Daily Calendar for Monday, December 30, 2024
Question of the Day
How long has New Year’s Eve been celebrated?
The end of one year and the beginning of the next has been celebrated since ancient times, though obviously not always on this date. It’s believed that Dutch settlers brought the December 31 celebration to America, but the Native Americans had already paved the way. Long before the settlers arrived, the Iroquois marked the end of the old year and the start of the new one by gathering up clothes, furnishings, and household utensils, along with uneaten corn and other grains, and tossing them onto a great bonfire. One can’t get much more expressive than that.
Advice of the Day
When things go wrong, don’t go with them.
Home Hint of the Day
Tearing plaster and lath off a wall, no matter how carefully done, will generate a lot of dust. Haul the wreckage away as you go and, when finished, vacuum the studs, the boards behind them, and the floor. Let the dust settle, then vacuum the floor again.
Word of the Day
Hygrophobia
Fear of dampness/moisture
Puzzle of the Day
There is a word of five syllables; take away the first, and no syllable will remain.
Mo-no-syllable
Born
- Rudyard Kipling (author) –
- Bert Parks (television personality) –
- Bo Diddley (guitarist) –
- Del Shannon (singer) –
- Mike Nesmith (musician, member of The Monkees) –
- Davy Jones (musician; member of The Monkees) –
- Matt Lauer (journalist) –
- Tiger Woods (golfer) –
- Eliza Dushku (actress) –
- Kristin Kreuk (actress) –
- LeBron James (basketball player) –
Died
- Amelia Bloomer (social reformer who introduced BLOOMERS) –
- Richard Rodgers (composer) –
- Artie Shaw (jazz clarinetist and bandleader) –
- Barbara Walters (broadcast journalist ) –
- Tom Wilkinson ( actor) –
Events
- Percy Shelley and Mary Wollstonecraft were married –
- U.S. president Rutherford B. Hayes married Lucy Webb –
- U.S. and Mexico signed the Gadsden Purchase Treaty –
- First photo of Earth’s curvature exhibited, in Cleveland, Ohio –
- The Arroyo Seco Parkway, California’s first freeway, officially opened. It connected Los Angeles and Pasadena –
- The Roy Rogers Show made its TV debut –
- Figure skater David Pelletier wed skating partner Jamie Salé –
- Samoa skipped this day in order to move from the eastern to the western side of the International Date Line –
Weather
- Great Cold Wave hit the East : -13 degrees F, New York City; -15 degrees F, Boston, Massachusetts; and -43 degrees F, New Hampshire –
- The temperature in Lewisburg, West Virginia, dropped to -37F. –
- Bloomfield, Vermont, set a record low temperature for New England with -50 degrees F –
- Forty-eight degrees below zero F in Mazama and Winthrop, Washington –
- Las Vegas was blanketed with 1.3 inches of snow –
