Spotted in Annie’s Mailbox, 10 September:
Dear Annie: My husband is currently deployed in the U.S. Air Force, and there are days when I have no idea where he is. I am writing to let you know of a program set up by the Department of Defense to help our troops call home. We ran into problems with regular prepaid calling cards, because they were not designed for use outside the United States. Either they don't work, or they cost more to use. The Department of Defense has allowed the Army and Air Force Exchange Service (AAFES) to sell prepaid calling cards that are designed for overseas use.
The 550-Unit Military Exchange Prepaid Phone Card can be purchased by anyone who wishes to make a donation to an individual service member or “any soldier” at http://www.aafes.com/ (1-800-527-2345). Just follow the icon on the right to “Help Our Troops Call Home.” Please get the word out to others concerning this great way to keep in touch. Hearing the voice of your loved one helps you make it through to the next phone call. Thank you, Annie. -- Proud Air Force Wife
Dear Proud Wife: We are more than happy to help our deployed troops call home. Readers who don’t personally know any military personnel, but would like to donate a card, can do this as well. Thank you.
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Listening to: Alison Moyet - The Coventry Carol
via FoxyTunes
27 November 2004
Soldier, Sailor, Flier, Marine: Phone Home!
Today in History
From wikipedia.org:
Events
399 - St. Anastius I becomes Pope
1095 - Pope Urban II declares the First Crusade at the Council of Clermont
1703 - The first Eddystone Lighthouse destroyed in storm
1839 - In Boston, Massachusetts, the American Statistical Association is founded
1895 - At the Swedish-Norwegian Club in Paris, Alfred Nobel signs his last will and testament, setting aside his estate to establish the Nobel Prize after he dies
1924 - In the New York City the first Macy’s Thanksgiving Day Parade is held
1926 - In Williamsburg, Virginia, the restoration of Colonial Williamsburg begins
1946 - Cold War: Indian Prime Minister Jawaharlal Nehru appeals to the United States and the Soviet Union to end nuclear testing and to start nuclear disarmament, stating that such an action would “save humanity from the ultimate disaster”
1973 - The United States Senate votes 92 to 3 to confirm Gerald Ford as Vice President of the United States (on 6 December, the House confirmed him 387 to 35)
1978 - In San Francisco, California, city mayor George Moscone and openly gay city supervisor Harvey Milk are assassinated by former supervisor Dan White
2001 - A hydrogen atmosphere was discovered on the extrasolar planet Osiris by the Hubble Space Telescope, the first atmosphere detected on an extrasolar planet
Births
1576 - Shimazu Tadatsune, Japanese daimyo (d. 1638)
1630 - Archduke Sigismund Francis of Austria, Regent of Tyrol and Further Austria
1701 - Anders Celsius, inventor, astronomer (d. 1744)
1843 - Cornelius Vanderbilt, businessman, philanthropist (d. 1899)
1843 - Elizabeth Stride, third confirmed victim of Jack the Ripper (d. 1888)
1857 - Charles Scott Sherrington, physiologist, winner of 1932 Nobel Prize in Physiology or Medicine (d. 1952)
1907 - L. Sprague de Camp, science fiction writer (d. 2000)
1916 - Chick Hearn, sports announcer (d. 2002)
1942 - Jimi Hendrix, musician (d. 1970)
1942 - Henry Carr, American athlete
1944 - Eddie Rabbitt, singer (d. 1998)
1953 - Curtis Armstrong, actor
1957 - Caroline Kennedy Schlossberg, journalist
Deaths
8 BC Horace, poet and satirist
1680 - Athanasius Kircher, German Jesuit scholar (b. 1601)
1895 - Alexandre Dumas fils, author
1953 - Eugene O’Neill, playwright
1975 - Ross McWhirter, Guinness Book of Records keeper
1978 - George Moscone, politician
1978 - Harvey Milk, politician
1988 - John Carradine, actor
Recorded this date
1945 “Let It Snow! Let It Snow! Let It Snow!” (w. Sammy Cahn m. Jule Styne)
- Connie Boswell with O/Russ Morgan
1947 “Galway Bay” (w.m. Dr Arthur Colahan)
- Bing Crosby with O/Victor Young
1947 “In The Still Of The Night” (w.m. Cole Porter)
- Jo Stafford with O/Paul Weston
On This Day
From the BBC:
1961: RAF flies aid to flood-stricken Somalia
1975: TV presenter Ross McWhirter shot dead
26 November 2004
As Ice Thaws, Arctic Peoples at Loss for Words
From Reuters UK recently:
As Ice Thaws, Arctic Peoples at Loss for Words
Again, thanks to today’s AWADmail (issue 145) for the pointer.
