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Today is July 7 2014

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   I.
Today's Holidays and Historical Events (updated daily)
Today's Food Holiday

National Strawberry Sundae Day: More

Other celebrations/observances today:
  • Chocolate Day: More
  • Tell The Truth Day: More
  • National Macaroni Day: More
  • National Father Daughter Take A Walk Day: More
  • Global Forgiveness Day: More
  • On this day in 1928, Sliced bread is sold for the first time.: More
Events in the past on: July 7
  • In 1898, The Newlands Resolution is signed by President McKinley, annexing Hawaii to US.
    From Wikipedia: 'The Newlands Resolution, was a joint resolution written by and named after United States Congressman Francis G. Newlands. It was an Act of Congress to annex the Republic of Hawaii and create the Territory of Hawaii.

    In 1898 President of the United States William McKinley signed the treaty of annexation for Hawaii, but it failed in the Senate after the 21,000 signatures of the Ku’e Petitions were submitted. After the failure, Hawaii was annexed by means of joint resolution, called the Newlands Resolution'.
    - At FamousDaily: More
    - At Wikipedia: More
  • In 1907, Florenz Ziegfeld, Jr. staged his first Follies on the roof of the New York Theater in New York City.
    From Wikipedia: 'Florenz Edward Ziegfeld, Jr. (March 21, 1867 – July 22, 1932), popularly known as Flo Ziegfeld, was an American Broadway impresario, notable for his series of theatrical revues, the Ziegfeld Follies (1907–1931), inspired by the Folies Bergère of Paris. He also produced the musical Show Boat. He was known as the "glorifier of the American girl". Ziegfeld is a member of the American Theater Hall of Fame.

    Ziegfeld's stage spectaculars, known as the Ziegfeld Follies, began with Follies of 1907, which opened on July 7, 1907, and were produced annually until 1931. These extravaganzas, with elaborate costumes and sets, featured beauties chosen personally by Ziegfeld in production numbers choreographed to the works of prominent composers such as Irving Berlin, George Gershwin and Jerome Kern. The Ziegfeld Follies featured the famous Ziegfeld Girls, female chorus dancers who wore elaborate costumes and performed in synchronization.

    The Follies featured many performers who, though well known from previous work in other theatrical genres, achieved unique financial success and publicity with Ziegfeld. Included among these are Nora Bayes, Fanny Brice, Ruth Etting, W. C. Fields, Eddie Cantor, Marilyn Miller, Will Rogers, Bert Williams and Ann Pennington.

    The Ziegfeld Theatre opened in February 1927 with Ziegfeld's production of Rio Rita, which ran for nearly 500 performances. This was followed by Show Boat, a great hit with a run of 572 performances. This impactful musical about racial segregation was a collaboration between Ziegfeld, composer Jerome Kern, and designer Joseph Urban. The musical has been revived four times on Broadway, winning multiple Tony awards. The score features several classics such as "Ol' Man River" and "Can't Help Lovin' Dat Man".

    Ziegfeld lost much of his money in the stock market crash. In May 1932 he staged a revival of Show Boat that ran for six months—a hit, by Depression standards. That same year, he brought his Follies stars to CBS Radio with The Ziegfeld Follies of the Air.

    Ziegfeld died in Hollywood, California on July 22, 1932'.
    - At Wikipedia: More
    - On YouTube: More
  • In 1928, Sliced bread sold for the first time.
    From Wikipedia: 'Sliced bread is a loaf of bread that has been sliced with a machine and packaged for convenience. It was first sold in 1928, advertised as "the greatest forward step in the baking industry since bread was wrapped". This led to the popular phrase, "greatest thing since sliced bread".

    Otto Frederick Rohwedder of Davenport, Iowa, United States invented the first loaf-at-a-time bread-slicing machine. A prototype he built in 1912 was destroyed in a fire and it was not until 1928 that Rohwedder had a fully working machine ready. The first commercial use of the machine was by the Chillicothe Baking Company of Chillicothe, Missouri, which produced their first slices on July 7, 1928. Their product, "Kleen Maid Sliced Bread", proved a success. Battle Creek, Michigan has a competing claim as the first city to sell bread sliced by Rohwedder's machine; however, historians have produced no documentation backing up Battle Creek's claim. The bread was advertised as "the greatest forward step in the baking industry since bread was wrapped."

