Today is July 28 2014

National Milk Chocolate Day: More

• Buffalo Soldiers Day: More
  
• World Hepatitis Day : More

• In 1854, The USS Constellation (1854), the last all-sail warship built by the United States Navy, is commissioned.
  From Wikipedia: 'USS Constellation, constructed in 1854, is a sloop-of-war/corvette and the second United States Navy ship to carry the name. According to the U.S. Naval Registry the original frigate was disassembled on 25 June 1853 in Gosport Navy Yard in Portsmouth, Virginia, and the sloop-of-war/corvette was constructed in the same yard using material salvaged from the earlier ship. Constellation is the last sail-only warship designed and built by the Navy. Despite being a single-gundeck "sloop," she is actually larger than her frigate namesake, and more powerfully armed with fewer but much more potent shell-firing guns.
  
  The sloop was launched on 26 August 1854 and commissioned on 28 July 1855 with Captain Charles H. Bell in command. She remained in service for close to a century before finally being retired in 1954, and preserved as a museum ship in Baltimore, Maryland, where she remains today'.
  - At Wikipedia: More
  - On YouTube: More
• In 1858, First use of fingerprints as a means of identification is made by Sir William James Herschel of the Indian Civil Service. He placed fingerprints on British documents.
  From Wikipedia: 'Herschel is credited with being the first European to note the value of fingerprints for identification. He recognized that fingerprints were unique and permanent. Herschel documented his own fingerprints over his lifetime to prove permanence. He was also credited with being the first person to use fingerprints in a practical manner. As early as the 1850s, working as a British officer for the Indian Civil Service in the Bengal region of India, he started putting fingerprints on contracts'.
  - At Wikipedia: More
  - On YouTube: More
• In 1866, The use of the metric system was legalized (not adopted) by the U.S. Congress. This allowed for better trade with other countries.
  From Wikipedia: 'Metrication (or metrification) is the process of introducing the International System of Units (or SI), commonly known as the metric system, to replace the traditional or customary units of measurement of a country or region. Although all U.S. customary units have been redefined in terms of SI units, the United States does not commonly mandate the use of SI. This, according to the CIA Factbook, makes the United States one of only three countries as of 2007, with Myanmar (Burma) and Liberia, that have not adopted the metric system as their official system of weights and measures. Additionally, the United Kingdom still uses imperial units officially for a few purposes, including road signage and the sale of doorstep delivered milk and draft beer and cider, and uses troy weight for precious metals. Imperial units are otherwise still permitted there, but only alongside metric units in dual labeling'.
  - At FamousDaily: More
  - At Wikipedia: More
  - On YouTube: More
• In 1914, Foxtrot 1st danced at New Amsterdam Roof Garden (NYC, by Harry Fox)
  From Wikipedia: 'The foxtrot is a smooth, progressive dance characterized by long, continuous flowing movements across the dance floor. It is danced to big band (usually vocal) music. The dance is similar in its look to waltz, although the rhythm is in a 4 4 time signature instead of 3 4. Developed in the 1910s, the foxtrot reached its height of popularity in the 1930s, and remains practiced today.
  
  The dance was premiered in 1914, quickly catching the eye of the husband and wife duo Vernon and Irene Castle, who lent the dance its signature grace and style. The exact origin of the name of the dance is unclear, although one theory is that it took its name from its popularizer, the vaudeville actor Harry Fox. Two sources credit African American dancers as the source of the Foxtrot: Vernon Castle himself, and dance teacher Betty Lee. Castle saw the dance, which "had been danced by negroes, to his personal knowledge, for fifteen years, a certain exclusive colored club".
  
  When rock and roll first emerged in the early 1950s, record companies were uncertain as to what style of dance would be most applicable to the music. Notably, Decca Records initially labeled its rock and roll releases as "foxtrots", most notably "Rock Around the Clock" by Bill Haley and His Comets. Since that recording, by some estimates, went on to sell more than 25 million copies, "Rock Around the Clock" could be considered the biggest-selling "foxtrot" of all time. Today, the dance is customarily accompanied by the same big band music to which swing is also danced.
  
