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, “secretary of accounts,” and acta, “records.”
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–
