Today is August 4 2014

National Chocolate Chip Day: More

• Coast Guard Day : More
  
• Single Working Women's Day : More

• In 1735, Freedom of the press was established with an acquittal of John Peter Zenger. The writer of the New York Weekly Journal had been charged with seditious libel by the royal governor of New York. The jury said that 'the truth is not libelous'.
  From Wikipedia: 'In 1733, Zenger printed copies of newspapers in New York to voice his disagreement with the actions of newly appointed colonial governor William Cosby. On his arrival in New York City, Cosby plunged into a rancorous quarrel with the Council of the colony over his salary. Unable to control the colony's supreme court he removed Chief Justice Lewis Morris, replacing him with James DeLancey of the royal party. Supported by members of the popular party, Zenger's New-York Weekly Journal continued to publish articles critical of the royal governor. Finally, Cosby issued a proclamation condemning the newspaper's "divers scandalous, virulent, false and seditious reflections."
  
  Zenger was charged with libel. James Alexander was Zenger's first counsel, but the court found him in contempt and removed him from the case. After more than eight months in prison, Zenger went to trial, defended by the Philadelphia lawyer Andrew Hamilton and the New York lawyer William Smith, Sr. The case was now a cause célèbre, with public interest at fever-pitch. Rebuffed repeatedly by Chief DeLancey during the trial, Hamilton decided to plead his client's case directly to the jury. After the lawyers for both sides finished arguments, the jury retired—only to return in ten minutes with a verdict of not guilty. In defending Zenger in this landmark case, Hamilton and Smith attempted to establish the precedent that a statement, even if defamatory, is not libelous if it can be proved, thus affirming freedom of the press in America; however, a general distaste for His Excellency William Cosby is the main reason why Zenger was found not guilty, and succeeding Royal Governors clamped down on Freedom of the Press up until the revolution. This case is the groundwork of the aforementioned freedom, not the legal precedent. However, if they succeeded in convincing the jury, they failed in establishing the legal precedent. As late as 1804, the journalist Harry Croswell was prosecuted in a series of trials that led to the famous People v. Croswell. The courts repeatedly rejected the argument that truth was a defense against libel. It was only the next year that the assembly, reacting to this verdict, passed a law that allowed truth as a defense against a charge of libel'.
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• In 1821, 'The Saturday Evening Post' was published for the first time as a weekly.
  From Wikipedia: 'The Saturday Evening Post is a bimonthly American magazine. It was published weekly under this title from 1897 until 1963, biweekly until 1969, and quarterly and then bimonthly from 1971. In the 1920s to the 1960s, it was one of the most widely circulated and influential magazines for the American middle class, with fiction, non-fiction, cartoons and features that reached millions of homes every week.
  
  The magazine was redesigned in 2013.
  
  The Saturday Evening Post was founded in 1821 and grew to become the most widely circulated weekly magazine in America. The magazine gained prominent status under the leadership of its longtime editor George Horace Lorimer (1899–1937). The editors claimed it had historical roots in Benjamin Franklin, The Pennsylvania Gazette which was first published in 1728 by Samuel Keimer and sold to Franklin in 1729. It discontinued publication in 1800.
  
  The Saturday Evening Post published current event articles, editorials, human interest pieces, humor, illustrations, a letter column, poetry (with contributions submitted by readers), single-panel gag cartoons (including Hazel by Ted Key) and stories by the leading writers of the time. It was known for commissioning lavish illustrations and original works of fiction. Illustrations were featured on the cover and embedded in stories and advertising. Some Post illustrations became popular and continue to be reproduced as posters or prints, especially those by Norman Rockwell.
  
  Curtis Publishing Co. stopped publishing the Post in 1969 after the company lost a landmark defamation suit and was ordered to pay over $3 million in damages. The Post was revived in 1971 as a limited circulation quarterly publication. As of the late 2000s, The Saturday Evening Post is published six times a year by the Saturday Evening Post Society, which purchased the magazine in 1982'.
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• In 1902, Greenwich foot tunnels first opens. It was a 1,200-foot long tunnel under the Thames River to provide pedestrian access in safety from the bridges. This was mainly an aid for the dock workers.
  From Wikipedia: 'The Greenwich Foot Tunnel crosses beneath the River Thames in East London, linking Greenwich (Royal Borough of Greenwich) in the south with the Isle of Dogs (London Borough of Tower Hamlets) to the north.
  