  Over time, the foxtrot split into slow and quick versions, referred to as "foxtrot" and "quickstep" respectively. In the slow category, further distinctions exist between the International or English style of the foxtrot and the continuity American style, both built around a slow-quick-quick rhythm at the slowest tempo, and the social American style using a slow-slow-quick-quick rhythm at a somewhat faster pace. In the context of International Standard category of ballroom dances, for some time the foxtrot was called "Slow Foxtrot", or "Slowfox". These names are still in use, to distinguish from other types of foxtrots'.
  - At Wikipedia: More
  - On YouTube (how to Foxtrot): More
• In 1914, The start of World War I: Austria-Hungary declares war on Serbia after Serbia rejects the conditions of an ultimatum sent by Austria on July 23 following the assassination of Archduke Franz Ferdinand.
  From Wikipedia: World War I (WWI or WW1), also known as the First World War, or the Great War, was a global war originating in Europe that lasted from 28 July 1914 to 11 November 1918. More than 70 million military personnel, including 60 million Europeans, were mobilised in one of the largest wars in history. Over 9 million combatants and 7 million civilians died as a result of the war (including the victims of a number of genocides), a casualty rate exacerbated by the belligerents' technological and industrial sophistication, and the tactical stalemate caused by gruelling trench warfare. It was one of the deadliest conflicts in history, and paved the way for major political changes, including revolutions in many of the nations involved.
  
  'The assassination led to a month of diplomatic manoeuvring between Austria-Hungary, Germany, Russia, France, and Britain called the July Crisis. Believing correctly that Serbian officials (especially the officers of the Black Hand) were involved in the plot to murder the Archduke, and wanting to finally end Serbian interference in Bosnia, Austria-Hungary delivered to Serbia on 23 July the July Ultimatum, a series of ten demands that were made intentionally unacceptable, in an effort to provoke a war with Serbia. The next day, after the Council of Ministers of Russia was held under the chairmanship of the Tsar at Krasnoe Selo, Russia ordered general mobilization for Odessa, Kiev, Kazan and Moscow military districts and fleets of the Baltic and the Black Sea. They also asked for other regions to accelerate preparations for general mobilization. Serbia decreed general mobilization on the 25th and that night, declared that they accepted all the terms of the ultimatum, except article six, which demanded that Austrian delegates be allowed in Serbia for the purpose of participation in the investigation into the assassination. Following this, Austria broke off diplomatic relations with Serbia, and the next day ordered a partial mobilization. Finally, on 28 July 1914, Austria-Hungary declared war on Serbia'.
  - At Wikipedia: More
  - On YouTube: More
• In 1935, First flight of the Boeing B-17 'Flying Fortress'. From Wikipedia: ' Richard Williams, a reporter for the Seattle Times, coined the name 'Flying Fortress' when the Model 299 was rolled out bristling with multiple machine gun installations'.
  From Wikipedia: 'The Boeing B-17 Flying Fortress is a four-engine heavy bomber developed in the 1930s for the United States Army Air Corps (USAAC). Competing against Douglas and Martin for a contract to build 200 bombers, the Boeing entry outperformed both competitors and exceeded the air corps' performance specifications. Although Boeing lost the contract because the prototype crashed, the air corps was so impressed with Boeing's design that it ordered 13 more B-17s for further evaluation. From its introduction in 1938, the B-17 Flying Fortress evolved through numerous design advances.
  
  The B-17 was primarily employed by the United States Army Air Forces (USAAF) in the daylight precision strategic bombing campaign of World War II against German industrial and military targets. The United States Eighth Air Force, based at many airfields in central and southern England, and the Fifteenth Air Force, based in Italy, complemented the RAF Bomber Command's nighttime area bombing in the Combined Bomber Offensive to help secure air superiority over the cities, factories and battlefields of Western Europe in preparation for the invasion of France in 1944. The B-17 also participated to a lesser extent in the War in the Pacific, early in World War II, where it conducted raids against Japanese shipping and airfields.
  
  From its prewar inception, the USAAC (by June of 1941, the USAAF) promoted the aircraft as a strategic weapon; it was a fast, high-flying, long-range bomber that was able to defend itself, carried a very good bombload and was able to return home despite extensive battle damage. Its reputation quickly took on mythic proportions, and widely circulated stories and photos of notable numbers and examples of B-17s surviving battle damage increased its iconic status. With a service ceiling greater than any of its Allied contemporaries, the B-17 established itself as an effective weapons system, dropping more bombs than any other U.S. aircraft in World War II. Of the 1.5 million tonnes of bombs dropped on Germany and its occupied territories by U.S. aircraft, 640,000 tonnes were dropped from B-17s. In addition to its role as a bomber, the B-17 was also employed as a transport, antisubmarine warfare platform, drone controller, and search-and-rescue aircraft.
  
