Thursday, August 31, 2017

Day 243 - This day in legal and military history

August 31
 

NATIONAL Eat Outside Day
 

NATIONAL Trail Mix Day 

NATIONAL We Love Memoirs Day
 

NATIONAL Love Litigating Lawyers Day
 


Today in legal and military [and occasional oddities] history
 

1887 Thomas Edison received a patent for his "Kinetoscope," and moving pictures were born
 

1888 Mary Ann Nicholls, considered to be Jack the Ripper's first victim, was found murdered in London
 

1961 A concrete wall replaces the barbed wire fence that separates East and West Germany. It will be called the Berlin Wall.
 

1965 The US Congress creates the Department of Housing & Urban Development
 

1968 A 7.3 earthquake in Iran completely destroys five villages and severely damages six others
 

1990 Ken Griffey and Ken Griffey Jr. become the first father and son to play on the same team (Seattle Mariners) simultaneously in professional baseball
 

1997 Diana, Princess of Wales, dies in a Paris car crash along with her companion Dodi Fayed and driver Henri Paul while fleeing paparazzi

Wednesday, August 30, 2017

Day 242 - This day in legal and military history

August 30
 

INTERNATIONAL Whale Shark Day 

NATIONAL Slinky Day
 

NATIONAL Frankenstein Day
 

NATIONAL Toasted Marshmallow Day
 

NATIONAL Grief Awareness Day
 


Today in legal and military [and occasional oddities] history
 

1963 A Hot Line communications link is installed between Moscow and Washington, DC
 

1967 The US Senate confirms Thurgood Marshall as the first African-American Supreme Court justice
 

1979 The first recorded instance of a comet (Howard-Koomur-Michels) hitting the sun.  The energy released is equal to approximately 1 million hydrogen bombs.
 

1983 The Eiffel Tower welcomes its 150 millionth visitor

Tuesday, August 29, 2017

Day 241 - This day in legal and military history

August 29
 

NATIONAL More Herbs, Less Salt Day
 

NATIONAL Individual Rights Day
 

NATIONAL According to Hoyle Day
 

NATIONAL Chop Suey Day
 


Today in legal and military [and occasional oddities] history
 

70 The Temple of Jerusalem burns after a nine-month Roman siege
 

1758 The first American Indian Reservation is established, at Indian Mills, New Jersey
 

1786 Shays' rebellion, an insurrection of Massachusetts farmers against the state government, began
 

1842 The Treaty of Nanking was signed, ending the Opium Wars and ceding the island of Hong Kong to Britain
 

1957 Strom Thurmond ended the longest filibuster in US Senate history. He spoke for more than 24 hours against a civil rights bill. The bill passed.
 

1958 The Air Force Academy opened in Colorado Springs, Colorado

1966 The Beatles give their last public concert at Candlestick Park, San Francisco
 

2005 Hurricane Katrina slammed into the US Gulf Coast, destroying beachfront towns in Mississippi and Louisiana, displacing a million people, and killing more than 1,000

Monday, August 28, 2017

Day 240 - This day in legal and military history

August 28
 

NATIONAL Race Your Mouse Around the Icons Day
 

NATIONAL Crackers Over the Keyboard Day
 

NATIONAL Cherry Turnover Day
 

NATIONAL Radio Commercials Day
 

NATIONAL Rainbow Bridge Remembrance Day
 

NATIONAL Bow Tie Day
 


Today in legal and military [and occasional oddities] history
 

1922 The first commercial to be broadcast on radio aired on station WEAF in New York City. The ten minute advertisement for the Queensboro Realty Company cost $100.
 

1938 The first degree given to a ventriloquist’s dummy is awarded to Charlie McCarthy–Edgar Bergen’s wooden partner
 

1963 One of the largest demonstrations in the history of the United States, the March on Washington for Jobs and Freedom, takes place and reaches its climax at the base of the Lincoln Memorial when Dr. Martin Luther King Jr. delivers his “I have a dream” speech
 

2005 Hurricane Katrina reaches Category 5 strength. The Louisiana Superdome is opened as a “refuge of last resort” in New Orleans.

