Daily Calendar for Saturday, December 28, 2024

Question of the Day

With the holidays here and pounds gained, how many calories do you have to burn to lose a pound of fat?
It takes about 3,500 calories to gain or lose a pound of fat. To give you an idea of how much energy it takes to β€œburn” a calorie, here are a few activities with the number of calories they burn per minute, per pound of body weight: fast ax chopping (or cross-country skiing uphill), 0.135; forking straw bales (or playing basketball), 0.063; window cleaning (or playing croquet), 0.026. So a 150-pound person forking straw bales burns 9.45 calories per minute, which means he or she must fork bales for six hours to lose one pound. (Though not listed, the one exercise guaranteed to burn calories is pushing one’s chair away from the table!)

Advice of the Day

A whispering grove tells of a storm to come.

Home Hint of the Day

Clean rust spots off a countertop by rubbing in toothpaste (not the gel type) with your finger. Rub until the stain is gone, then rinse and wipe dry.

Word of the Day

Frigophobia
Fear of cold

Puzzle of the Day

Did Jonah cry when the whale swallowed him?
He thought he was going to blubber, but he didn’t.

Born

  • Woodrow Wilson (28th U.S. president) –
  • Stan Lee (comic book writer) –
  • Nichelle Nichols (American actress ) –
  • Maggie Smith (actress) –
  • Denzel Washington (actor) –
  • Sienna Miller (actress) –
  • Mackenzie Rosman (actress) –
  • Maitreyi Ramakrishnan (actress ) –

Died

  • Theodore Dreiser (American writer) –
  • Sam Peckinpah (filmmaker) –
  • John D. MacDonald (writer) –
  • William L. Shirer (journalist) –
  • William X. Kienzle (author) –
  • Jerry Orbach (actor) –
  • Debbie Reynolds (actress) –

Events

  • Westminster Abbey in London was consecrated–
  • Benjamin Franklin’s paper, The Pennsylvania Gazette, ran an ad for the first issue of Franklin’s own Poor Richard’s Almanack–
  • Vice President John Calhoun, having serious disagreements with President Andrew Jackson, resigned from office. He was the first U.S. vice president to do so.–
  • Iowa admitted to the Union as the 29th state–
  • Second chewing gum patent went to William Semple, a dentist in Mt. Vernon, Ohio–
  • H. L. Mencken published A Neglected History bathtub hoax–
  • First sudden-death overtime game in NFL, Baltimore Colts vs. N.Y. Giants–
  • President Nixon signed the Endangered Species Act of 1973 into law. It provided broad protection for threatened species of fish, wildlife, and plants.–
  • The Endangered Species Act was signed into law by President Nixon–
  • Endangered Species Act approved–
  • U.S. patent #4,000,000 was issued–

Weather

  • Temperatures throughout Iowa hovered near 24 degrees below zero F–
  • 83 inches of snow on the ground in Bathurst, New Brunswick–
  • A severe snowstorm with periods of near-zero visibility resulted in an incredible 1,000 traffic accidents in Michigan–
  • 31.5 inches of snow fell in 24 hours in Victoria, British Columbia–