Today is July 8 2014

National Milk Chocolate with Almonds Day: More

• Video Game Day: More
  
• SCUD Day: More
  Savor the Comic, Unplug the Drama Day
• National Don't Put all your Eggs in One Omelet Day: More
  Some sites say this is on the 9th.

• In 1776, The Liberty Bell tolls to announce the Declaration of Independence, ringing out from the tower of Independence Hall in Philadelphia.
  From Wikipedia: The Liberty Bell is an iconic symbol of American independence, located in Philadelphia, Pennsylvania. Formerly placed in the steeple of the Pennsylvania State House (now renamed Independence Hall), the bell today is located in the Liberty Bell Center in Independence National Historical Park. The bell was commissioned from the London firm of Lester and Pack (today the Whitechapel Bell Foundry) in 1752, and was cast with the lettering "Proclaim LIBERTY throughout all the land unto all the inhabitants thereof," a Biblical reference from the Book of Leviticus (25:10). The bell first cracked when rung after its arrival in Philadelphia, and was twice recast by local workmen John Pass and John Stow, whose last names appear on the bell. In its early years, the Liberty Bell was used to summon lawmakers to legislative sessions and to alert citizens to public meetings and proclamations.
  
  'No immediate announcement was made of the Second Continental Congress's vote for independence, and thus the bell could not have rung on July 4, 1776, at least not for any reason related to that vote. Bells were rung to mark th reading of the Declaration of Independence on July 8, 1776, and while there is no contemporary account of the Liberty Bell ringing, most historians believe it was one of the bells rung. After American independence was secured, it fell into relative obscurity for some years. In the 1830s, the bell was adopted as a symbol by abolitionist societies, who dubbed it the "Liberty Bell."
  
  The bell acquired its distinctive large crack sometime in the early 19th century—a widespread story claims it cracked while ringing after the death of Chief Justice John Marshall in 1835. The bell became famous after an 1847 short story claimed that an aged bell-ringer rang it on July 4, 1776, upon hearing of the Second Continental Congress's vote for independence. Despite the fact that the bell did not ring for independence on that July 4, the tale was widely accepted as fact, even by some historians. Beginning in 1885, the City of Philadelphia, which owns the bell, allowed it to go to various expositions and patriotic gatherings. The bell attracted huge crowds wherever it went, additional cracking occurred and pieces were chipped away by souvenir hunters. The last such journey occurred in 1915, after which the city refused further requests.
  
  After World War II, the city allowed the National Park Service to take custody of the bell, while retaining ownership. The bell was used as a symbol of freedom during the Cold War and was a popular site for protests in the 1960s. It was moved from its longtime home in Independence Hall to a nearby glass pavilion on Independence Mall in 1976, and then to the larger Liberty Bell Center adjacent to the pavilion in 2003. The bell has been featured on coins and stamps, and its name and image have been widely used by corporations'.
  - At FamousDaily: More
  - At Wikipedia: More
  - On YouTube: More
• In 1800, Dr Benjamin Waterhouse gives 1st cowpox vaccination in the US to his son to prevent smallpox
  From Wikipedia: Benjamin Waterhouse (March 4, 1754, Newport, Rhode Island – October 2, 1846, Cambridge, Massachusetts) was a physician, co-founder and professor of Harvard Medical School. He is most well known for being the first doctor to test the smallpox vaccine in the United States, which he carried out on his own family.
  
  'After returning to the United States in 1782, Waterhouse joined the faculty of the new medical school at Harvard as one of three professors, including John Warren and Aaron Dexter, in the area of Theory and Practice of Physic. He was also elected that same year as a Fellow at Rhode Island College (now "Brown University"). He was elected a Fellow of the American Academy of Arts and Sciences in 1795. In 1814, Waterhouse resigned his Harvard professorship after opposing a plan to establish the Medical School in Boston and attempting to found a rival medical school.
  
  Waterhouse first wrote to then-President John Adams, his former roommate, hoping to spread the word about cowpox vaccinations preventing smallpox. When he found President Adams unresponsive, he wrote a letter to Vice President Thomas Jefferson entitled "A prospect of exterminating the smallpox."
  