    St. Louis baker Gustav Papendick bought Rohwedder's second bread slicer and set out to improve it by devising a way to keep the slices together at least long enough to allow the loaves to be wrapped. After failures trying rubber bands and metal pins, he settled on placing the slices into a cardboard tray. The tray aligned the slices, allowing mechanized wrapping machines to function.

    W.E. Long, who promoted the Holsum Bread brand, used by various independent bakers around the country, pioneered and promoted the packaging of sliced bread beginning in 1928. In 1930 Wonder Bread, first sold in 1925, started marketing sliced bread nationwide'.
    - At FamousDaily: More
    - At Wikipedia: More
    - On YouTube: More
  • In 1930, Construction of Boulder Dam begins.
    From Wikipedia: 'Hoover Dam, once known as Boulder Dam, is a concrete arch-gravity dam in the Black Canyon of the Colorado River, on the border between the U.S. states of Nevada and Arizona. It was constructed between 1931 and 1936 during the Great Depression and was dedicated on September 30, 1935, by President Franklin D. Roosevelt. Its construction was the result of a massive effort involving thousands of workers, and cost over one hundred lives. The dam was controversially named after President Herbert Hoover.

    Since about 1900, the Black Canyon and nearby Boulder Canyon had been investigated for their potential to support a dam that would control floods, provide irrigation water and produce hydroelectric power. In 1928, Congress authorized the project. The winning bid to build the dam was submitted by a consortium called Six Companies, Inc., which began construction on the dam in early 1931. Such a large concrete structure had never been built before, and some of the techniques were unproven. The torrid summer weather and lack of facilities near the site also presented difficulties. Nevertheless, Six Companies turned over the dam to the federal government on March 1, 1936, more than two years ahead of schedule.

    Hoover Dam impounds Lake Mead, the largest reservoir in the United States by volume. The dam is located near Boulder City, Nevada, a municipality originally constructed for workers on the construction project, about 30 mi (48 km) southeast of Las Vegas, Nevada. The dam's generators provide power for public and private utilities in Nevada, Arizona, and California. Hoover Dam is a major tourist attraction; nearly a million people tour the dam each year. The heavily travelled U.S. 93 ran along the dam's crest until October 2010, when the Hoover Dam Bypass opened'.
    - At FamousDaily: More
    - At Wikipedia: More
    - On YouTube: More
  • In 1947, The Roswell incident, the (supposed) crash of an alien spaceship near Roswell in New Mexico.
    From Wikipedia: 'The Roswell UFO incident refers to an event in mid 1947, when a United States Air Force surveillance balloon crashed at a ranch near Roswell, New Mexico, prompting claims alleging the crash was of an extraterrestrial spaceship.

    After an initial spike of interest, the military reported that the crash was merely of a conventional weather balloon. Interest subsequently waned until the late 1970s when ufologists began promulgating a variety of increasingly elaborate conspiracy theories, claiming that one or more alien spacecraft had crash-landed, and that the extraterrestrial occupants had been recovered by the military who then engaged in a cover-up.

    In the 1990s, the US military published reports disclosing the true nature of the crashed Project Mogul balloon. Nevertheless, the Roswell incident continues to be of interest in popular media, and conspiracy theories surrounding the event persist. Roswell has been called "the world's most famous, most exhaustively investigated, and most thoroughly debunked UFO claim".