  As of May 2015, ten aircraft remain airworthy. None of them are combat veterans. Additionally, a few dozen more are in storage or on static display. The oldest is a D-series combat veteran with service in the Pacific and the Caribbean'.
  - At Wikipedia: More
  - On YouTube: More
  - On YouTube: More
• In 1939, Judy Garland sings 'Somewhere Over the Rainbow', her most famous song, that would later be used in 'The Wizard of Oz'.
  From Wikipedia: '"Over the Rainbow" (often referred to as "Somewhere over the Rainbow") is a ballad, with music by Harold Arlen and lyrics by E.Y. Harburg. It was written for the movie The Wizard of Oz (1939) and was sung by actress Judy Garland, in her starring role as Dorothy Gale. The song won the Academy Award for Best Original Song and became Garland's signature song, as well as one of the most enduring standards of the 20th century.
  
  About five minutes into the film, Dorothy sings the song after failing to get her aunt and uncle to listen to her relate an unpleasant incident involving her dog, Toto, and the town spinster, Miss Gulch. Dorothy's Aunt Em tells her to "find yourself a place where you won't get into any trouble". This prompts Dorothy to walk off by herself, musing to Toto, "'Some place where there isn't any trouble.' Do you suppose there is such a place, Toto? There must be. It's not a place you can get to by a boat, or a train. It's far, far away. Behind the moon, beyond the rain...", at which point she begins singing'.
  - At FamousDaily: More
  - At Wikipedia: More
  - On YouTube (from the movie): More
  - On YouTube: More
• In 1945, A U.S. Army B-25 bomber crashes into the 79th floor of the Empire State Building killing 14 and injuring 26.
  From Wikipedia: 'At 9:40 am on Saturday, July 28, 1945, a B-25 Mitchell bomber, piloted in thick fog by Lieutenant Colonel William Franklin Smith, Jr., crashed into the north side of the Empire State Building, between the 79th and 80th floors, where the offices of the National Catholic Welfare Council were located. One engine shot through the side opposite the impact and flew as far as the next block, where it landed on the roof of a nearby building, starting a fire that destroyed a penthouse. The other engine and part of the landing gear plummeted down an elevator shaft. The resulting fire was extinguished in 40 minutes. Fourteen people were killed in the incident. Elevator operator Betty Lou Oliver survived a plunge of 75 stories inside an elevator, which still stands as the Guinness World Record for the longest survived elevator fall recorded. Despite the damage and loss of life, the building was open for business on many floors on the following Monday. The crash helped spur the passage of the long-pending Federal Tort Claims Act of 1946, as well as the insertion of retroactive provisions into the law, allowing people to sue the government for the incident.
  
  A year later, another aircraft narrowly missed striking the building'.
  - At Wikipedia: More
  - On YouTube: More
• In 1951, Walt Disney's animated musical film 'Alice In Wonderland' released in the USA. It had it's world premiere two days earlier in London.
  From Wikipedia: 'Alice in Wonderland is a 1951 American animated musical fantasy-comedy film produced by Walt Disney Productions and based on the Alice books by Lewis Carroll. The 13th of Disney's animated features, the film premiered in New York City and London on July 26, 1951. The film features the voices of Kathryn Beaumont as Alice, Sterling Holloway as the Cheshire Cat, Verna Felton as the Queen of Hearts, and Ed Wynn as the Mad Hatter.
  
  Walt Disney first attempted unsuccessfully to adapt Alice into an animated feature film during the 1930s. However, he finally revived the idea in the 1940s. The film was originally intended to be a live-action/animated film; however, Disney decided to make it an all-animated feature in 1946. The theme song of the same name has since become a jazz standard. While the film was critically panned on its initial release, the movie proved to be ahead of its time and has since been regarded as one of Disney's greatest animated classics, notably one of the biggest cult classics in the animation medium, as well as one of the best film adaptations of Alice.
  
  A live-action re-imagining produced by Walt Disney Pictures and directed by Tim Burton, starring Johnny Depp as the Mad Hatter, Helena Bonham Carter as the Red Queen, Stephen Fry as the Cheshire Cat, and Mia Wasikowska as Alice was released in 2010'.
  - At Wikipedia: More
  - On YouTube: More
• In 1954, 'On the Waterfront', directed by Elia Kazan starring Marlon Brando and Eva Marie Saint, is released (Best Picture 1955).
  From Wikipedia: 'On the Waterfront is a 1954 American crime drama film with elements of film noir. The film was directed by Elia Kazan and written by Budd Schulberg. It stars Marlon Brando and features Karl Malden, Lee J. Cobb, Rod Steiger, Pat Henning, and, in her film debut, Eva Marie Saint. The soundtrack score was composed by Leonard Bernstein. The film was suggested by "Crime on the Waterfront" by Malcolm Johnson, a series of articles published in November-December 1948 in the New York Sun which won the 1949 Pulitzer Prize for Local Reporting, but the screenplay by Budd Schulberg is directly based on his own original story. The film focuses on union violence and corruption amongst longshoremen while detailing widespread corruption, extortion, and racketeering on the waterfronts of Hoboken, New Jersey.
  
