Daily Calendar for Sunday, May 12, 2024

Question of the Day

I am an actuary. Often people ask me about the origin of the word. Do you have an answer?
According to the dictionary, an actuary is a statistician who computes insurance risks and premiums. It comes from the Latin actuarius, β€œsecretary of accounts,” and acta, β€œrecords.”

Advice of the Day

Keep a few bay leaves in grain and flour canisters to repel bugs.

Home Hint of the Day

Blackflies bite most fiercely under cover — up sleeves and trouser legs. To discourage them, wear rubber bands over clothing at these openings.

Word of the Day

Crumpet
A kind of large, thin muffin or cake, light and spongy, and cooked on a griddle or spider.

Puzzle of the Day

What part of a fish is heaviest?
Its scales.

Born

  • Florence Nightingale (nurse) –
  • Katharine Hepburn (actress) –
  • Yogi Berra (baseball player) –
  • George Carlin (comedian; first to host Saturday Night Live) –
  • Emilio Estevez (actor) –
  • Tony Hawk (skateboarder) –
  • Kim Fields (actress) –
  • Emily VanCamp (actress) –
  • Malcolm David Kelley (actor) –
  • Sawyer and Sullivan Sweeten (actors who played Geoffrey and Michael Barone on Everybody Loves Raymond) –

Died

  • John Cadbury (chocolate manufacturer) –
  • Winnie (the bear Christopher Robin Milne named his toy bear after) –
  • Robert Reed (actor) –
  • Adam Petty (race car driver) –
  • Perry Como (singer) –
  • Emanuel Gluck (Yankee Stadium’s longest-working vendor; wore badge No. 1) –

Events

  • The oldest university in Poland, Jagiellonian University, was founded–
  • Manitoba Act passed, approving Manitoba to become a Canadian province–
  • Charles Sherrill first demonstrated a crouching start for sprinters–
  • Adler Planetarium, first in U.S., opened–
  • Manitoba’s flag officially adopted–
  • Montreal was chosen as the site for the 1976 Summer Olympics–
  • U.S. Commerce Department announced hurricanes would no longer be named solely after women–
  • Susie Maroney swam from Cuba to Florida in 24.5 hours–
  • The discovery of what is likely the Library of Alexandria was announced–
  • American sprinter Justin Gatlin, Olympic champion, broke the 100-meter world record with a time of 9.76 seconds at the Qatar Grand Prix in Doha, Qatar. Previous record was 9.77 seconds by Jamaica’s Asafa Powell on June 14, 2005, in Athens, Greece.–
  • 7.8-magnitude earthquake, Sichuan province, China–
  • A 7.3-magnitude earthquake struck Nepal less than 3 weeks after a 7.8-magnitude quake–

Weather

  • Massive tornado struck Xenia, Ohio–
  • The Colorado Rockies were struck by a late-season storm that dropped 46 inches of snow on Coal Creek Canyon, near Boulder–
  • Ice out, Lake Winnipesaukee, NH–

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