced that her engagement to Beatle Paul McCartney was off; he was not the first to find out.
1969 - Apollo 11 astronauts Neil Armstrong and Edwin "Buzz" Aldrin became the first men to walk on the Moon.
1976 - America's Viking I robot spacecraft made a successful, first-ever landing on Mars.
1990 - An Irish Republican Army bomb explodes at the International Stock Exchange in London.
1992 - Václav Havel resigns as president of Czechoslovakia.
2001 - The 27th annual G8 summit opens in Genoa, Italy.

Births

1304 - Petrarch, Italian poet.
1591 - Anne Hutchinson, religious liberal, one of the founders of Rhode Island.
1919 - Sir Edmund Hillary, New Zealand-born explorer, first to climb Mt. Everest.
1938 - Natalie Wood, American actress.
1942 - T. G. Sheppard (born Billy Neal Browder), American country singer.
1947 - Carlos Santana, Mexican-born Latin rock musician and guitarist.
1953 - Thomas Friedman, American journalist.
1964 - Chris Cornell (born Christopher John Boyle), American musician and singer.

Deaths

1923 - Pancho Villa, Mexican revolutionary.
1937 - Guglielmo Marconi, Italian inventor of the wireless telegraph.
1951 - King Abdullah of Jordan, assassinated by a Palestinian nationalist.
1967 - Albert Lutuli, South African civil rights leader, recipient of the 1960 Nobel Peace Prize.
1973 - Bruce Lee, Chinese-American actor and martial artist.
2005 - James Doohan, Canadian-born actor, as the chief engineer of the Starship Enterprise in the original "Star Trek" TV series and motion pictures.

On This Day:
Sunday July 21, 2013

This is the 202nd day of the year, with 163 days remaining in 2013.

Fact of the Day: amphibians

Amphibians are a group of creatures that are able to live both on land and in the water. They have existed for millions of years and are found everywhere but Antarctica and Greenland. Frogs are the most widespread amphibians, surviving in deserts, rain forests, and mountainous regions. Most amphibians breed in water, where they lay eggs that develop into tadpoles. Tadpoles breathe through gills until they develop lungs for breathing on land; this process is called metamorphosis. The name amphibian is derived from Greek amphibios, meaning "living a double life" - for the ability to live in both aquatic and terrestrial habitats. Despite the name, there are actually some species that are permanent land dwellers and others with a completely aquatic mode of existence.

Holidays

Feast day of St. Laurence of Brindisi, St. Victor of Marseilles, St. Arbogastes, and St. Praxedes.
Belgium: National Day.
Guam: Liberation Day.

Events

1733 - John Winthrop was granted the first honorary Doctor of Law degree in the U.S., by Harvard College.
1798 - The Battle of the Pyramids took place, in which Napoleon, soon after his invasion of Egypt, defeated an army of some 60,000 Mamelukes.
1831 - Belgium became independent as Leopold I was proclaimed king. 
1861 - The first Battle of Bull Run was fought at Manassas, Virginia -- a Confederate victory. 
1925 - John T. Scopes was convicted of violating state law for teaching Darwin's Theory of Evolution (later overturned).
1930 - The U.S. Veterans Administration was established.
1944 - Guam, in the western Pacific Ocean, which had been under Japanese occupation since Dec 1941, was retaken by U.S. Marines.
1949 - The U.S. Senate ratified the North Atlantic Treaty. 
1954 - France surrendered North Vietnam to the Communists.
1961 - Captain Virgil "Gus" Grissom became the second American to go into space on the final suborbital Mercury test flight aboard theLiberty Bell 7.
1970 - The Aswan High Dam across the Nile River in Egypt is completed.
2002 - Telecommunications giant WorldCom, Inc. filed for bankruptcy protection, shortly after disclosing it had inflated profits by nearly $4 billion through deceptive accounting.
2004 - The September 11 panel was harshly critical of the U.S. government in its voluminous report released after a 19-month investigation. The report called for sweeping changes in American intelligence agencies.

Births

1816 - Paul Julius von Reuter, German news agency founder.
1899 - Ernest Hemingway, American Pulitzer Prize and Nobel Prize-winning author.
1899 - Hart Crane, American poet.
1911 - Marshall McLuhan, Canadian-born university professor and author.
1920 - Isaac Stern, American concert violin impresario.

Deaths

1796 - Robert Burns, Scottish poet.
1967 - Basil Rathbone, British character actor.

On This Day:
Monday July 22, 2013

This is the 203rd day of the year, with 162 days remaining in 2013.

Fact of the Day: Pied Piper

The legend of the Pied Piper dates back to 1284. The German town of Hamelin had a rat problem and hired a rat-catcher to get rid of the rats. The rat-catcher used a pipe to lure the rats out of town with music, leading them into the Weser River where they drowned. The townspeople refused to pay the Pied Piper, so he came back into town several weeks later and lured the town's children away with music into a cave, never to be seen again. According to historians, the story probably got its roots when young men of Hamelin, Germany, left the city on colonizing adventures in Eastern Europe.