  Jefferson replied with a letter dated Christmas Day, 1800, and soon offered his support. Once Jefferson became President the following year, Waterhouse introduced Edward Jenner's method of cowpox vaccination in the United States. He attempted to maintain a monopoly over the cowpox vaccine, for both financial reasons and to protect the vaccine from incompetent or fraudulent physicians. Waterhouse made the first vaccinations in the United States on four of his children. He commissioned a controlled experiment at the Boston Board of Health in which 19 vaccinated and 2 unvaccinated boys were exposed to the smallpox virus. The vaccinated boys demonstrated immunity and the 2 unvaccinated boys succumbed to the disease'.
  - At Wikipedia: More
  - On YouTube: More
• In 1889, The Wall Street Journal publishes its first issue.
  From Wikipedia: 'The Wall Street Journal is a business-focused, English-language international daily newspaper based in New York City. The Journal is published six days a week by Dow Jones and Company, a division of News Corp, along with its Asian and European editions. The newspaper is published in the broadsheet format.
  
  The Wall Street Journal is the largest newspaper in the United States by circulation. According to the Alliance for Audited Media, the Journal had a circulation of about 2.4 million copies (including nearly 900,000 digital subscriptions) as of March 2013, compared with USA Today's 1.7 million.
  
  The newspaper has won 39 Pulitzer Prizes through 2015 and derives its name from Wall Street in the heart of the Financial District of Lower Manhattan. The Journal has been printed continuously since its inception on July 8, 1889, by Charles Dow, Edward Jones, and Charles Bergstresser.
  
  The first products of Dow Jones and Company, the publisher of the Journal, were brief news bulletins hand-delivered throughout the day to traders at the stock exchange in the early 1880s. They were later aggregated in a printed daily summary called the Customers' Afternoon Letter. Reporters Charles Dow, Edward Jones, and Charles Bergstresser converted this into The Wall Street Journal, which was published for the first time on July 8, 1889, and began delivery of the Dow Jones News Service via telegraph. In 1896, The "Dow Jones Industrial Average" was officially launched. It was the first of several indices of stock and bond prices on the New York Stock Exchange. In 1899, the Journal's Review and Outlook column, which still runs today, appeared for the first time, initially written by Charles Dow'.
  - At FamousDaily: More
  - At Wikipedia: More
  - On YouTube: More
• In 2011, Space Shuttle Atlantis is launched in the final mission of the US Space Shuttle program.
  From Wikipedia: 'The Space Shuttle Atlantis (Orbiter Vehicle Designation: OV-104) is a Space Shuttle orbiter belonging to the National Aeronautics and Space Administration (NASA), the spaceflight and space exploration agency of the United States. Constructed by the Rockwell International company in Southern California and delivered to the Kennedy Space Center in Eastern Florida in April 1985, Atlantis is the fourth operational and the second-to-last Space Shuttle built. Its maiden flight was STS-51-J from 3 to 7 October 1985.
  
  Atlantis embarked on its 33rd and final mission, also the final mission of a space shuttle, STS-135, on 8 July 2011. STS-134 by Endeavour was expected to be the final flight before STS-135 was authorized in October 2010. STS-135 took advantage of the processing for the STS-335 Launch On Need mission that would have been necessary if STS-134's crew became stranded in orbit. Atlantis landed for the final time at the Kennedy Space Center on 21 July 2011.
  
  By the end of its final mission, Atlantis had orbited the Earth a total of 4,848 times, traveling nearly 126,000,000 mi (203,000,000 km) or more than 525 times the distance from the Earth to the Moon.
  
  Atlantis is named after RV Atlantis, a two-masted sailing ship that operated as the primary research vessel for the Woods Hole Oceanographic Institution from 1930 to 1966'.
  - At FamousDaily: More
  - At Wikipedia: More
  - On YouTube: More

Tomorrow July 8 2014 will be 'National Milk Chocolate with Almonds Day'. You bittersweet chocolate with almonds fans, had your day back on Jan. 10th of this year.

Tomorrow is also 'Video Game Day'. I'll let you decide if this is something to celebrate or fear.

We will celebrate 'SCUD Day'. That's: 'Savor the Comic, Unplug the Drama Day'. Which is what I try to do here, on a daily basis.

Continuing a day of philosophical ideas, it will also be 'National Don't Put all your Eggs in One Omelet Day'. Some references say this is on the 9th,. Having survived transport in several baskets, it seems a good idea to commit only a few eggs to each omelet..

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.

• FamousBirthdays.com: July 8 Birthdays More
• FamousDaily.com: July 8 History More
• History.com: Historical Events on 8th July More
• HistoryOrb.com: Famous Deaths on 8th July More
• On-This-day.com history 8th July More
• On-This-day.com music history 8th July More
• Wikipedia.com: History July 8 More

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

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

Best selling books of 1964 More

• 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

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