  The 'Friends of Greenwich and Woolwich foot tunnels' (FOGWOFT) was established in September 2013.
  
  The tunnel was designed by civil engineer Sir Alexander Binnie for London County Council and was constructed by contractor John Cochrane and Co. The project started in June 1899, and the tunnel was opened on 4 August 1902. The tunnel replaced an expensive and sometimes unreliable ferry service and was intended to allow workers living on the south side of the Thames to reach their workplaces in the London docks and shipyards then situated in or near the Isle of Dogs. Its creation owed much to the efforts of working-class politician Will Crooks who had worked in the docks and, after chairing the LCC's Bridges Committee responsible for the tunnel, would later serve as Labour MP for nearby Woolwich'.
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• In 1914, During World War I, Germany invades Belgium. In response, Belgium and the United Kingdom declare war on Germany. The United States declares its neutrality.
  From Wikipedia: ' Germany attacked Luxembourg on 2 August and on 3 August declared war on France. On 4 August, after Belgium refused to permit German troops to cross its borders into France, Germany declared war on Belgium as well. Britain declared war on Germany at 19:00 UTC on 4 August 1914 (effective from 11 pm), following an 'unsatisfactory reply' to the British ultimatum that Belgium must be kept neutral.'.
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• In 1927, Jimmy Rodgers recorded 'Sleep Baby Sleep and 'Soldier's Sweetheart'.
  From Wikipedia: 'James Charles "Jimmie" Rodgers (September 8, 1897 – May 26, 1933) was an American country singer in the early 20th century, known most widely for his rhythmic yodeling. Among the first country music superstars and pioneers, Rodgers was also known as "The Singing Brakeman", "The Blue Yodeler", and "The Father of Country Music".
  
  Rodgers' affinity for entertaining came at an early age, and the lure of the road was irresistible to him. By age 13, he had twice organized and begun traveling shows, only to be brought home by his father. His father found Rodgers his first job working on the railroad as a water boy. Here he was further taught to pick and strum by rail workers and hobos. As a water boy, he would have been exposed to the work chants of the African American railroad workers known as gandy dancers. A few years later, he became a brakeman on the New Orleans and Northeastern Railroad, a position formerly secured by his oldest brother, Walter, a conductor on the line running between Meridian and New Orleans.
  
  In 1924 at age 27, Rodgers contracted tuberculosis. The disease temporarily ended his railroad career, but at the same time gave him the chance to get back to the entertainment industry. He organized a traveling road show and performed across the Southeastern United States until, once again, he was forced home after a cyclone destroyed his tent. He returned to railroad work as a brakeman in Miami, Florida, but eventually his illness cost him his job. He relocated to Tucson, Arizona and was employed as a switchman by the Southern Pacific Railroad. He kept the job for less than a year, and the Rodgers family (which by then included wife Carrie and daughter Anita) settled back in Meridian in early 1
  
  In late July 1927, Rodgers' bandmates learned that Ralph Peer, a representative of the Victor Talking Machine Company, was coming to Bristol to hold an audition for local musicians. Rodgers and the group arrived in Bristol on August 3, 1927, and auditioned for Peer in an empty warehouse. Peer agreed to record them the next day. As the band discussed how they would be billed on the record, an argument ensued, the band broke up, and Rodgers arrived at the recording session the next morning alone. However, in a videotaped interview, Claude Grant of the Tenneva Ramblers gave a totally different reason for the band's breakup. Rodgers had taken some guitars on consignment. He sold them but did not pay back the music stores which supplied the guitars. Grant said that the band broke up because they did not agree with that.
  
  On Wednesday, August 4, Jimmie Rodgers completed his first session for Victor in Camden, New Jersey. It lasted from 2:00 p.m. to 4:20 p.m. and yielded two songs: "The Soldier's Sweetheart" and "Sleep, Baby, Sleep". For the test recordings, Rodgers received $100.
  
  The recordings were released on October 7, earning modest success. In November, Rodgers, determined more than ever to make it in entertainment, headed to New York City in an effort to arrange another session with Peer'.
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• In 1930, The first US supermarket, called King Kullen, opens in Queens, New York.
  From Wikipedia: 'King Kullen Grocery Co., Inc. is an American supermarket chain with 35 stores, on Long Island. The company is headquartered in Bethpage, New York and was founded by Michael J. Cullen on August 4, 1930. It is notable for its title of "America's First Supermarket" as recognized by the Smithsonian Institution.
  
