Daily Calendar for Sunday, September 21, 2025

A day to support peace and non-violence throughout the world. Observed on the opening day of the annual regular session of the United Nations.

Question of the Day

When was the fly swatter invented?
Although there are medieval woodcuts that show similar insect-swatting devices in use, the fly swatter as we know it today was invented in 1905 by a schoolteacher named Frank H. Rose. He was inspired to do so by Kansas State Board of Health member Dr. Samuel J. Crumbine, who was at the time on a campaign to rid Kansas of flies. Rose called his invention, made of wire screening attached to a yardstick, a fly bat. It was renamed a fly swatter by Dr. Crumbine.

Advice of the Day

Asters, September’s flowers, were once burned to ward off serpents.

Home Hint of the Day

Rule of thumb, Part II: When you’re working with hardwood lumber, select nails one penny smaller than the thickness of the nailed piece. For a 3/4 inch (6/8 inch) board, use a 5d nail.

Word of the Day

Apogean Tide
A monthly tide of decreased range that occurs when the Moon is at apogee (farthest from Earth).

Puzzle of the Day

If you transpose a term for low, what horses have will plainly show. Transpose these letters yet once more, what’s said in churches you’ll explore. (What word fits the first clue, and when rearranged, fits the others?)

Mean - mane - amen

Born

  • Louis Joliet (explorer)
  • Francis Hopkinson (judge)
  • Margaret Taylor (U.S. First Lady)
  • Sir Edmund William Gosse (poet)
  • H.G. Wells (writer)
  • Henry Lewis Stimson (politician)
  • Chuck Jones (Bugs Bunny animator)
  • Larry Hagman (actor)
  • Don Felder (musician)
  • Stephen King (author)
  • Bill Murray (actor)
  • Dave Coulier (actor)
  • David James Elliot (actor)
  • Cheryl Hines (actress)
  • Luke Wilson (actor)
  • John Kitna (football player)
  • Virginia Ruano Pascual (tennis player)
  • Jana Kandarr (tennis player)
  • Maggie Grace (actress)

Died

  • Sir Walter Scott (poet)
  • Florence Griffith Joyner (Olympic gold medalist)
  • Alice Ghostley (actress)
  • Richard D. Trentlage (American jingle writer)

Events

  • The New York Sun’s Frank Church replied, Yes, Virginia, there is a Santa Claus.
  • Stonehenge was sold to a local landowner for 6,600 pounds
  • J.R.R. Tolkien’s The Hobbit published
  • The NFL’s longest punt, 98 yards, came off the foot of Steve O’Neal of the NY Jets
  • The NY Jets competed against the Cleveland Browns in the first televised NFL Monday Night Football game
  • Belize becomes fully independent from Great Britain
  • Canada’s “toonie” coin unveiled
  • John F. Kennedy, Jr. married Carolyn Bessette
  • Singer Billy Joel was honored with a star on Hollywood’s Walk of Fame

Weather

  • The hurricane that came to be known as the Long Island Express slammed into Long Island at 60 mph
  • The Blue Hills Observatory in Milton, Massachusetts, had a sustained wind of 121 mph, with a peak gust of 186 mph
  • Hurricane Georges struck Puerto Rico
  • Hurricane Igor struck Newfoundland and Labrador

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