On This Day:
Wednesday December 11, 2013 This is the 345th day of the year, with 20 days remaining in 2013. Fact of the Day: puffer fish A puffer fish inflates its body with water into a spherical shape in order to defend itself. When the puffer fish is distended, it can barely move, but its spines and size make it practically impossible to attack. When it is lifted out of the water, it can still inflate with air as a defense. In Japan, the puffer fish is called fugu and the meat is considered a delicacy. However, puffer fish contain a highly toxic substance in the liver and intestines, so unless the preparation is done very carefully, the meat can be deadly; about 100 people die annually in Japan from eating puffer fish. The puffer fish is one of the few fish species that can blink and close its eyes. It also goes by the name swellfish or blowfish.
Holidays Feast day of St. Daniel the Stylite, St. Damasus, pope, Saints Fuscianus, Victoricus and Gentianus, and St. Barsabas.
Burkina Faso: National Holiday (independence, 1958).
Events 1769 - Edward Beran of London patented Venetian blinds.
1816 - Indiana became the 19th U.S. state.
1844 - Nitrous oxide was first used in dentistry.
1872 - Pinckney Benton Stewart Pinchback became acting governor of Louisiana, becoming the first black governor of the United States.
1929 - The Empire State Building's design was announced.
1936 - Edward VIII abdicated to marry Wallis Warfield Simpson, an American-born divorcee. The Duke of York, his brother, became King George VI.
1941 - Germany and Italy declared war on the United States; the United States responded in kind.
1946 - The United Nations International Children's Emergency Fund (UNICEF) was established.
1961 - President John F. Kennedy ordered helicopter crewmen to South Vietnam to provide training and support for the South Vietnamese forces.
1967 - The Concorde, created by the British and French and the world's first supersonic airliner, was unveiled in Toulouse, France.
1980 - President Jimmy Carter signed into a law legislation creating a $1.6 billion environmental "Superfund" to pay for cleaning up chemical spills and toxic waste dumps.
1994 - Russian forces invaded the breakaway republic of Chechnya.
1997 - More than 150 countries agreed to control the Earth's greenhouse gases at a global warming conference in Kyoto, Japan.
1998 - Republicans on the House Judiciary Committee pushed through three articles of impeachment against President Bill Clinton, over the minority Democratic objections.
2001 - U.S. prosecutors charged Zacarias Moussaoui, a French citizen of Moroccan descent, with conspiring to murder thousands in the Sept. 11 suicide hijackings.
Births 1475 - Pope Leo X (Giovanni de' Medici), excommunicated Martin Luther, bestowed title of Defender of the Faith upon Henry VIII.
1803 - Hector Berlioz, French composer.
1918 - Aleksandr Solzhenitsyn, dissident Russian writer.
1944 - Brenda Lee, a country-western signer and former teen idol.
1949 - Teri Garr, American actress.
Deaths 1513 - Bernardino Pinturicchio, Italian Renaissance painter.
1996 - Willy Rushton, English comedian.
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