The Most Beautiful Word in (British-Influenced?) English
On smh.com.au today:
For all the world mother is most beautiful… but father from the thought
Thanks to today’s AWADmail (issue 145) for the pointer.
It’s Beginning…
On my way out to Menlo Park (to pick up KiNitrifier) down 17, and up 9, on the way home, there were a TON of cars heading out with evergreen trees strapped to the roof…
Today in History
From wikipedia.org:
Events
1778 - In the Hawaiian Islands, Captain James Cook becomes the first European to discover Maui
1805 - Official opening of Thomas Telford’s Pontcysyllte Aqueduct
1825 - At Union College in Schenectady, New York a group of college students form Kappa Alpha Society as the first college social fraternity
1862 - Charles Dodgson (better known as Lewis Carroll) sends the handwritten manuscript of Alice’s Adventures Underground to 10-year-old Alice Liddell
1872 - The San Francisco Evening Bulletin exposes one of the most notorious mining scandals in US history, The Great Diamond Hoax
1917 - The National Hockey League is formed, with the Montreal Canadiens, Montreal Wanderers, Ottawa Senators, Quebec Bulldogs, and Toronto Arenas as its first teams
1922 - Howard Carter and Lord Carnarvon become the first people to enter the tomb of Egyptian King Tutankhamun in over 3000 years
1922 - Toll of the Sea debuts as the first general release film to use two-tone Technicolor (The Gulf Between was the first film to do so but it was not widely distributed)
1941 - US President Franklin Delano Roosevelt signs a bill establishing the fourth Thursday in November as Thanksgiving Day in the United States
1941 - World War II: Attack on Pearl Harbor - A fleet of six aircraft carriers commanded by Japanese Vice Admiral Chuichi Nagumo leaves Hitokapu Bay for Pearl Harbor under strict radio silence
1941 - World War II: The Hull note ultimatum is delivered to Japan by the United States
1942 - The film Casablanca premieres at the Hollywood Theater in New York City
1965 - In the Hammaguira launch facility in the Sahara Desert, France launches a Diamant-A rocket with its first satellite, Asterix-1, on board, becoming the third country to enter space
1983 - Brinks Mat robbery: In London, 6,800 gold bars worth nearly UK£26 million are taken from the Brinks Mat vault at Heathrow Airport
1998 - Tony Blair becomes the first Prime Minister of the United Kingdom to address the Republic of Ireland’s parliament
2003 - Last ever flight by Concorde
Births
1607 - John Harvard, cleric (d. 1638)
1792 - Sarah Grimke, abolitionist, feminist (d. 1873)
1832 - Mary Edwards Walker, feminist, physician (d. 1919)
1869 - Maud, Queen of Norway (d.1938)
1876 - Willis Carrier, engineer, inventor (d. 1950)
1894 - Norbert Wiener, mathematician, founder of Cybernetics (d. 1964)
1910 - Cyril Cusack, actor (d. 1993)
1912 - Eric Sevareid, journalist (d. 1992)
1922 - Charles M. Schulz, cartoonist (d. 2000)
1933 - Robert Goulet, singer, actor
1938 - Rich Little, comedian, actor
1939 - Tina Turner, singer, actress
1945 - John McVie, musician
1956 - Dale Jarrett, NASCAR race car driver
Deaths
399 - Pope Siricius
1252 - Blanche of Castile, wife of Louis VIII of France
1504 - Isabella, Queen of Castile and Aragon, wife of Ferdinand II and patron of Christopher Columbus
1836 - John MacAdam, road builder
1956 - Tommy Dorsey, Big Band leader
2002 - Verne Winchell, founder of Winchell's Donuts
Holidays & observances
Mongolia : Independence Day
On This Day
From the BBC:
1953: Lords vote for commercial television
1983: £25m gold heist at Heathrow
1992: Queen to be taxed from next year
25 November 2004
Thanksgiving Prayer
(Author Unknown)
We come to this table today, O Lord, humble and thankful and glad.