  King Kullen was founded by Michael J. Cullen, a then-Kroger employee who devised the concept of the modern supermarket. Cullen attempted to make his concept public when he wrote to Kroger president Bernard Kroger, proposing a new type of food store with a focus on low prices, cash sales, and without delivery service, in larger stores (at low rents) with ample parking.
  
  In his proposal, Cullen suggested that this new type of store could achieve 10 times the volume and profits of the average Kroger or A and P. After Cullen's letter went unanswered, he quit his job and moved his family to Long Island, where he launched his concept. Cullen leased a vacant garage at 171st Street and Jamaica Avenue in Queens, near a busy shopping district. The store, dubbed "King Kullen", opened on August 4, 1930. After an over 80 year presence in New York City, King Kullen left that market in 2011 with the closing of its 3 remaining New York City stores in Eltingville, Graniteville, and Greenridge in Staten Island.
  
  King Kullen is notable for its title of "America's First Supermarket", and is recognized as such by the Smithsonian Institution. The chain remains owned and operated by the Cullen family, with second, third and fourth generation family members working for the Company. During the 1980s, former New York City Councilman Jack Muratori served as a King Kullen Board member'.
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• In 1944,During WW II, A tip from a Dutch informer leads the Gestapo to a sealed-off area in an Amsterdam warehouse, where they find and arrest Jewish diarist Anne Frank, her family, and four others. She died February 1945 (aged 15, most likely of disease) in the Bergen-Belsen concentration camp, Lower Saxony, Nazi Germany.
  From Wikipedia: Annelies Marie Frank ( 12 June 1929 – February or March 1945) was a German-born diarist and writer. She is one of the most discussed Jewish victims of the Holocaust. Her diary, The Diary of a Young Girl, which documents her life in hiding during the German occupation of the Netherlands in World War II, is one of the world's most widely known books and has been the basis for several plays and films.
  
  Born in the city of Frankfurt, Germany, she lived most of her life in or near Amsterdam, the Netherlands. Born a German national, Frank lost her citizenship in 1941 and thus became stateless. The Frank family moved from Germany to Amsterdam in the early 1930s when the Nazis gained control over Germany. By May 1940, they were trapped in Amsterdam by the German occupation of the Netherlands. As persecutions of the Jewish population increased in July 1942, the family went into hiding in some concealed rooms behind a bookcase in the building where Anne's father worked. In August 1944, the group was betrayed and transported to concentration camps. Anne and her sister, Margot, were eventually transferred to Bergen-Belsen concentration camp, where they died (probably of typhus) in February or March 1945, just weeks before the camp was liberated in April.
  
  Otto Frank, the only survivor of the family, returned to Amsterdam after the war to find that Anne's diary had been saved by one of the helpers, Miep Gies, and his efforts led to its publication in 1947. It was translated from its original Dutch version and first published in English in 1952 as The Diary of a Young Girl, and has since been translated into over 60 languages. The diary, which was given to Anne on her thirteenth birthday, chronicles her life from 12 June 1942 until 1 August 1944.
  
  'On the morning of 4 August 1944, following a tip from an informer who has never been identified, the Achterhuis was stormed by a group of German uniformed police (Grüne Polizei) led by SS-Oberscharführer Karl Silberbauer of the Sicherheitsdienst. The Franks, van Pelses, and Pfeffer were taken to RSHA headquarters, where they were interrogated and held overnight. On 5 August they were transferred to the Huis van Bewaring (House of Detention), an overcrowded prison on the Weteringschans. Two days later they were transported to the Westerbork transit camp, through which by that time more than 100,000 Jews, mostly Dutch and German, had passed. Having been arrested in hiding, they were considered criminals and sent to the Punishment Barracks for hard labor.
  
  On 3 September 1944, the group was deported on what would be the last transport from Westerbork to the Auschwitz concentration camp and arrived after a three-day journey. On the same train was Bloeme Evers-Emden, an Amsterdam native who had befriended Margot and Anne in the Jewish Lyceum in 1941. Bloeme saw Anne, Margot, and their mother regularly in Auschwitz, and was interviewed for her remembrances of the Frank women in Auschwitz in the television documentary The Last Seven Months of Anne Frank (1988) by Dutch filmmaker Willy Lindwer and the BBC documentary Anne Frank Remembered (1995)'.
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• In 1958, The Billboard Hot 100 is published for the first time. The first #1 song was 'Poor Little Fool' by Ricky Nelson.
  From Wikipedia: 'The Billboard Hot 100 is the music industry standard record chart in the United States for singles, published weekly by Billboard magazine. Chart rankings are based on radio play, online streaming, and sales (physical and digital).
  
