Today is July 25 2014

National Hot Fudge Sundae Day: More

• Culinarians Day: More
  
• Thread The Needle Day: More
• Talk In An Elevator Day: More
• National Carousel Day: More
• System Administrator Appreciation Day: More
• First flight across the English Channel in a heavier-than-air machine from.: More
  Made by Louis Blériot 1909. From Calais to Dover in 37 minutes.
• World's first 'test tube baby' (conception by in vitro fertilisation) is born.: More
  Louise Brown in 1978.

• In 1909, Louis Blériot makes the first flight across the English Channel in a heavier-than-air machine from (Calais to Dover, England, United Kingdom) in 37 minutes.
  From Wikipedia: 'Louis Charles Joseph Blériot (1 July 1872 – 1 August 1936) was a French aviator, inventor and engineer. He developed the first practical headlamp for trucks and established a profitable business manufacturing them, using much of the money he made to finance his attempts to build a successful aircraft. In 1909 he became world famous for making the first flight across the English Channel in a heavier than air aircraft, winning the prize of £1,000 offered by the Daily Mail newspaper. Blériot was also the first to make a working, powered, piloted monoplane. and the founder of a successful aircraft manufacturing company.
  
  The Daily Mail prize was first announced in October 1908, with a prize of £500 being offered for a flight made before the end of the year. When 1908 passed with no serious attempt being made, the prize money was doubled to £1,000 and the offer extended to the end of 1909. Like some of the other prizes offered by the paper, it was widely seen as nothing more than a way to gain cheap publicity: the Paris newspaper Le Matin commenting that there was no chance of the prize being won.
  
  The English Channel had been crossed by an unmanned hydrogen balloon in 1784 and a manned crossing by Jean-Pierre Blanchard and John Jeffries followed in 1785.
  
  At 4:15 am on the 25 July 1909, watched by an excited crowd, Blériot made a short trial flight in his Type XI, and then, on a signal that the sun had risen (the competition rules required a flight between sunrise and sunset), he took off at 4:41 for the attempted crossing. Flying at approximately 45 mph (72 km/h) and an altitude of about 250 ft (76 m), he set off across the Channel. Not having a compass, Blériot took his course from the Escopette, which was heading for Dover, but he soon overtook the ship. The visibility had deteriorated and he later said, “for more than 10 minutes I was alone, isolated, lost in the midst of the immense sea, and I did not see anything on the horizon or a single ship”.
  
  The grey line of the English coast, however, came into sight on his left; the wind had increased, and had blown him to the east of his intended course. Altering course, he followed the line of the coast about a mile offshore until he spotted Charles Fontaine, the correspondent from Le Matin waving a large Tricolour as a signal. Unlike Latham, Blériot had not visited Dover to find a suitable spot to land, and the choice had been made by Fontaine, who had selected a patch of gently sloping land called Northfall Meadow, close to Dover Castle, where there was a low point in the cliffs. Once over land, he circled twice to lose height, and cut his engine at an altitude of about 20 m (66 ft), making a heavy "pancake" landing due to the gusty wind conditions; the undercarriage was damaged and one blade of the propeller was shattered, but Blériot was unhurt. The flight had taken 36 minutes and 30 seconds.
  
  News of his departure had been sent by radio to Dover, but it was generally expected that he would attempt to land on the beach to the west of the town. The Daily Mail correspondent, realising that Blériot had landed near the castle, set off at speed in a motor-car, and brought Blériot back to the harbour, where he was reunited with his wife. The couple, surrounded by cheering people and photographers, was then taken to the Lord Warden Hotel at the foot of the Admiralty Pier. Blériot had become a celebrity.
  
  The Blériot Memorial, the outline of the aircraft laid out in granite setts in the turf (funded by oil manufacturer Alexander Duckham), marks his landing spot above the cliffs near Dover Castle. 51.1312°N 1.326°E.
  
  The aircraft which was used in the crossing is now preserved in the Musée des Arts et Métiers in Paris'.
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• In 1962, The Elvis Presley film 'Kid Galahad' premiered. The plot was also done in 1937 and 1941.
  From Wikipedia: 'Kid Galahad is a 1962 American musical film starring Elvis Presley as a boxer. It was released by United Artists. The film opened at #9 at the box office when released in the United States in August 1962. Variety ranked it #37 on the list of the top-grossing films of 1962.
  