Sunday, August 27, 2017

Day 239 - This day in legal and military history

August 27
 

GLOBAL Forgiveness Day
 

INTERNATIONAL Bat Night
 

NATIONAL Just Because Day
 

NATIONAL Tug-o-War Day


Today in legal and military [and occasional oddities] history
 

1912 Edgar Rice Burrough‘s Tarzan of the Apes first appears in a magazine
 

2001 Intel unveiled a 2-GHz Pentium 4 chip
 

2008 Democrats nominate Barack Obama for president, the first African American nominated by a major political party for the office of President of the United States

Saturday, August 26, 2017

Day 238 - This day in legal and military history

August 26
 

NATIONAL Dog Appreciation Day
 

NATIONAL Women's Equality Day
 

NATIONAL Cherry Popsicle Day
 


Today in legal and military [and occasional oddities] history
 

1791 John Fitch is granted a United States patent for the steamboat
 

1883 The Indonesian island of Krakatoa erupts in the largest explosion recorded in history, heard 2,200 miles away in Madagascar. The resulting destruction sends volcanic ash 50 miles into the atmosphere and kills almost 36,000 people, both on the island itself and from the resulting 131-foot tidal waves that obliterate 163 villages on the shores of nearby Java and Sumatra.
 

1920 The 19th Amendment to the Constitution is officially ratified, giving women the right to vote
 

1957 The Ford Motor Company reveals the Edsel, its latest luxury car

Friday, August 25, 2017

Day 237 - This day in legal and military history

August 25
 

NATIONAL Kiss and Make Up Day
 

NATIONAL Whiskey Sour Day
 

NATIONAL Banana Split Day
 

NATIONAL Second Hand Wardrobe Day
 


Today in legal and military [and occasional oddities] history
 

1814 British forces destroyed the Library of Congress, containing some 3,000 books
 

1830 The “Tom Thumb” steam locomotive runs its famous race with a horse-drawn car. The horse wins because the engine, which had been ahead, breaks down. 

1875 Matthew Webb becomes the first man to swim across the English Channel. It took him 21 hours and 45 minutes.
 

1916 The National Park Service is established as part of the Department of the Interior
 

1921 The United States, which never ratified the Versailles Treaty ending World War I, finally signs a peace treaty with Germany
 

1948 The House Un-American Activities Committee holds its first-ever televised congressional hearing
 

1950 President Harry Truman orders the US Army to seize control of the nation’s railroads to avert a strike
 

1981 The Voyager 2 spacecraft makes its closest approach to Saturn
 

1989 NASA scientists receive stunning photographs of Neptune and its moons from Voyager 2

Thursday, August 24, 2017

Day 236 - This day in legal and military history

August 24
 

INTERNATIONAL Strange Music Day
 

NATIONAL Pluto Demoted Day
 

NATIONAL Vesuvius Day
 

NATIONAL Burger Day
 

NATIONAL Knife Day
 

NATIONAL Peach Pie Day
 

NATIONAL Waffle Day
 


Today in legal and military [and occasional oddities] history
 

79 Mount Vesuvius erupts, destroying Pompeii, Stabiae, Herculaneum and other smaller settlements
 

1814 The British set fire to the White House and the Capitol when they invaded Washington, DC during the War of 1812
 

1847 Charlotte Bronte, using the pseudonym Currer Bell, sends a manuscript of Jane Eyre to her publisher in London
 

1869 Cornelius Swarthout of Troy, New York, patents the waffle iron
 

1891 Thomas Edison files a patent for the motion picture camera
 

1894 Congress passes the first graduated income tax law, which is declared unconstitutional the next year
 

1954 Congress outlaws the Communist Party in the United States
 

1981 Mark David Chapman is sentenced to 20 years to life for murdering former Beatles band member John Lennon
 

1989 Baseball commissioner A. Bartlett Giamatti bans Pete Rose from baseball for gambling
 

1992 Hurricane Andrew makes landfall in Florida as a Category 5 storm, resulting in $26.5 billion in US damages, causing 65 US deaths, and felling 70,000 acres of trees in the Everglades
 

2006 Pluto is downgraded to a dwarf planet when the International Astronomical Union (IAU) redefines “planet”

Wednesday, August 23, 2017

Day 235 - This day in legal and military history

August 23
 

NATIONAL Ride the Wind Day
 

NATIONAL Sponge Cake Day
 


Today in legal and military [and occasional oddities] history
 

1926 American film star Rudolph Valentino dies, causing world-wide hysteria and a number of suicides

1990 East and West Germany announce they will unite on October 3
 

1993 The Galileo spacecraft discovers a moon, later named Dactyl, around 243 Ida, the first known asteroid moon
 

1996 Osama bin Laden issues a message entitled “A declaration of war against the Americans occupying the land of the two holy places”