  The weekly sales period was originally Monday to Sunday when Nielsen started tracking sales in 1991, but since July 2015, this has been changed from Friday to Thursday. Radio airplay, which unlike sales figures and streaming data, is readily available on a real-time basis and is tracked on a Monday to Sunday cycle (it was previously Wednesday to Tuesday). A new chart is compiled and officially released to the public by Billboard on Tuesdays.
  
  The first number-one song of the Hot 100 was "Poor Little Fool" by Ricky Nelson on August 4, 1958. As of the issue for the week ending August 13, 2016, the Hot 100 has had 1,056 different number-one hits. The current number-one is "Cheap Thrills" by Sia featuring Sean Paul'.
  - At Wikipedia: More
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• In 1977, U.S Department of Energy is created.
  From Wikipedia: 'The United States Department of Energy (DOE) is a Cabinet-level department of the United States Government concerned with the United States' policies regarding energy and safety in handling nuclear material. Its responsibilities include the nation's nuclear weapons program, nuclear reactor production for the United States Navy, energy conservation, energy-related research, radioactive waste disposal, and domestic energy production. It also directs research in genomics; the Human Genome Project originated in a DOE initiative. DOE sponsors more research in the physical sciences than any other U.S. federal agency, the majority of which is conducted through its system of National Laboratories.
  
  The agency is administered by the United States Secretary of Energy, and its headquarters are located in Southwest Washington, D.C., on Independence Avenue in the James V. Forrestal Building, named for James Forrestal, as well as in Germantown, Maryland'.
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• In 1984, Prince's 'Purple Rain' album goes to #1 and stays #1 for 24 weeks.
  From Wikipedia: 'Purple Rain is the sixth studio album by American recording artist Prince, the first to feature his backing band The Revolution, and is the soundtrack album to the 1984 film of the same name. It was released on June 25, 1984 by Warner Bros. Records. To date, it has sold over 22 million copies worldwide, becoming the sixth best-selling soundtrack album of all time.
  
  Purple Rain is regularly ranked among the best albums in music history, and is widely regarded as Prince's magnum opus. Time magazine ranked it the 15th greatest album of all time in 1993, and it placed 18th on VH1's Greatest Rock and Roll Albums of All Time countdown. Rolling Stone magazine ranked it the second-best album of the 1980s and 76th on their list of the 500 Greatest Albums of All Time. The first two singles from Purple Rain, "When Doves Cry" and "Let's Go Crazy", topped the US singles charts, and were hits around the world, while the title track went to number two on the Billboard Hot 100. The RIAA lists it as having gone platinum 13 times over.
  
  In 2007, the editors of Vanity Fair labeled it the best soundtrack of all time, and Tempo magazine named it the greatest album of the 1980s. The 1,000th issue of Entertainment Weekly dated July 4, 2008, listed Purple Rain at number one on their list of the top 100 best albums of the past 25 years. In 2013, the magazine also listed the album at number two on their list of the 100 Greatest Albums ever. In 2012, Slant Magazine listed the album at #2 on its list of "Best Albums of the 1980s" behind only Michael Jackson's Thriller. In the same year, the album was added to the Library of Congress's National Recording Registry list of sound recordings that "are culturally, historically, or aesthetically important"'.
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• In 2007, NASA's Phoenix spacecraft is launched to Mars. It landed on May 25, 2008.From Wikipedia: ' Mission scientists used instruments aboard the lander to search for environments suitable for microbial life on Mars, and to research the history of water there.'
  From Wikipedia: 'Phoenix was a robotic spacecraft on a space exploration mission on Mars under the Mars Scout Program. The Phoenix lander descended on Mars on May 25, 2008. Mission scientists used instruments aboard the lander to search for environments suitable for microbial life on Mars, and to research the history of water there. The total mission cost was about US $386 million, which includes cost of the launch.
  