  Kid Galahad was shot on location in Idyllwild, California. Its supporting cast included Gig Young, Lola Albright and Charles Bronson. Some critics rate it as one of Elvis Presley's best performances.
  
  The film is a remake of the 1937 original version starring Edward G. Robinson, Bette Davis, and Humphrey Bogart and directed by Michael Curtiz, who also directed the Presley 1958 film King Creole'.
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• In 1966, The Supremes' "You Can't Hurry Love" was released.
  From Wikipedia: '"You Can't Hurry Love" is a 1966 song originally recorded by The Supremes on the Motown label.
  
  Written and produced by Motown production team Holland–Dozier–Holland, the song topped the United States Billboard pop singles chart, in the UK in the top 5, and in the Australian Singles Chart in the top 10, released and peaking late summer/early autumn in 1966. Sixteen years later, it would again become a number-one hit when Phil Collins re-recorded the song. It reached number-one on the UK Singles Chart for two weeks beginning in January 1983, and reached No. 10 on the US Singles Chart that same month'.
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• In 1966, The Monkees recorded their first single. The song was 'The Last Train to Clarksville'.
  From Wikipedia: '"Last Train to Clarksville" was the debut single by The Monkees. It was released August 16, 1966 and later included on the group's 1966 self-titled album, which was released on October 10, 1966. The song, written by Tommy Boyce and Bobby Hart was recorded at RCA Victor Studio B in Hollywood on July 25, 1966 and was already on the Boss Hit Bounds on 17 August 1966. The song topped the Billboard Hot 100 on November 5, 1966. Lead vocals were performed by The Monkees' drummer Micky Dolenz. Clarksville was featured in seven episodes of the Monkees TV show; the most for any Monkees song.
  
  The song, written by the songwriting duo Tommy Boyce and Bobby Hart, has been compared to The Beatles' "Paperback Writer", particularly the "jangly" guitar sound, the chord structure, and the vocal harmonies. The Beatles song had been number one in the US charts three months earlier.
  
  The lyrics tell of a man phoning the woman he loves, urging her to meet him at a train station in Clarksville before he must leave, possibly forever. The Vietnam War was then going on, and what was not made explicit was that the song was about a soldier leaving for the war zone.
  
  It is often said that the song refers to Clarksville, Tennessee, which is near Fort Campbell, Kentucky, the home of the 101st Airborne Division, which was then serving in Vietnam. However, according to songwriter Bobby Hart, it was not specifically written with that town in mind.
  
  Hart said: "We were just looking for a name that sounded good. There's a little town in northern Arizona I used to go through in the summer on the way to Oak Creek Canyon called Clarksdale. We were throwing out names, and when we got to Clarksdale, we thought Clarksville sounded even better. We didn't know it at the time, there is an Army base near the town of Clarksville, Tennessee — which would have fit the bill fine for the story line. We couldn't be too direct with The Monkees. We couldn't really make a protest song out of it — we kind of snuck it in'.
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• In 1975, Longest running Broadway show (then), 'A Chorus Line,' opens at Shubert Theatre (6,137 perfs.).
  From Wikipedia: 'A Chorus Line is a musical with music by Marvin Hamlisch, lyrics by Edward Kleban and a book by James Kirkwood, Jr. and Nicholas Dante. Centred on seventeen Broadway dancers auditioning for spots on a chorus line, the musical is set on the bare stage of a Broadway theatre during an audition for a musical. A Chorus Line provides a glimpse into the personalities of the performers and the choreographer as they describe the events that have shaped their lives and their decisions to become dancers.
  
  Following several workshops and an Off-Broadway production, A Chorus Line opened at the Shubert Theatre on Broadway July 25, 1975, directed and choreographed by Michael Bennett. An unprecedented box office and critical hit, the musical received twelve Tony Award nominations and won nine, in addition to the 1976 Pulitzer Prize for Drama.
  