Tuesday, August 22, 2017

Day 234 - This day in legal and military history

August 22
 

NATIONAL Be an Angel Day
 

NATIONAL Take Your Cat to the Vet Day
 

NATIONAL Eat a Peach Day
 

NATIONAL Tooth Fairy Day
 


Today in legal and military [and occasional oddities] history
 

1642 Civil war in England begins as Charles I declares war on Parliament at Nottingham
 

1775 England’s King George III proclaimed the American colonies to be in a state of open rebellion
 

1864 Twelve nations sign the First Geneva Convention, the first codified international treaty that covered sick and wounded soldiers in the battlefield
 

1902 President Theodore Roosevelt became the first US chief executive to ride in an automobile in Hartford, Connecticut
 

1911 President William Taft vetoed statehood to Arizona, because he believed a provision in the state's constitution authorizing the recall of judges was detrimental to the independence of the judiciary. The offending clause was removed and Arizona was admitted to statehood on February 14, 1912. Afterward, the state restored the provision to its constitution.
 

1963 American Joe Walker in an X-15 test plane reaches an altitude of 106 km (66 mi)
 

1969 Hurricane Camille hits the US Gulf Coast, killing 256 and causing $1.4 billion in damages
 

1989 The first complete ring around Neptune is discovered
 

1996 The US Army began operating an incinerator in Utah to destroy 14,000 tons of chemical weapons over 7 years
 

2003 Alabama Chief Justice Roy Moore is suspended for refusing to comply with a federal court order to remove the Ten Commandments from the Alabama Supreme Court building’s lobby
 

2005 The Scream and Madonna, two paintings by Edvard Munch, are stolen at gunpoint from a museum in Oslo, Norway

2007 The most runs scored by any team in modern major league baseball history is recorded as the Texas Rangers trounce the Baltimore Orioles 30-3
 

2007 The Storm botnet sends out a record 57 million e-mails in one day

Monday, August 21, 2017

Day 233 - This day in legal and military history

August 21
 

NATIONAL Senior Citizens Day
 

NATIONAL Spumoni Day
 


Today in legal and military [and occasional oddities] history
 

1800 First public concert by the US Marine Corps Band, Washington, DC
 

1862 As the economy took a beating from the Civil War, the Treasury Department released fractional currency known as postage currency

1911 The Mona Lisa, the famous painting by Leonardo da Vinci, is stolen from the Louvre in Paris, where it had hung for more than 100 years. It is recovered in 1913.
 

1959 Hawaii is admitted into the Union as the 50th state
 

1993 NASA engineers lost contact with the Mars Observer spacecraft on a $980 million mission. Its fate remains unknown.
 

2017 Total eclipse of the sun 

Sunday, August 20, 2017

Day 232 - This day in legal and military history

August 20
 

WORLD Mosquito Day 

NATIONAL Radio Day
 

NATIONAL Chocolate Pecan Pie Day
 


Today in legal and military [and occasional oddities] history
 

1619 The first group of twenty Africans is brought to Jamestown, Virginia as slaves
 

1667 John Milton publishes Paradise Lost, an epic poem about the fall of Adam and Eve
 

1882 Tchaikovsky's "1812 Overture" debuts in Moscow

1913 700 feet above Buc, France, parachutist Adolphe Pegoud becomes the first person to jump from an airplane and land safely
 

1940 Radar is used for the first time, by the British during the Battle of Britain. Also on this day, in a radio broadcast, Winston Churchill makes his famous homage to the Royal Air Force: “Never in the field of human conflict was so much owed by so many to so few.”
 

1977 The United States launched Voyager 2, an unmanned spacecraft carrying a 12-inch copper phonograph record containing greetings in dozens of languages, samples of music and sounds of nature.  It is now approximately 7 billion miles from earth and still going.
 

1980 Italian Reinhold Messner made the first successful solo ascent of Mount Everest without supplemental oxygen
 

1982 US Marines land in Beirut
 

1998 The Supreme Court of Canada rules Quebec cannot legally secede from Canada without the federal government’s approval
 

2000 Tiger Woods won the PGA Championship, becoming the first player since Ben Hogan in 1953 to win three majors in one year

Saturday, August 19, 2017

Day 231 - This day in legal and military history

August 19
 

INTERNATIONAL Geocaching Day
 

INTERNATIONAL Orangutan Day
 

INTERNATIONAL Homeless Animals Day
 

NATIONAL Aviation Day
 

NATIONAL Potato Day
 

NATIONAL Photography Day
 

NATIONAL Break the Monotony Day
 

NATIONAL Soft Ice Cream Day
 

NATIONAL Honey Bee Awareness Day [third Saturday in August]
 


Today in legal and military [and occasional oddities] history
 

1692 Five women are hanged in Salem, Massachusetts after being convicted of the crime of witchcraft. Fourteen more people are executed that year and 150 others are imprisoned.
 