  The multi-agency program was headed by the Lunar and Planetary Laboratory at the University of Arizona, under the direction of NASA's Jet Propulsion Laboratory. The program was a partnership of universities in the United States, Canada, Switzerland, Denmark, Germany, the United Kingdom, NASA, the Canadian Space Agency, the Finnish Meteorological Institute, Lockheed Martin Space Systems, MacDonald Dettwiler and Associates (MDA) and other aerospace companies. It was the first mission to Mars led by a public university in NASA history. It was led directly from the University of Arizona's campus in Tucson, with project management at the Jet Propulsion Laboratory in Pasadena, Calif., and project development at Lockheed Martin in Denver, Colorado. The operational funding for the mission extended through November 10, 2008.
  
  Phoenix was NASA's sixth successful landing out of seven attempts and was the first successful landing in a Martian polar region. The lander completed its mission in August 2008, and made a last brief communication with Earth on November 2 as available solar power dropped with the Martian winter. The mission was declared concluded on November 10, 2008, after engineers were unable to re-contact the craft. After unsuccessful attempts to contact the lander by the Mars Odyssey orbiter up to and past the Martian summer solstice on May 12, 2010, JPL declared the lander to be dead. The program was considered a success because it completed all planned science experiments and observations.
  
  Phoenix was launched on August 4, 2007, at 5:26:34 a.m. EDT (09:26:34 UTC) on a Delta 7925 launch vehicle from Pad 17-A of the Cape Canaveral Air Force Station. The launch was nominal with no significant anomalies. The Phoenix lander was placed on a trajectory of such precision that its first trajectory course correction burn, performed on August 10, 2007 at 7:30 a.m. EDT (11:30 UTC), was only 18 m/s. The launch took place during a launch window extending from August 3, 2007 to August 24, 2007. Due to the small launch window the rescheduled launch of the Dawn mission (originally planned for July 7) had to stand down and was launched after Phoenix in September. The Delta 7925 was chosen due to its successful launch history, which includes launches of the Spirit and Opportunity Mars Exploration Rovers in 2003 and Mars Pathfinder in 1996'.
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Get out those recipes. Tomorrow will be National Chocolate Chip Day:. Please put mine in some Toll House Cookies. Two or three dozen, with a cold glass of milk, will do fine, for a start. I can work on those, while you are making the main batch.

What better use could you ladies find for a couple of dozen of those triple C's than to give to a serviceman. Easily done tomorrow. It will be 'Coast Guard Day'. It was established back on August 4 1790. If you were looking for a sign on their door back then, it would read 'Revenue Cutter Service.'.

For you ladies who don't have time to bake, we understand. You may be one of those we also honor tomorrow.as 'Single Working Women's Day'.

The way-back news has the following highlights:

The first US supermarket opened on August 4 1930, King Kullen, Queens, New York. It has everything located in convenient places for quick in-and-out self-service. But, there is no more home delivery. If you were looking for a shopping cart, in which to put all your purchases, you will have to wait 7 years, until June 4 1937 when it was first invented.

On August 4 1821, the first issue of The Saturday Evening Post was printed. Oh, Look Magazine was Feb. 1937 to Dec. 1971. Life from 1883 to 1972, the 'special' issues until 1978, then monthly again until 2000. Times first issue was in 1923.

In1958, The Billboard Hot 100 is published for the first time. The first hit on that chart was "Poor Little Fool" by Ricky Nelson. Yes, he of the comedy radio and TV Nelson Family.

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: August 4 Birthdays More
• FamousDaily.com: August 4 History More
• History.com: Historical Events on 4th August More
• HistoryOrb.com: Famous Deaths on 4th August More
• On-This-day.com history 4th August More
• On-This-day.com music history 4th August More
• Wikipedia.com: History August 4 More

National Catfish Month, National Goat Cheese Month, National Peach Month, National Brownies at Brunch Month

August is:

August origin (from Wikipedia): Originally named Sextili (Latin), because it was the sixth month in the original ten-month Roman calendar: under Romulus in 753 BC, when March was the first month of the year.
"About 700 BC it became the eighth month when January and February were added to the year before March by King Numa Pompilius, who also gave it 29 days. Julius Caesar added two days when he created the Julian calendar in 45 BC giving it its modern length of 31 days. In 8 BC it was renamed in honor of Augustus According to a Senatus consultum quoted by Macrobius, he chose this month because it was the time of several of his great triumphs, including the conquest of Egypt. "

August 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
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• Old Picture of the Day - "Each day we bring you one stunning little glimpse of history in the form of a historical photograph."
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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