Daily Calendar for Thursday, December 19, 2024
Question of the Day
Why do people say, “Don’t look a gift horse in the mouth”?
The saying, which generally means “Don’t be ungrateful,” seems to stem from the practice of giving horses as gifts. To check the age of a horse, you normally look into its mouth. This would be considered quite rude if the horse was being given to you as a gift.
Advice of the Day
When bubbles in your coffee collect in the center of the cup, expect fair weather. If they form a ring or cling to the sides, expect rain.
Home Hint of the Day
Here’s how to tell real antique ivory from plastic imitations. Heat the end of a needle with a match, then try to insert the needle into a spot that will not show. The heated needle will not pierce real ivory, but it will sink into any imitation.
Word of the Day
Alaska
Alaska’s name comes from an Aleut word meaning “great land.”
Puzzle of the Day
When a person falls out a window, what does he always fall against?
Against his will
Died
- Emily Brontë (writer) –
- Walter Williams (age 117: last known Civil War vet) –
- Hope Lange (actress) –
Born
- Joe "King" Oliver (jazz musician) –
- Fritz Reiner (conductor) –
- Cicely Tyson (actress) –
- Tim Reid (actor) –
- Jennifer Beals (actress) –
- Criss Angel (illusionist) –
- Alyssa Milano (actress) –
- Jake Gyllenhaal (actor) –
- Marla Sokoloff (actress) –
Events
- Fictional Robinson Crusoe left island after 28 years. Daniel Defoe’s story is based on an actual person, Alexander Selkirk, a Scottish sailor, who was found on an island where he had been stranded for 52 months. (He was rescued on Feb. 1, 1709)–
- Mark Twain received a patent for suspenders–
- The National Hockey League began its first professional season with four teams–
- Robert Ripley’s column, Believe It or Not!, first appeared in The New York Globe–
- The first known radio broadcast from outer space was transmitted when President Eisenhower’s recorded voice issued a holiday greeting for the whole world from the Atlas satellite which was launched the previous day–
- New transatlantic submarine cable, CANTAT-1, between Britain and Canada (first link in a proposed around-the-world Commonwealth system) is inaugurated by a telephone conversation between Queen Elizabeth II and Prime Minister Diefenbaker of Canada–
- Intelsat III F-2 communications satellite launched–
Weather
- Louisiana Purchase explorer William Dunbar wrote, “… the e[a]ves of our cabin hang with beautiful icicles”–
- The temperature at Yellowstone National Park was -59 degrees F–
- It was so cold in Moosomin, Saskatchewan, that several children got stuck to their playground equipment and had to be thawed off. (It was -43F or -41.5C.)–