1812 The USS Constitution earns the nickname Old Ironsides during the battle off Nova Scotia that saw her defeat the HMS Guerriere
 

1919 The Marines’ Hymn” was registered with the US Copyright Office
Click here for Marines' Hymn by USMC band 

1934 Germans voted to make Adolf Hitler Fuhrer
 

1950 Edith Sampson becomes the first African-American representative to the United Nations
 

2004 Google Inc. stock begins selling on the Nasdaq Stock Market, with an initial price of $85 and an ending price for the day of $100.34 with more than 22 million shares traded
 

2005 A supercell weather pattern hits Toronto, with a series of thunderstorms spawning several tornadoes and causing flash floods in Southern Ontario. Losses exceed $500 million Canadian dollars, the highest ever in the province.

Friday, August 18, 2017

Day 230 - This day in legal and military history

August 18
 

NATIONAL Bad Poetry Day  
Click here for Vogon Poetry as read by Marvin 

NATIONAL Men's Grooming Day
 

NATIONAL Mail Order Catalog Day
 

NATIONAL Ice Cream Pie Day
 

NATIONAL Fajita Day
 


Today in legal and military [and occasional oddities] history
 

1587 In the Roanoke Island (North Carolina) colony, Ellinor and Ananias Dare become parents of a baby girl who they name Virginia, the first English child born in what would become the United States
 

1590 John White, the leader of the 117 colonists on Roanoke Island, returns from a trip to England to find the settlement deserted. No trace of the settlers is ever found.
 

1894 Congress established the Bureau of Immigration, forerunner of the Immigration and Naturalization Service
 

1920 Tennessee becomes the 36th state to ratify the nineteenth amendment granting women’s suffrage, completing the three-quarters necessary to put the amendment into effect
 

1939 The film The Wizard of Oz opens in New York City
 

1958 Vladimir Nabokov's novel Lolita was published
 

1973 Hank Aaron makes his 1,378th extra-base hit, surpassing Stan Musial’s record
 

1982 Pete Rose sets a record with his 13,941st plate appearance
 

2011 Gold hits a record price of $1,826 per ounce

Thursday, August 17, 2017

Day 229 - This day in legal and military history

August 17
 

NATIONAL Thrift Shop Day
 

NATIONAL Vanilla Custard Day
 

NATIONAL Get Smart About Credit Day
 

NATIONAL Black Cat Appreciation Day
 

NATIONAL I Love My Feet Day 


Today in legal and military [and occasional oddities] history
 

1969 Hurricane Camille devastated the Gulf Coast, killing 248 people
 

1978 Three Americans complete the first crossing of the Atlantic in a balloon
 

1982 The first Compact Discs (CDs) are released to the public in Germany
 

1998 President Bill Clinton admits to the American public that he had affair with White House intern Monica Lewinsky
 

1999 A 7.4-magnitude earthquake near Izmit, Turkey kills over 17,000 and injures nearly 45,000

Wednesday, August 16, 2017

Day 228 - This day in legal and military history

August 16
 

WORLD Bratwurst Day
 

NATIONAL Wave at Surveillance Cameras Day
 

NATIONAL Tell a Joke Day
 

NATIONAL Rollercoaster Day 

NATIONAL Rum Day
 


Today in legal and military [and occasional oddities] history
 

1691 Yorktown, Virginia, was founded
 

1777 France declares a state of bankruptcy
 

1858 US President James Buchanan and Britain’s Queen Victoria exchange messages inaugurating the first transatlantic telegraph line
 

1861 President Lincoln prohibited the states of the Union from trading with the seceding states of the Confederacy
 

1988 IBM introduces artificial intelligence software

Tuesday, August 15, 2017

Day 227 - This day in legal and military history

August 15
 

NATIONAL Relaxation Day
 

NATIONAL Lemon Meringue Pie Day
 

NATIONAL Pythagorean Theorem Day
 


Today in legal and military [and occasional oddities] history
 

1057 Macbeth, king of Scotland, was killed by Malcolm Canmore
 

1908 First Navy post offices established in Navy ships
 

1911 Proctor & Gamble Company introduced Crisco vegetable shortening
 

1914 The Panama Canal opens to traffic
 

1939 The Wizard of Oz premiered in Hollywood
 

1945 Gasoline and fuel oil rationing for World War II ends in the United States
 

1947 Britain grants independence to India and Pakistan
 

1969 Over 400,000 young people attend a weekend of rock music at Woodstock, New York

1971 US President Richard Nixon announces a 90-day freeze on wages and prices in an attempt to halt rapid inflation
 

2001 Astronomers announce the first solar system discovered outside our own - two planets had been found orbiting a star in the Big Dipper
 