  On the Waterfront was a critical and commercial success and received twelve Academy Award nominations, winning eight, including Best Picture, Best Actor for Brando, Best Supporting Actress for Saint, and Best Director for Kazan. In 1997 it was ranked by the American Film Institute as the eighth-greatest American movie of all time and in AFI's 2007 list it was ranked 19th. It is Bernstein's only original film score not adapted from a stage production with songs.
  
  In 1989, On the Waterfront was deemed "culturally, historically or aesthetically significant" by the Library of Congress and selected for preservation in the United States National Film Registry'.
  - At Wikipedia: More
  - On YouTube: More
• In 1996, Remains of a prehistoric man is discovered near Kennewick, WA. He was referred to as the 'Kennewick Man'.
  From Wikipedia: 'Kennewick Man is the name generally given to the skeletal remains of a prehistoric Paleoamerican man found on a bank of the Columbia River in Kennewick, Washington, on July 28, 1996. It is one of the most complete ancient skeletons ever found. Radiocarbon tests on bone have shown it to date from 8.9k to 9k calibrated years before present.
  
  The discovery of the remains led to considerable controversy, as the Umatilla people and other tribes have wanted the remains returned to them for reburial under the federal Native American Graves Protection and Repatriation Act (NAGPRA). The law was designed to remedy long-standing wrongs done to tribes and to facilitate the return of human remains and cultural objects unlawfully obtained taken from them. In this case, the archaeologists who discovered the bones, James Chatters and Douglas Owsley, an archaeologist at the Smithsonian Institution, both asserted that the bones were unrelated to today's Native Americans but instead had features that more closely resembled Polynesian or Southeast Asian peoples, a finding that would exempt the bones from NAGPRA.
  
  In June 2015, scientists at the University of Copenhagen in Denmark determined through DNA from 8,500-year-old bones that Kennewick Man is, in fact, related to contemporary Native Americans, including those from the region in which his bones were found. The international team of scientists had confirmed that finding to the Army Corps of Engineers as far back as 2013. Chatters, the discoverer of the bones, had long changed his mind after finding similar skull shapes among confirmed ancestors of Native Americans. The results did not surprise scientists who study the genetics of ancient people, as almost all Paleoamericans "have shown strong genetic ties with modern Native Americans." Analysis showed that Kennewick Man is “very closely related to the Colville" tribe in northeast Washington. The results were published in Nature magazine. Public officials such as Governor Jay Inslee and Senator Patty Murray have since called on the Corps of Engineers, which retained possession of Kennewick Man, to return the remains to Native American tribes.
  
  The controversy concerning the ownership of the bones of Kennewick Man also became involved in racial politics, as White supremacist and White nationalist groups claimed Kennewick Man was of European origin and thus "white" and unrelated to Native Americans'.
  - At FamousDaily: More
  - At Wikipedia: More
  - On YouTube: More

Not a lot of holidays to celebrate tomorrow., but I have provided for your sweet tooth. It will be 'National Milk Chocolate Day'. Good stuff, but remember it is the Dark Chocolate that all the current health hype is about.

You should also consider, 'Buffalo Soldiers Day' and' World Hepatitis Day'.

Give the ole time machine a spin to the left and consider these events in history.

1854 - USS Constellation commissioned. Last all-sail warship built by the US Navy.

1866 - Metric system was legalized in the US. Notice the word, legalized, not adopted or used. I can still remember back in elementary school, in the '50s, hearing one of my teachers saying that one day soon, we would all be using the metric system. Except for having to purchase a separate set of metric system wrenches to work on a foreign car, a two liter soft drink bottle, inn the early '70s, was the first metric system usage, that I saw. I'm still waiting for the great conversion.

1868 - 14th Amendment adopted More

You might want to turn up the volume, just a little, so you can hear, Judy Garland's 'Somewhere Over the Rainbow', which she sang for the first time July 28 19

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

• Marnie More
  Having displaced 'The Moon-Spinners', it will be there until the weekend box office of August 9 1964 when, 'The Night of the Iguana', takes over.

• FamousBirthdays.com: July 28 Birthdays More
• FamousDaily.com: July 28 History More
• History.com: Historical Events on 28th July More
• HistoryOrb.com: Famous Deaths on 28th July More
• On-This-day.com history 28th July More
• On-This-day.com music history 28th July More
• Wikipedia.com: History July 28 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