  The original Broadway production ran for 6,137 performances, becoming the longest-running production in Broadway history until surpassed by Cats in 1997, and the longest-running Broadway musical originally produced in the US, until surpassed in 2011 by Chicago. It remains the sixth longest-running Broadway show ever. A Chorus Line's success has spawned many successful productions worldwide. It began a lengthy run in the West End in 1976 and was revived on Broadway in 2006, and in the West End in 2013'.
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• In 1976, Viking 1 takes the famous Face on Mars photo.Pareidolia:
  From Wikipedia: 'Cydonia is a region on the planet Mars that has attracted both scientific and popular interest. The name originally referred to the albedo feature (distinctively coloured area) that was visible from Earthbound telescopes. The area borders plains of Acidalia Planitia and the Arabia Terra highlands. The area includes the regions: "Cydonia Mensae", an area of flat-topped mesa-like features, "Cydonia Colles", a region of small hills or knobs, and "Cydonia Labyrinthus", a complex of intersecting valleys. As with other albedo features on Mars, the name Cydonia was drawn from classical antiquity, in this case from Kydonia, a historic polis (or "city-state") on the island of Crete. Cydonia contains the "Face on Mars" feature—located about half-way between Arandas Crater and Bamberg Crater.
  
  In one of the images taken by Viking 1 on July 25, 1976, a 2 km (1.2 miles) long Cydonian mesa, situated at 40.75° north latitude and 9.46° west longitude, had the appearance of a humanoid face. When the image was originally acquired, Viking chief scientist Gerry Soffen dismissed the "Face on Mars" in image 035A72 as a "trick of light and shadow". However, a second image, 070A13, also shows the "face", and was acquired 35 Viking orbits later at a different sun-angle from the 035A72 image. This latter discovery was made independently by Vincent DiPietro and Gregory Molenaar, two computer engineers at NASA's Goddard Space Flight Center. DiPietro and Molenaar discovered the two misfiled images, Viking frames 035A72 and 070A13, while searching through NASA archives.
  
  More than 20 years after the Viking 1 images were taken, a succession of spacecraft visited Mars and made new observations of the Cydonia region. These spacecraft have included NASA's Mars Global Surveyor (1997–2006) and Mars Reconnaissance Orbiter (2006-), and the European Space Agency's Mars Express probe (2003-). In contrast to the relatively low resolution of the Viking images of Cydonia, these new platforms afford much improved resolution. For instance, the Mars Express images are at a resolution of 14 m/pixel (46 ft/pixel) or better. By combining data from the High Resolution Stereo Camera (HRSC) on the Mars Express probe and the Mars Orbiter Camera (MOC) on board NASA's Mars Global Surveyor it has been possible to create a three-dimensional representation of the "Face on Mars".
  
  Since it was originally first imaged, the "face" has been near-universally accepted as an optical illusion, an example of the psychological phenomenon of pareidolia. After analysis of the higher resolution Mars Global Surveyor data NASA stated that "a detailed analysis of multiple images of this feature reveals a natural looking Martian hill whose illusory face-like appearance depends on the viewing angle and angle of illumination". Similar optical illusions can be found in the geology of Earth; examples include the Old Man of the Mountain, the Sphinx, the Pedra da Gávea, the Old Man of Hoy, Stac Levenish and the Badlands Guardian'.
  - At Wikipedia: More
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• In 1978, Louise Brown becomes the world's first 'test tube baby'.
  From Wikipedia: 'Louise Joy Brown (born 25 July 1978) is an English woman known for being the first human to have been born after conception by in vitro fertilisation, or IVF.
  
  Louise Brown was born at Oldham General Hospital, Oldham, by planned Caesarean section delivered by registrar John Webster. She weighed 5 pounds, 12 ounces (2.608 kg) at birth. Her parents, Lesley and John Brown, had been trying to conceive for nine years. Lesley faced complications of blocked fallopian tubes. On 10 November 1977, Lesley Brown underwent a procedure, later to become known as IVF (in vitro fertillisation), developed by Patrick Steptoe and Robert Edwards. Edwards was awarded the 2010 Nobel Prize in Medicine for this work. Although the media referred to Brown as a "test tube baby", her conception actually took place in a petri dish. Her younger sister, Natalie Brown, was also conceived through IVF four years later, and became the world's fortieth IVF baby. In May 1999, Natalie was the first IVF baby to give birth herself—naturally—to daughter Casey. Natalie has subsequently had three additional children; sons Christopher, Daniel, and Aeron, the last of whom was born in August 2013. Their son Cameron, conceived naturally, was born on 20 December 2006. Brown's second son, Aiden Patrick Robert, was born in August 2013.
  
