Flowers spring forth in abundance this month. Depending on the Native American tribe, May’s Full Moon was called the Full Flower Moon as well as Mother’s Moon, Milk Moon, and Corn Planting Moon. The May Moon marked a time of increasing fertility with temperatures warm enough for safely bearing young, a near end to late frosts, and plants in bloom.
Daily Calendar for Thursday, May 23, 2024
Question of the Day
What is the speed of the Earth’s rotation?
At the equator, the circumference of the Earth is 40,070 kilometers, and the day is 24 hours long so the speed is 1670 kilometers/hour ( 1070 miles/hr). This decreases by the cosine of your latitude so that at a latitude of 45 degrees, cos(45) = .707 and the speed is .707 x 1670 = 1180 kilometers/hr. You can use this formula to find the speed of rotation at any latitude.
Advice of the Day
Bigger is not necessarily better and going faster is not necessarily progress.
Home Hint of the Day
A square of asphalt shingles will cover 100 square feet of surface. Three bundles of asphalt shingles (each containing twenty-two 3-foot-long shingles) make up a square.
Word of the Day
Dink
A soft return in tennis. The tennis ball will drop abruptly after crossing the net.
Puzzle of the Day
What do snowmen eat for breakfast?
Snowflakes.
Died
- Captain William Kidd (hanged in London) –
- John D. Rockerfeller (entrepreneur) –
- Sam Snead (golfer) –
- Anne Meara (actress) –
- Eric Carle (children’s book author, most notably The Very Hungry Caterpillar) –
Born
- Carolus Linnaeus (botanist) –
- Douglas Fairbanks (actor) –
- John Bardeen (physicist) –
- Artie Shaw (bandleader) –
- Rosemary Clooney (singer) –
- Barbara Barrie (actress) –
- Joan Collins (actress) –
- Robert Moog (inventor) –
- Drew Carey (actor; host of The Price is Right) –
- Mitch Albom (author) –
- Ken Jennings (won 74 straight games on Jeopardy! game show in 2004) –
- Jewel (musician) –
Events
- Benjamin Franklin created his own pair of bifocals –
- South Carolina was admitted to the Union as the 8th state –
- Explorer William Clark: “Water freeses [sic] on the oars” in what is now Montana. –
- North-West Mounted Police formed (now Royal Canadian Mounted Police) –
- New York Public Library in New York City is established –
- Townsend-Purnell Plant Patent Act became the first in the United States to grant patent protection to plant breeders –
- Actor Errol Flynn appeared on the cover of LIFE Magazine –
- Queen Juliana of the Netherlands laid the cornerstone of the tower housing the Netherlands Centennial Carillon in Victoria, British Columbia –
- Five people were killed, when a large part of the roof of a new terminal collapsed at Paris’ Charles de Gaulle Airport in France –
- Hugh Laurie was knighted by Queen Elizabeth II at Buckingham Palace –
Weather
- Folks were sleighing in Farmington, Maine –
- Late season snowstorm blanketed eastern Iowa with 4 to 6 inches of snow –