    On June 14, 1947, William Brazel, a foreman working on the Foster homestead, noticed clusters of debris approximately 30 miles (50 km) north of Roswell, New Mexico. This date—or "about three weeks" before July 8—appeared in later stories featuring Brazel, but the initial press release from the Roswell Army Air Field (RAAF) said the find was "sometime last week", suggesting Brazel found the debris in early July. Brazel told the Roswell Daily Record that he and his son saw a "large area of bright wreckage made up of rubber strips, tinfoil, a rather tough paper and sticks." He paid little attention to it but returned on July 4 with his son, wife and daughter to gather up the material. Some accounts have described Brazel as having gathered some of the material earlier, rolling it together and stashing it under some brush. The next day, Brazel heard reports about "flying discs" and wondered if that was what he had picked up. On July 7, Brazel saw Sheriff Wilcox and "whispered kinda confidential like" that he may have found a flying disc. Another account quotes Wilcox as saying Brazel reported the object on July 6.

    Wilcox called RAAF Major Jesse Marcel and a "man in plainclothes" accompanied Brazel back to the ranch where more pieces were picked up. " spent a couple of hours Monday afternoon looking for any more parts of the weather device", said Marcel. "We found a few more patches of tinfoil and rubber."

    A telex sent to a Federal Bureau of Investigation (FBI) office from the Fort Worth, Texas office quoted a Major from the Eighth Air Force (also based in Fort Worth at Carswell Air Force Base) on July 8, 1947 as saying that "The disc is hexagonal in shape and was suspended from a ballon by cable, which ballon was approximately twenty feet in diameter. Major Curtan further advices advises that the object found resembles a high altitude weather balloon with a radar reflector, but that telephonic conversation between their office and Wright field had not borne out this belief."

    Early on Tuesday, July 8, the RAAF issued a press release, which was immediately picked up by numerous news outlets:

    Colonel William H. Blanchard, commanding officer of the 509th, contacted General Roger M. Ramey of the Eighth Air Force in Fort Worth, Texas, and Ramey ordered the object be flown to Fort Worth Army Air Field. At the base, Warrant Officer Irving Newton confirmed Ramey’s preliminary opinion, identifying the object as being a weather balloon and its "kite", a nickname for a radar reflector used to track the balloons from the ground. Another news release was issued, this time from the Fort Worth base, describing the object as being a "weather balloon"'.
    - At Wikipedia: More
    - On YouTube: More
    - On YouTube: More
  • In 1967, The Doors', 'Light My Fire' hits #1.
    From Wikipedia: '"Light My Fire" is a song by the Doors, which was recorded in August 1966 and released in January 1967 on their self-titled debut album. Released as an edited single in May 1967, it spent three weeks at number one on the Billboard Hot 100 chart in late July, and one week on the Cash Box Top 100, nearly a year after its recording.

    A year later, it re-entered the Billboard Hot 100 in 1968 following the success of José Feliciano's version of the song (which peaked at number 3 on the Billboard chart), peaking at number 87. The song was largely written by the band's guitarist Robby Krieger, and credited to the entire band. The single was certified gold by the Recording Industry Association of America in September 1967 for one million units shipped. As of December 1971 it was the band's best-selling single, with over 927,000 copies sold'.
    - At Wikipedia: More
    - On YouTube: More
  • In 1981, The first solar-powered aircraft, the Solar Challenger, crosses the English Channel.
    From Wikipedia: 'The Solar Challenger was a solar-powered electric aircraft designed by Paul MacCready's AeroVironment. The aircraft was designed as an improvement on the Gossamer Penguin, which in turn was a solar-powered variant of the human-powered Gossamer Albatross. It was powered entirely by the photovoltaic cells on its wing and stabilizer, without even reserve batteries, and was the first such craft capable of long-distance flight. In 1981, it successfully completed a 163 mile (262 km) demonstration flight from France to England.

    The Solar Challenger was designed by a team led by Paul McCready as a more airworthy improvement on the Gossamer Penguin, directly incorporating lessons learned from flight testing the earlier aircraft. As with the Gossamer Penguin, construction was sponsored by DuPont in exchange for publicity for the company's patented materials incorporated in the design. AstroFlight, Inc. supplied the motors and solar panels, designed by Robert Boucher. The plane's wings carried 16,128 solar cells yielding a maximum solar power of 3,800 watts. It was flight tested in Western USA in winter 1980-1981.