2007 An earthquake of 8.0 magnitude kills over 500 and injures more than 1,000 in Peru

Monday, August 14, 2017

Day 226 - This day in legal and military history

August 14
 

NATIONAL V-J Day [commonly celebrated on September 2 when Japan formally surrendered]
 

NATIONAL Creamsicle Day
 

NATIONAL Social Security Day
 


Today in legal and military [and occasional oddities] history
 

1457 The first book ever printed is published by a German astrologer named Faust. He is thrown in jail while trying to sell books in Paris. Authorities concluded that all the identical books meant Faust had dealt with the devil.
 

1935 The Social Security Act became law
 

1945 Japan announces its unconditional surrender in World War II [Victory over Japan Day]
 

1947 Pakistan becomes an independent country
 

1974 Congress authorized US citizens to own gold
 

1987 Mark McGwire hits his 49th home run of the season, setting the major league home run record for a rookie
 

1994 Space telescope Hubble photographed Uranus with rings
 

1995 Shannon Faulkner becomes the first female cadet at South Carolina’s state military college, The Citadel.  Her admission is met with intense resistance, including death threats, and she left the school a week later.
 

2001 Helios, a remote-controlled, solar powered NASA plane, reached a record 96,500 feet

2003 The largest blackout in North American history hit the northeast, affecting 10 million people in Ontario, Canada and 45 million people in 8 US states

Sunday, August 13, 2017

Day 225 - This day in legal and military history

August 13
 

INTERNATIONAL Left Hander's Day
 

NATIONAL Filet Mignon Day
 


Today in legal and military [and occasional oddities] history
 

1868 A series of earthquakes killed 25,000 in Peru and Ecuador
 

1889 The first coin-operated telephone is patented by William Gray
 

1942 Disney's Bambi opened at Radio City Music Hall in New York City
 

1961 The erection of the Berlin Wall begins

1969 The Apollo 11 astronauts are released from a three-week quarantine to enjoy a ticker tape parade in New York City
 

1993 The US Court of Appeals rules Congress must save all emails
 

2008 US swimmer Michael Phelps won his 11th career gold medal, becoming the first athlete in Olympic history to do so

Saturday, August 12, 2017

Day 224 - This day in legal and military history

August 12
 

WORLD Elephant Day
 

INTERNATIONAL Youth Day
 

NATIONAL Middle Child Day
 

NATIONAL Vinyl Record Day
 

NATIONAL Bowling Day [second Saturday in August]
 

NATIONAL Garage Sale Day [second Saturday in August]
 


Today in legal and military [and occasional oddities] history
 

1851 Issac Singer patented the sewing machine
 

1865 British surgeon Joseph Lister became the first doctor to use an antiseptic during surgery
 

1896 Gold is discovered near Dawson City, Yukon Territory, Canada
 

1898 Hawaii was formally annexed to the United States
 

1908 Henry Ford‘s first Model T rolls off the assembly line

1935 President Franklin Roosevelt signs the Social Security Bill
 

1981 Computer giant IBM introduces its first personal computer, running PC-DOS 1.0
 

1992 The North American Free Trade Agreement (NAFTA) is concluded between the United States, Canada and Mexico, creating the world’s wealthiest trade bloc

Friday, August 11, 2017

Day 223 - This day in legal and military history

August 11
 

NATIONAL Presidential Joke Day
 

NATIONAL Son and Daughter Day
 

NATIONAL Play in the Sand Day
 


Today in legal and military [and occasional oddities] history
 

1906 In France, Eugene Lauste receives the first patent for a talking film
 

1909 The SOS distress signal was first used by an American ship, the Arapahoe, off Cape Hatteras, NC
 

1934 The first inmates arrived at the federal prison on Alcatraz Island in San Francisco Bay

1942 Actress Hedy Lamarr and composer George Antheil receive a patent for a frequency-hopping spread spectrum communication system that later became the basis for modern technologies in wireless telephones and Wi-Fi
 

1965 A clash between the California Highway Patrol and two black youths during a routine traffic stop sets off six days of rioting in the Watts area of Los Angeles
 