We thank Thee first for the great miracle of life, for the exaltation of being human, for the capacity to love.
We thank Thee for joys both great and simple --
For wonder, dreams and hope;
For the newness of each day;
For laughter and song and a merry heart;
For compassion waiting within to be kindled;
For the forbearance of friends and the smile of a stranger;
For the arching of the earth and trees and heavens and the fruit of all three;
For the wisdom of the old;
For the courage of the young;
For the promise of the child;
For the strength that comes when needed;
For this family united here today.
Of those to whom much is given, much is required. May we and our children remember this. Amen.
New Rabies Treatment?
On BBC.com this morning:
Girl survives rabies without jab
Of further interest:
Alert issued over rabies vaccine
Money ”would eradicate rabies”
Rabies used for HIV vaccine
Today in History
From wikipedia.org:
Events
1034 - Malcolm II of Scotland died. Duncan, the son of his second daughter, instead of Macbeth, the son of his eldest daughter, inherited the throne
1177 - Baldwin IV of Jerusalem and Raynald of Chatillon defeated Saladin at the Battle of Montgisard
1491 - The siege of Granada, last Moorish stronghold in Spain, begins
1542 - Battle of Solway Moss. An English army invades Scotland and defeats a Scottish army
1783 - American Revolutionary War: The last British troops leave New York City three months after the signing of the Treaty of Paris
1863 - American Civil War: Battle of Missionary Ridge - At Missionary Ridge in Tennessee, Union forces led by General Ulysses S. Grant break the Siege of Chattanooga by routing Confederate troops under General Braxton Bragg
1874 - The United States Greenback Party is established as a political party made primarily of farmers financially hurt by the Panic of 1873
1940 - Woody Woodpecker first appeared in the film Knock Knock
1947 - New Zealand ratifies the Statute of Westminster and thus becomes independent of legislative control by the United Kingdom
1952 - Agatha Christie's murder-mystery play The Mousetrap opens at the Ambassadors Theatre in London (as of 2003 it is the longest continuously running play in history)
1960 - The Mirabal sisters of the Dominican Republic were assassinated
1963 - John F. Kennedy assassination: The late US President John F. Kennedy is buried at Arlington National Cemetery
1984 - 36 of Britain and Ireland’s top pop musicians gathered in a Notting Hill studio as Band Aid to record the song “Do They Know It’s Christmas” in order to raise money for famine relief in Ethiopia
1992 - The Czechoslovakia Federal Assembly votes to split the country into the Czech Republic and Slovakia starting on 1 January 1993
1999 - The United Nations General Assembly passes a resolution designating November 25 as the annual International Day to Eliminate Violence Against Women
Births
1577 - Piet Hein (Netherlands), naval commander and folk hero (d. 1629)
1817 - John Bigelow, American statesman, author (d. 1911)
1835 - Andrew Carnegie, industrialist, philanthropist (d. 1919)
1844 - Karl Benz, engineer (d. 1929)
1881 - Pope John XXIII (d. 1963)
1904 - Lillian Copeland, American athlete
1914 - Joe DiMaggio, baseball player (d. 1999)
1920 - Ricardo Montalban, actor
1925 - Jeffrey Hunter, actor (d. 1969)
1926 - Poul Anderson, science fiction writer (d. 2001)
1940 - Joe Gibbs, Football Hall of Fame coach
1960 - Amy Grant, singer
1960 - John F. Kennedy, Jr., son of President John F. Kennedy (d. 1999)
1986 - Amber Hagerman, kidnapping, murder victim (d. 1996)
Deaths
311 - Peter of Alexandria, “The Seal of the Martyrs”, believed to be the last one to lose his life for the faith in the Diocletian Persecutions
1034 - King Malcolm II of Scotland (killed)
1185 - Pope Lucius III
1920 - Gaston Chevrolet, automobile pioneer
1748 - Isaac Watts, English hymnwriter
1884 - Adolph Wilhelm Hermann Kolbe, chemist
1920 - Gaston Chevrolet, automobile pioneer
1972 - Henri Coanda, aerodynamics pioneer
Holidays & observances
Feast day of St Catherine Laboure
24 November 2004
Today in History
From wikipedia.org:
