On This Day:
Tuesday December 2, 2014 This is the 336th day of the year, with 29 days remaining in 2014. Fact of the Day: animal sight For most nonhuman mammals the ocular refraction (the lens power required to form a clear retinal image of an object at infinity) for optimal distance vision tends strongly towards emmetropia, or perfect vision. Similarly, the variation of distance refraction and the presence of astigmatism is also lower than for humans. Primates brought up in captivity do tend to become myopic. Domestic animals may show similar defects when they get beyond the life expectancy in the wild, and old dogs or cats often go blind from cataracts. Replacing a pet dog's lens is practically a routine operation nowadays. Our technology and ability to cooperate in societies allows us to overcome many of the things that kill other mammals. So relatively minor genetic defects such as poor eyesight tend to accumulate in our gene pool because natural selection cannot act against those individuals that have them. In recent times, anthropologists have noted that Inuit had almost universally perfect eyesight un til significant numbers of them became literate. It appears that literacy causes myopia; the constant switching between long and short distances appears to create myopia.
Holidays Feast day of St. Chromatius of Aquilea, St. Silvanus of Constantinople, St. Nonnus and St. Bibiana or Viviana.
Laos: Lao People's Democratic Republic National Day.
Pan American Health Day.
United Arab Emirates: National Day (independence from Great Britain, 1971).
Events 1763 - In Newport, Rhode Island, the Touro Synagogue became the first synagogue in what was to become the United States.
1804 - Napoleon was crowned the first emperor of France.
1805 - Napoleon defeated the Austrians and Russians at the Battle of Austerlitz.
1816 - The first U.S. savings bank, the Philadelphia Savings Fund Society, opened.
1823 - President James Monroe outlined his doctrine to stop European expansion in the Western hemisphere.
1901 - King Camp Gillette patented a safety razor with a double-edged disposable blade.
1918 - Armenia proclaimed independence from Turkey.
1939 - New York La Guardia Airport opened for business.
1942 - The first self-sustaining nuclear chain reaction was achieved, at the University of Chicago.
1954 - Joseph McCarthy, senator from Wisconsin who was trying to find Communists in the government and entertainment industries, was condemned and silenced by the U.S. Senate.
1961 - Fidel Castro declared himself a Marxist-Leninist who would lead Cuba to Communism.
1969 - The first Boeing 747 jumbo jet flew from Seattle to New York City.
1970 - The Environmental Protection Agency started operations.
1970 - U.S. Senate voted to give 48,000 acres of New Mexico back to the Taos Indians.
1980 - Denali National Monument and Mount McKinley National Park were combined and established as Denali National Park and Preserve in Alaska.
1980 - Alaska's Glacier Bay National Monument, Katmai National Monument, Kenai Fjords National Park, Kobuk Valley National Park, Lake Clark National Park, and Wrangell-Saint Elias National Park and Preserve were established as national parks and preserves.
1982 - Dentist Barney Clark received the first permanent artificial heart, developed by Dr. Robert K. Jarvik.
1990 - West German Chancellor Helmut Kohl was elected chancellor of a united Germany.
1997 - The U.S. Food and Drug Administration (FDA) approved the irradiation of pork, beef, and lamb in the wake of finding contaminated hamburger meat from Nebraska.
2001 - Enron filed for Chapter 11 protection in one of the largest corporate bankruptcies in U.S. history.
Births 1859 - Georges Seurat, French painter and leader of Pointillism style.
1863 - Charles Ringling, American showman, one of the seven Ringling circus brothers.
1917 - American singer Sylvia Syms, "world's greatest saloon singer."
1923 - Maria Callas, American-born Greek lyric soprano.
1981 - Britney Spears, American pop singer, dancer.
Deaths 1814 - Marquis de Sade, French aristocrat and writer of philosophy-laden and often violent pornography.
1859 - John Brown, American militant abolitionist, executed for his raid on Harper's Ferry.
1993 - Pablo Escobar, Colombian drug cartel leader, in Medellín.
1995 - Robertson Davies, Canadian novelist, playwright, critic, journalist, and professor.
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