  Brown's father died in 2006. Her mother died on 6 June 2012 in Bristol Royal Infirmary at the age of 64 due to complications from a gallbladder infection'.
  - At FamousDaily: More
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• In 1983, E.T. (Embryo Transfer) was the first in-vitro baboon born.
  - At FamousDaily: More
• In 1984, Salyut 7 cosmonaut Svetlana Savitskaya becomes the first woman to perform a space walk.
  From Wikipedia: 'Svetlana Yevgenyevna Savitskaya, born August 8, 1948) is a retired Soviet aviator and cosmonaut who flew aboard Soyuz T-7 in 1982, becoming the second woman in space. On her 1984 mission she became the first woman to fly to space twice, and the first woman to perform a spacewalk.
  
  In 1982, Savitskaya flew to space as part of the Soyuz T-7 mission, alongside Leonid Popov and Aleksandr Serebrov, becoming the second woman to fly to space, some 19 years after Valentina Tereshkova. On her second spaceflight, on July 25, 1984 she also became the first woman to perform a space walk. She conducted an EVA outside the Salyut 7 space station for 3 hours and 35 minutes during which she cut and welded metals in space along with her colleague Vladimir Dzhanibekov. Of the 57 Soviet/Russian spacewalkers through 2010, she is the only female'.
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We continue to celebrate Ice Cream Month this July. Tomorrow the 25th will be ' National Hot Fudge Sundae Day'. With all the talk about dark chocolate having so much of a health benefit, I wonder if it's use as a topping on this dessert would make the dessert a health food? Give me a break. I can dream, can't I?

Well, we could always ask an expert. Tomorrow is also 'Culinarians Day'. If cooking is an art, then managing calories must be a science.

Maybe you could get that Sunday at the fair. Tomorrow will also be 'National Carousel Day'. I get dibs on the Knights White Charger.

As you are slipping out of work to go to the fair, be very careful. It will not be a normal day for egress. You may give yourself away as it will be 'Talk In An Elevator Day'. This is not the norm, and loose lips sink your chances of escape.

Well, if you have to stay at your desk, just take up your sewing for 'Thread The Needle Day'. If you don't sew, don't worry. There is also a game and a dance of the same name. Of course you might have to 'thread the needle', between work and play, if your boss comes by.

Earlier this month we took our 'Web Masters' to lunch. Now it is time to do the same for 'System Administrator Appreciation Day'. If your business relies on computers and the Internet, these are two days you do not want to forget. Remember what happened at Jurassic Park.

We honored Wiley Post for flying solo around the world, a few days ago. Prior to that, many categories of flight 'firsts' occurred. In 1909, Louis Blériot , was the first man to fly across the English Channel in a heavier-than-air vehicle. It took him 37 minutes.

And let us all give a Happy Birthday wish to Louise Brown. Born July 25 in 1978, she was the world's first 'test tube baby' (conception by in vitro fertilisation).

No. 1 song

• A Hard Day's Night - The Beatles: More
  'Rag Doll'has been displaced by 'A Hard Day's Night', which will hold the no. 1 spot until August 15 2014, when 'Everybody Loves Somebody', takes over.

Top movie

• The Moon-Spinners More
  Having displaced 'The Killers', it will be there until the weekend box office of July 26 1964 when, 'Marnie', takes over.

• FamousBirthdays.com: July 25 Birthdays More
• FamousDaily.com: July 25 History More
• History.com: Historical Events on 25th July More
• HistoryOrb.com: Famous Deaths on 25th July More
• On-This-day.com history 25th July More
• On-This-day.com music history 25th July More
• Wikipedia.com: History July 25 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