1972 The last US ground forces withdraw from Vietnam
 

1984 Carl Lewis wins four Olympic gold medals, tying the record Jesse Owens set in 1936

Thursday, August 10, 2017

Day 222 - This day in legal and military history

August 10
 

WORLD Lion Day
 

NATIONAL Lazy Day
 

NATIONAL S'mores Day
 

NATIONAL Skyscraper Appreciation Day 


Today in legal and military [and occasional oddities] history
 

1821 Missouri enters the Union as the 24th state – and the first located entirely west of the Mississippi River
 

1846 The Smithsonian Institution is established in Washington through the bequest of James Smithson
 

1944 US forces seized Guam from Japan
 

1948 Candid Camera with Allen Funt debuted on television
 

1949 The National Military Establishment is renamed the Department of Defense
 

1993 Ruth Bader Ginsburg was sworn in as the second female U.S. Supreme Court justice
 

1995 Timothy McVeigh and Terry Nichols were charged with eleven counts in the Oklahoma City bombing. McVeigh was later convicted of murder and was executed on June 11, 2001, at the Federal Correctional Complex in Terre Haute, Indiana. Nichols was convicted of conspiracy and involuntary manslaughter.
 

1997 The last British troops leave Hong Kong. After 156 years of British rule, the island is returned to China.
 

2006 All toiletries are banned from commercial airplanes after Scotland Yard disrupts a a major terrorist plot involving liquid explosives. After a few weeks, the toiletries ban was modified

Wednesday, August 9, 2017

Day 221 - This day in legal and military history

August 9
 

NATIONAL Book Lovers Day
 

NATIONAL Melon Day
 

NATIONAL Rice Pudding Day
 


Today in legal and military [and occasional oddities] history
 

1483 Pope Sixtus IV celebrates the first mass in the Sistine Chapel, which is named in his honor
 

1854 Henry David Thoreau's Walden, recounting his experiment in solitary life on the shores of Massachusetts' Walden Pond, was published
 

1859 The escalator is patented. The first working escalator, manufactured by the Otis Elevator Company, appeared in 1900
 

1892 Thomas Edison receives a patent for a two-way telegraph
 

1910 The first complete, self-contained electric washing machine is patented
 

1930 The first appearance of the animated character Betty Boop in “Dizzy Dishes
 

1936 Jesse Owens became the first American to win four gold medals in one Olympics
 

1944 The fictional character Smokey Bear (“Only you can prevent forest fires”) is created by the US Forest Service and the Ad Council

1945 The B-29 bomber Bock’s Car drops a second atomic bomb on Nagasaki, Japan
 

1965 Singapore is expelled from Malaysia following economic disagreements and racial tensions, and becomes an independent republic
 

1974 Gerald Ford is sworn in as president of the United States after the resignation of President Richard Nixon
 

2001 USMC Commandant James L. Jones promotes Pfc Gomer Pyle to honorary lance corporal

Tuesday, August 8, 2017

Day 220 - This day in legal and military history

August 8
 

INTERNATIONAL Cat Day
 

NATIONAL Bowling Day 

NATIONAL Sneak Some Zucchini onto Your Neighbor's Porch Day
 

NATIONAL Odie Day
 

NATIONAL Happiness Happens Day
 

NATIONAL Dollar Day
 


Today in legal and military [and occasional oddities] history
 

1676 Great Fire of Boston destroys 160 buildings
 

1786 The US Congress adopted the silver dollar and decimal system of money
 

1854 Smith and Wesson patented metal bullet cartridges
 

1876 Thomas Edison patents the mimeograph
 

1890 Daughters of American Revolution (DAR) is organized
 

1899 The first household refrigerating machine is patented
 

1908 The Wright Brothers made their first public flight at a racecourse at Le Mans, France
 

1945 The Soviet Union declares war on Japan
 

1963 England’s “Great Train Robbery” - 2.6 million pounds ($7.3 million) is stolen
 

1969 Sharon Tate, wife of director Roman Polanski, and four others were murdered by members of Charles Manson's "family"
 

1972 Navy women authorized for sea duty as regular ship’s company
 

1974 President Richard Nixon resigns from the presidency as a result of the Watergate scandal
 

1978 Pioneer-Venus 2 is launched to probe the atmosphere of Venus
 

1988 Cease fire ends the Iran-Iraq War (1980-1988)
 

2003 A US federal judge ruled that 264,000 square miles of submerged lands in the Northern Mariana Islands, a US commonwealth, belong to the United States
 