Events
380 - Theodosius I makes his adventus, or formal entry, into Constantinople
1639 - Jeremiah Horrocks observes the transit of Venus (November 24 in the Julian calendar, or 4 December in the Gregorian calendar)
1642 - Abel Tasman becomes the first European to discover the island Van Diemen’s Land (later renamed Tasmania)
1863 - American Civil War: Battle of Lookout Mountain - Near Chattanooga, Tennessee, Union forces under General Ulysses S. Grant capture Lookout Mountain and begin to break the Confederate siege of the city led by General Braxton Bragg
1904 - The first successful caterpillar track is made (it would later revolutionize construction vehicles and land warfare)
1922 - Popular author and Irish Republican Army member Robert Erskine Childers is executed by an Irish Free State firing squad for illegally carrying a revolver
1932 - In Washington, DC, the FBI Scientific Crime Detection Laboratory (better known as the FBI Crime Lab) officially opens
1941 - World War II: The United States grants Lend-Lease to the Free French
1969 - Apollo program: The Apollo 12 spacecraft splashes down safely in the Pacific Ocean, ending the second manned mission to the Moon
1971 - During a severe thunderstorm over Washington state, a man calling himself Dan Cooper (commonly remembered as D. B. Cooper) parachutes from the Northwest Orient Airlines plane he hijacked with US$200,000 in ransom money (he was never heard from again)
1976 - The Band gives its last public performance; Martin Scorsese is on hand to film it (see: The Last Waltz)
1998 - America Online announces it will acquire Netscape Communications in a stock-for-stock transaction worth US$4.2 billion
Births
1713 - Junipero Serra, founder of California missions (d. 1784)
1784 - Zachary Taylor, 12th President of the United States (d. 1850)
1787 - Franz Xaver Gruber, organist and composer (d. 1863)
1849 - Frances Hodgson Burnett, author (d. 1924)
1853 - Bat Masterson, gunslinger, policeman, sports reporter (d. 1921)
1859 - Cass Gilbert, architect, designer of U.S. Supreme Court Building (d. 1934)
1864 - Henri de Toulouse-Lautrec, painter (d. 1901)
1868 - Scott Joplin, musician (d. 1917)
1925 - William F. Buckley Jr., writer, political commentator
1941 - Pete Best, drummer
1947 - Dwight Schultz, actor (The A-Team, Star Trek: The Next Generation)
1957 - Denise Crosby, actress (Star Trek: The Next Generation)
Deaths
1541 - Margaret Tudor
1916 - Hiram Stevens Maxim, inventor of Maxim Gun (b. 1840)
1922 - Robert Erskine Childers, author, Irish nationalist (executed)
1991 - Freddie Mercury, musician (Queen)
23 November 2004
I Can’t Start Christmas Shopping - It Isn’t Even Thanksgiving Yet
On mercurynews.com this morning:
Reclaim the real Christmas before it goes year-round
Today in History
From wikipedia.org:
Events
1499 - Pretender to the throne Perkin Warbeck is hanged for reportedly attempting to escape from the Tower of London. In 1497 he invaded England claiming to be the lost son of King Edward IV of England
1644 - Areopagitica by John Milton is published
1863 - American Civil War: Battle of Chattanooga begins - Union forces led by General Ulysses S. Grant reinforce troops at Chattanooga, Tennessee and counter-attack Confederate troops
1869 - In Dumbarton, Scotland the clipper Cutty Sark is launched (it was one of the last clippers to be built, and the only one still surviving)
1876 - Corrupt Tammany Hall leader William Marcy Tweed (better known as Boss Tweed) is delivered to authorities in New York City after being captured in Spain
1890 - King William III of the Netherlands dies without a male heir and a special law is passed to allow his daughter Princess Wilhelmina to become Queen
1936 - The first edition of Life is published
1963 - The first episode of the sci-fi tv series Doctor Who debuts on the BBC
2003 - Berkeley Breathed begins comic strip Opus
Births
1804 - Franklin Pierce, 14th President of the United States (d. 1869)
1887 - Boris Karloff, actor (d. 1969)
1888 - Harpo Marx, comedian (d. 1964)
Deaths
1499 - Perkin Warbeck, pretender to the throne of England
1990 - Roald Dahl, author