Holidays

Feast day of St. Mary Magdalen, St. Joseph of Palestine, St. Philip Evans, St. Vandrille or Wandregesilus, and St. John Lloyd.

Events

1587 - A second English colony, also ill-fated, was established on Roanoke Island off North Carolina.
1793 - Sir Alexander Mackenzie arrived at Canada's Pacific coast.
1796 - Cleveland, Ohio, was founded by General Moses Cleveland. 
1894 - The first automobile race took place between Paris and Rouen, France.
1933 - American aviator Wiley Post completed the first solo flight around the world in 7 days, 18 hours, and 49 minutes.
1934 - Notorious criminal John Dillinger, America's "Public Enemy No. 1," was shot and killed outside a Chicago theater by federal agents.
1943 - American forces led by General George S. Patton captured Palermo, Sicily. 
1944 - The Bretton Woods Conference, (in New Hampshire), created the International Monetary Fund.
2003 - Saddam Hussein's sons Uday Hussein and Qusay Hussein were killed when American forces stormed a villa in Mosul, Iraq.

Births

1784 - Friedrich Wilhelm Bessel, German astronomer and mathematician.
1822 - Gregor Mendel, Austrian monk and botanist.
1881 - Margery Williams Bianco, British-born American author.
1890 - Rose Kennedy, mother of U.S. President John F. Kennedy, U.S. Attorney General Robert Kennedy, U.S. Senator Edward Kennedy.
1893 - Karl Menninger, American psychiatrist.
1898 - Stephen Vincent Benet, American author, Pulitzer Prize-winning poet.
1899 - Alexander Calder, American sculptor.
1908 - Amy Vanderbilt, American journalist and authority on etiquette.

Deaths

1934 - John Dillinger, American bank robber.
1976 - Mortimer Wheeler, British archaeologist.

On This Day: Tuesday July 23, 2013 This is the 204th day of the year, with 161 days remaining in 2013. Fact of the Day: Parents' Day The fourth Sunday in July is designated as Parents' Day by the U.S. Congress in honor of parents. In 1994, President Bill Clinton signed into law the resolution unanimously adopted by the U. S. Congress establishing Parents' Day. Holidays Ethiopia: National Day. United Arab Republic: National Day. Feast day of St. Anne or Susanna, St. John Cassian, St. Romula and her Companions, St. Apollinaris of Ravenna, the Three Wise Men, St. Bridget of Sweden, and St. Liborius. Egypt: National Day / Anniversary of the Revolution of 1952. Events 1715 - The first lighthouse in America was authorized for construction at Little Brewster Island, Massachusetts. 1829 - William A. Burt patented his "typographer," a forerunner of the typewriter. 1903 - The Ford Motor Company sold its first automobile to a doctor in Detroit. 1914 - Austria-Hungary issued an ultimatum to Serbia following the killing of Archduke Francis Ferdinand by a Serb assassin; the dispute led to World War I. 1952 - Egyptian military officers led by Gamal Abdel Nasser overthrew King Farouk I. 1984 - Vanessa Williams became the first Miss America to resign her title, because of nude photographs of her that ended up in Penthouse magazine. 1995 - Two astronomers, Alan Hale in New Mexico and Thomas Bopp in Arizona, almost simultaneously discovered the comet Hale-Bopp. 2000 - American Tiger Woods, at age 24, became the youngest golfer to win the career Grand Slam with a record-breaking performance in the British Open. Births 1834 - Roman Catholic Cardinal James Gibbons, champion of labor and advocate of the separation of church and state. 1892 - Haile Selassie I, emperor of Ethiopia (1930-74). 1894 - Vincent Sardi, American restaurateur. 1894 - Arthur Treacher, English character actor. 1921 - Calvert DeForest, American comedic actor, best known for his appearances on Late Night with David Letterman and the Late Show with David Letterman, as the character Larry "Bud" Melman. 1935 - Jim Hall, race car driver and race car innovator, born in Abilene, Texas. 1940 - Don Imus, American talk radio host. 1965 - Slash (born Saul Hudson), English guitarist. 1973 - Monica Lewinsky, White House intern, born in San Francisco, California. 1981 - Steve Jocz, Canadian drummer for the pop punk band Sum 41. 1983 - Aaron Peirsol, competitive swimmer born in Irvine, California. 1989 - Daniel Radcliffe, film, television, and stage actor, born in West London, England. Deaths 1875 - Isaac Singer, American inventor who developed and brought into general use the domestic sewing machine. 1885 - Ulysses Grant, American Civil War general and 18th President of the United States of America. 1923 - Pancho Villa (born Doroteo Arango Arámbula), Mexican Revolutionary leader. 1930 - Glenn Curtiss, American aviation pioneer. 1948 - D. W. Griffith, pioneering film director, born in La Grange, Kentucky. 1973 - Eddie Rickenbacker, celebrated American World War I fighter pilot. 2001 - Eudora Welty, American Pulitzer Prize-winning writer. 2007 - Mohammed Zahir Shah, King of Afghanistan.