2007 An EF2 tornado hits Brooklyn, New York, the first in that borough since 1889

Monday, August 7, 2017

Day 219 - This day in legal and military history

August 7
 

NATIONAL Lighthouse Day
 

NATIONAL Particularly Preposterous Packaging Day
 

NATIONAL Purple Heart Day
 


Today in legal and military [and occasional oddities] history
 

1782 General George Washington authorizes the award of the Badge for Military Merit (the Purple Heart), for soldiers wounded in combat
 

1789 Congress established the US War Department
 

1794 In the summer of 1794, irate farmers in Pennsylvania rose up in the Whiskey Rebellion against the federal tax on liquor and stills
 

1888 Theophilus Van Kannel of Philadelphia receives a patent for the revolving door
 

1922 The Irish Republican Army cuts the cable link between the United States and Europe at Waterville landing station
 

1934 In Washington, the US Court of Appeals rules that the government can neither confiscate nor ban James Joyce’s novel Ulysses
 

1947 The wooden raft Kon-Tiki, which carried Thor Heyerdahl and five companions more than 4,000 miles, crashed into a reef in the Pacific 

1953 SSgt Barbara Barnwell was the first woman Marine awarded the Navy and Marine Corps Medal for heroism, for saving a soldier from drowning
 

1959 The United States launched Explorer 6, which sent back a picture of Earth
 

1964 Congress overwhelmingly passes the Gulf of Tonkin Resolution, allowing the president to use unlimited military force to prevent attacks on US forces and to oppose Communist aggression in Southeast Asia
 

1976 The US Viking 2 spacecraft goes into orbit around Mars
 

1981 The Washington DC Star ceases publication after 128 years
 

1984 Japan defeats the United States to win the Olympic Gold in baseball
 

1987 Lynne Cox becomes the first person to swim from the United States to the Soviet Union, making the 2.7 mile trip through the frigid waters of the Bering Strait
 

1990 Operation Desert Shield begins as US troops deploy to Saudi Arabia to discourage Iraq’s Saddam Hussein from invading that country as he had Kuwait
 

1998 A massive truck bomb explodes outside the US embassy in Nairobi, Kenya, and minutes later, another truck bomb detonated outside the US embassy in Dar es Salaam, Tanzania.
 

2007 Barry Bonds of the San Francisco Giants breaks Hank Aaron’s record with his 756th home run

Sunday, August 6, 2017

Day 218 - This day in legal and military history

August 6
 

NATIONAL Wiggle Your Toes Day
 

NATIONAL Farmworker Appreciation Day
 

NATIONAL Doll Day
 

NATIONAL Root Beer Float Day
 

NATIONAL Fresh Breath Day
 

NATIONAL Friendship Day [first Sunday in August]
 

NATIONAL Sisters Day [first Sunday in August]
 


Today in legal and military [and occasional oddities] history
 

1787 In Philadelphia, delegates to the Constitutional Convention begin debating the first complete draft of the proposed Constitution of the United States
 

1945 Paul Tibbets, the commander of Enola Gay, drops the first atomic bomb on Hiroshima, Japan

1962 Jamaica becomes independent, after 300 years of British rule
 

1965 President Lyndon B. Johnson signs the Voting Rights Act, outlawing the literacy test for voting eligibility in the South
 

1972 Atlanta Braves’ right fielder Hank Aaron hits his 660th and 661st home runs, setting the Major League record for most home runs by a player for a single franchise
 

1991 Tim Berners-Lee releases files describing his idea for the World Wide Web, which debuts as a publicly available service on the Internet
 

2012 New Zealand’s Mount Tongariro erupts for the first time since 1897

Saturday, August 5, 2017

Day 217 - This day in legal and military history

August 5
 

NATIONAL Clown Day
 

NATIONAL Underwear Day
 

NATIONAL Work Like a Dog Day
 

NATIONAL Sand Castle Day

NATIONAL Oyster Day
 

NATIONAL Mustard Day [first Saturday in August]
 