    On July 7, 1981, the aircraft flew 163 miles from Pontoise – Cormeilles Aerodrome, north of Paris, France to Manston Royal Air Force Base in Manston, United Kingdom, staying aloft 5 hours and 23 minutes, with pilot Stephen Ptacek at the controls. Currently the plane is owned by the Smithsonian Institution's Air and Space Museum'.
    - At FamousDaily: More
    - At Wikipedia: More
  • In 1990, Tim Berners-Lee, a researcher at CERN, develops the HyperText Markup Language which would later be called HTML.
    From Wikipedia: 'HyperText Markup Language, commonly abbreviated as HTML, is the standard markup language used to create web pages. Along with CSS, and JavaScript, HTML is a cornerstone technology used to create web pages, as well as to create user interfaces for mobile and web applications. Web browsers can read HTML files and render them into visible or audible web pages. HTML describes the structure of a website semantically and, before the advent of Cascading Style Sheets (CSS), included cues for the presentation or appearance of the document (web page), making it a markup language, rather than a programming language.

    In 1980, physicist Tim Berners-Lee, then a contractor at CERN, proposed and prototyped ENQUIRE, a system for CERN researchers to use and share documents. In 1989, Berners-Lee wrote a memo proposing an Internet-based hypertext system. Berners-Lee specified HTML and wrote the browser and server software in late 1990. That year, Berners-Lee and CERN data systems engineer Robert Cailliau collaborated on a joint request for funding, but the project was not formally adopted by CERN. In his personal notes from 1990 he listed "some of the many areas in which hypertext is used" and put an encyclopedia first.

    The first publicly available description of HTML was a document called "HTML Tags", first mentioned on the Internet by Tim Berners-Lee in late 1991. It describes 18 elements comprising the initial, relatively simple design of HTML. Except for the hyperlink tag, these were strongly influenced by SGMLguid, an in-house Standard Generalized Markup Language (SGML)-based documentation format at CERN. Eleven of these elements still exist in HTML 4.

    After the HTML and HTML+ drafts expired in early 1994, the IETF created an HTML Working Group, which in 1995 completed "HTML 2.0", the first HTML specification intended to be treated as a standard against which future implementations should be based.

    Further development under the auspices of the IETF was stalled by competing interests. Since 1996, the HTML specifications have been maintained, with input from commercial software vendors, by the World Wide Web Consortium (W3C). However, in 2000, HTML also became an international standard (ISO/IEC 15445:2000). HTML 4.01 was published in late 1999, with further errata published through 2001. In 2004, development began on HTML5 in the Web Hypertext Application Technology Working Group (WHATWG), which became a joint deliverable with the W3C in 2008, and completed and standardized on 28 October 2014'.
    - At FamousDaily: More
    - At Wikipedia: More
    - On YouTube: More
  II.
Henry's Heads Up! - previous days social media post (updated daily)

Tomorrow July 7 2014 is a good day for your sweet tooth. It will be 'National Strawberry Sundae Day' and 'Chocolate Day'.

As always, you must have your main dish first. I have provided for that. It will also be 'National Macaroni Day'. That is a side dish you say? Not at my house.

You might have a little butter and bread with that, since we celebrate, not 'the greatest thing since sliced bread', but sliced bread itself. On July 7 1928, sliced bread is sold for the first time, by the Chillicothe Baking Company in Missouri, using a 'loaf-at-a-time' slicing machine invented by Otto Frederick Rohwedder. Even so, I can remember when my parents sliced bread and had to shake a glass bottle of milk to better homogenize the cream and milk.

Pasta, bread and all those sweets, my, my. And to top it off it will be ' Tell The Truth Day' so you won't be able to lie to yourself about the number of calories. . Don't even try to confuse the others at the table. They already know the truth.

You could walk off some of those calories, since it will be 'National Father Daughter Take A Walk Day'.

But all is not lost. It will also be 'Global Forgiveness Day'. I'm sure you learned your lesson, forgiving yourself is the next step.