Today in legal and military [and occasional oddities] history
 

1858 The first transatlantic cable is completed
 

1861 US Army prohibits flogging
 

1861 US levies the first federal income tax; 3% on incomes over $800
 

1884 The cornerstone for the Statue of Liberty was laid on Bedloe's Island
 

1914 The first electric traffic signal lights are installed in Cleveland, Ohio
 

1969 The US space probe Mariner 7 flew by Mars, sending back photographs and scientific data
 

1981 President Ronald Reagan fires 11,500 striking air traffic controllers
 

1986 US Senate voted for the Strategic Defense Initiative project, better known as Star Wars
 

1992 Four police officers are indicted on civil rights charges in the beating of Rodney King
 

2012 The plutonium-powered rover Curiosity successfully lands on Mars

Friday, August 4, 2017

Day 216 - This day in legal and military history

August 4
 

INTERNATIONAL Beer Day
 

NATIONAL Coast Guard Day 

NATIONAL Chocolate Chip Cookie Day
 

NATIONAL Assistance Dog Day
 

NATIONAL Single Working Women's Day
 


Today in legal and military [and occasional oddities] history
 

1790 The Revenue Cutter service, the parent service of the US Navy and Coast Guard, is organized
 

1884 Thomas Stevens became the first person to bicycle across the United States
 

1914 Germany invades Belgium causing Great Britain to declare war on Germany
 

1916 US agrees to buy the Virgin Islands from Denmark for $25 million
 

1944 Anne Frank and her family are betrayed to the Nazis
 

1949 Congress approved Public Law 207, establishing the Coast Guard as a branch of the US Armed Forces
 

1988 The US Senate votes to give each Japanese-American who was interned during WWII $20,000 compensation and an apology

Thursday, August 3, 2017

Day 215 - This day in legal and military history

August 3
 

NATIONAL Watermelon Day 

NATIONAL Clean Your Floors Day
 

NATIONAL White Wine Day
 


Today in legal and military [and occasional oddities] history
 

1492 Christopher Columbus leaves Spain on his voyage to the new world

1610 Henry Hudson of England discovers a great bay on the east coast of Canada and names it for himself
 

1914 Germany declares war on France
 

1949 The National Basketball Association was formed
 

1958 The first nuclear submarine, USS Nautilus, passes under the North Pole
 

1972 Former Beatle Paul McCartney announces formation of his new group, Wings 

1980 Closing ceremonies were held in Moscow for the 1980 Summer Olympic Games, which had been boycotted by dozens of countries, including the United States
 

1987 The Iran-Contra congressional hearings ended, with none of the 29 witnesses tying President Reagan directly to the diversion of arms-sales profits to Nicaraguan rebels
 

2004 Statue of Liberty’s pedestal reopens to visitors after being closed following the 9/11 terrorist attacks

Wednesday, August 2, 2017

Day 214 - This day in legal and military history

August 2
 

NATIONAL Ice Cream Sandwich Day 

NATIONAL Coloring Book Day
 


Today in legal and military [and occasional oddities] history
 

1776 The Continental Congress, having decided unanimously on the Declaration of Independence, affixes the signatures of the other delegates to the document
 

1876 Wild Bill Hickok is shot while playing poker
 

1887 Rowell Hodge patented barbed wire
 

1909 The first Lincoln pennies were minted
 

1990 Iraqi forces invade neighboring Kuwait, beginning the First Gulf War, "Desert Shield/Desert Storm"

Tuesday, August 1, 2017

Day 213 - This day in legal and military history

August 1
 

WORLD Lung Cancer Day
 

WORLD Wide Web Day
 

INTERNATIONAL Child Free Day
 

NATIONAL Girlfriends Day
 

NATIONAL Mountain Climbing Day
Looking north at Mount Everest

NATIONAL Raspberry Cream Pie Day
 

NATIONAL Respect for Parents Day
 


Today in legal and military [and occasional oddities] history
 

1790 The first US Census was completed, showing a population of 3,939,326 in 16 states and the Ohio territory with 697,624 slaves. Virginia was the most populous state with 747,610 inhabitants.
 

1834 Slavery is abolished throughout the British Empire
 

1876 Colorado was admitted to the US as the 38th state
 

1893 A machine for making shredded wheat breakfast cereal is patented
 

1914 Germany declares war on Russia
 

1936 Hitler opens the Berlin Olympics, the 11th modern games, initiating the now routine "Olympic Torch" ceremony
 

1939 Synthetic vitamin K is produced for the first time
 

1946 President Truman signed the congressional acts that established the Atomic Energy Commission and the Fulbright Scholarship program
 

1950 Control of Guam transferred from the Navy to the Department of Interior
 

1957 US and Canada create North American Air Defense Command (NORAD)
 

1960 Singer Chubby Checker releases “The Twist,” creating a new dance craze. The song had been released by Hank Ballard and the Midnighters the previous year but got little attention.
 

1961 East Germany limits traffic to West Berlin, Cold War intensifies
 

1981 MTV made its debut at 12:01 AM. The first video shown was Video Killed the Radio Star by the Buggles.
 

1988 Conservative commentator Rush Limbaugh begins his national radio show