If you took that walk back fifty years ago, on July 7 1964 you would still here the no. 1 song, 'Get Around' by the Beach Boys. On the same date in 1962, the instrumental song 'The Stripper' by David Rose was no. 1. If your way-back machine is up to it, you might hear Elvis Presley 's radio debut in 1954, on 'WHBQ Memphis', with 'That's All Right'.

For you Sherlockians, July 7 has two items of interest. It is Dr. Watson's birthday in 1852 and the date of Sir Arthur Conan Doyle's death (22 May 1859 – 7 July 1930). Oh, Sherlock himself, January 6 1854. The first Sherlock Holmes story was published in 1887 - 'A Study in Scarlet'. BTW, Doyle did not get his knighthood as Sir, because of the Sherlock Holmes stories. It was due to the fact that he was a volunteer doctor in a field hospital in the Boer War and wrote a book about the causes as he saw them.

Oh, yes, and the talk about that 'Roswell Event' back in '47, is still going strong.

 III.
Top Song & Movie 50 years ago today

No. 1 song

  • Get Around - The Beach Boys: More
    'A World Without Love' has been displaced by 'Get Around', which will hold the no. 1 spot until July 18 2014, when 'Rag Doll', takes over.
  • Became No. 1 on this day in 1962.
    The Stripper (Instrumental) More

Top movie

  • Circus World More
    Having displaced 'A Shot in the Dark', it will be there until the weekend box office of July 12 1964 when, 'The Killers', takes over.
  IV.
Today in the Past (reference sites): July 7
   V.
This month July 2014 (updated once a month - last updated - )

National Baked Bean Month, National Culinary Arts Month, National Grilling Month, National Hot Dog Month, National Ice Cream Month, National July Belongs to Blueberries Month, National Vacation Rental Month,


July is:

July origin (from Wikipedia): Named by the Roman Senate in honor of Julius Caesar.
"is the seventh month of the year (between June and August) in the Julian and Gregorian Calendars and one of seven months with the length of 31 days. It was named by the Roman Senate in honor of the Roman general, Julius Caesar, it being the month of his birth. Prior to that, it was called Quintilis. It is, on average, the warmest month in most of the Northern hemisphere (where it is the second month of summer) and the coldest month in much of the Southern hemisphere (where it is the second month of winter). The second half of the year commences in July. In the Southern hemisphere, July is the seasonal equivalent of January in the Northern hemisphere."

July at Wikipedia: More

  VI.
TV fifty years ago 1964 (updated yearly - last updated Jan. 1 2014)

If you couldn't afford 90 cents for a movie ticket, 50 years ago, or your 45 RPM record player was broke, you might watch one of these shows on TV.
From this Wikipedia article: More

 VII.
Best selling books fifty years ago (updated yearly - last updated Jan. 1 2014)

Best selling books of 1964 More

VIII.
Fun (Last link added October 1 2014, but content on each site may change daily)
  • Astronomy Picture of the Day: More
  • NOAA: - National Hurricane Center - Atlantic Graphical Tropical Weather Outlook: More
  • Listen to Old Radio Shows: (streaming mp3 with schedule) More
  • NASA TV: (video feed) More
    NASA TV schedule: More
  • Public Domain eBook Links

    Sites for downloading or reading free Public Domain eBooks. Available in various formats. More

  • Podcast: A Moment of Science. Approximately 1 minute general science facts.
    Home page: More
    RSS: More
  • Podcast: The Naked Scientists. Current science, medicine, space and other science
    Home page: More
    RSS: More
  • Podcast: Quirks & Quarks. Current science news.
    Home page: More
    RSS: More
  • Articles and videos: Universe Today. Current space and astronomy news.
    Home page: More
    RSS: More
  • Old Picture of the Day - "Each day we bring you one stunning little glimpse of history in the form of a historical photograph."
    Home page: More
    RSS: More
  IX.
Other Holiday Sites (Last link added October 1 2014. Link content changes yearly)

Below, are listed several holiday sites that I reference in addition to other holiday researches.


US Government Holidays

  • 2014 Postal Holidays More
  • 2014 Official Federal Holidays More

Holidays Worldwide

  • List of holidays by country More
  • Holidays and Observances around the World More
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