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Today is November 12 2014

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

National Pizza With Everything (Except Anchovies) Day: More

Other celebrations/observances today:
  • Chicken Soup for the Soul Day: More
  • Fancy Rat & Mouse Day: More
  • World Pneumonia Day: More
    W.H.O. awareness day
Events in the past on: November 12
  • In 1859, Jules Leotard performs the first Flying Trapeze circus act in Paris. He also designed a garment in which to perform, that bears his name.
    From Wikipedia: 'Jules Léotard (French: ; 1 March 1838 – 17 August 1870) was a French acrobatic performer and aerialist who developed the art of trapeze. He also popularised the one-piece gym wear that now bears his name and inspired the 1867 song "The Daring Young Man on the Flying Trapeze" sung by George Leybourne.

    After he passed his law exams, he seemed destined to join the legal profession. But at 18 he began to experiment with trapeze bars, ropes and rings suspended over a swimming pool. Léotard later joined the Cirque Napoleon.

    The costume he invented was a one-piece knitted garment streamlined to suit the safety and agility concerns of trapeze performance. It also showed off his physique, impressed the ladies and inspired the song sung by George Leybourne'.
    - At Wikipedia: More
  • In 1892, William 'Pudge' Heffelfinger becomes the first professional American football player on record, participating in his first paid game for the Allegheny Athletic Association.
    From Wikipedia: 'In 1895, teenage football star and college-bound player John Brallier was paid $10 to play a game for the Latrobe Athletic Association, making him the first publicly acknowledged professional American football player. It would be more than half a century before college graduate Heffelfinger would be recognized for being secretly paid $500 to play a football game in 1892'.
    - At Wikipedia: More
  • In 1927, The Holland Tunnel which connects New York and New Jersey, first opens.
    From Wikipedia: 'The Holland Tunnel is a highway tunnel under the Hudson River between Manhattan in New York City and Jersey City, New Jersey. It carries Interstate 78, and in New Jersey is also designated NJ 139. An integral conduit within the New York Metropolitan Area, the tunnel was originally known as the Hudson River Vehicular Tunnel or the Canal Street Tunnel. It was the first of two vehicular tunnels under the river, the other being the Lincoln Tunnel. Both are operated by the Port Authority of New York and New Jersey.

    For centuries, passage across the lower Hudson River was possible only by ferry. The first tunnels to be bored below the Hudson River were the Hudson and Manhattan Railroad's uptown and downtown tunnels, constructed in the first decade of the 20th century to link the major railroad terminals in New Jersey with Manhattan Island (they currently run PATH trains). The Pennsylvania Railroad's twin tunnels, constructed to serve the new Pennsylvania Station, soon followed. Once tunneling had been shown to be feasible, increasing automobile traffic led to interest in a roadway crossing the river as well.

    The concept for what would become the Holland Tunnel was developed in 1906 by a joint commission between New York and New Jersey. The commission initially considered building a bridge for cost reasons, but this plan was abandoned in favor of a tunnel in 1913 when it was determined that the cost of land for accessways to a suitably raised bridge would be prohibitive as a height of 200 ft (60 m) was considered the minimum necessary to avoid interfering with shipping.

    Over the next several years, a number of design proposals were evaluated for the new tunnel. The first two called for a single tube containing two levels of traffic. One, authored by engineer George Goethals specified that traffic on each level would travel in a different direction. The other, by the firm Jacobs and Davies, called for a slightly different tube diameter, with an "express" level and a level for slower traffic. Both designs were eventually passed over in favor of a new type of design proposed by engineer Clifford Milburn Holland, in which two separate tubes would each contain two lanes both going in the same direction. Holland's proposal was adopted, and he was named Chief Engineer of the project. Promotional materials compared the diameter and capacity of the proposed tunnel with the smaller-diameter railroad tunnels.

    In 1920, the New Jersey Interstate Bridge and Tunnel Commission and the New York State Bridge and Tunnel Commission appropriated funds for what was then referred to as the "Hudson River Vehicular Tunnel Project". Construction began on March 31, 1922, with a crew of workers starting digging at the corner of Canal Street and West Street. On October 27, 1924, the day before the two halves of the tunnel were scheduled to be linked, 41-year-old Holland died of a heart attack in a sanatorium in Battle Creek, Michigan, attributed by individuals cited in The New York Times to the stress he endured overseeing the tunnel's construction. "Holing through" ceremonies scheduled for that day, in which President Calvin Coolidge would have remotely set off an explosion to connect the two sides of the tunnel, were canceled out of respect for Holland's death.

    The project was renamed the Holland Tunnel in memory of its first chief engineer by the New York State Bridge and Tunnel Commission and the New Jersey Interstate Bridge and Tunnel Commission on November 12, 1924. Holland was succeeded by Milton Harvey Freeman, who died of pneumonia in March 1925, after several months heading the job. After Freeman's death, the position was occupied by Ole Singstad, who oversaw the completion of the tunnel and designed its pioneering ventilation system'.
    - At FamousDaily: More
    - At Wikipedia: More
    - On YouTube: More
  • In 1936, In California, the San Francisco–Oakland Bay Bridge opens to traffic.
    From Wikipedia: 'The San Francisco–Oakland Bay Bridge (known locally as the Bay Bridge) is a complex of bridges spanning San Francisco Bay in California. As part of Interstate 80 and the direct road between San Francisco and Oakland, it carries about 240,000 vehicles a day on its two decks. It has one of the longest spans in the United States.

    The toll bridge was conceived as early as the gold rush days, but construction did not begin until 1933. Designed by Charles H. Purcell, and built by American Bridge Company, it opened on November 12, 1936, six months before the Golden Gate Bridge. It originally carried automobile traffic on its upper deck, and trucks and trains on the lower, but after the Key System abandoned rail service, the lower deck was converted to all-road traffic as well. In 1986 the bridge was unofficially dedicated to James Rolph.

    The bridge has two sections of roughly equal length; the older western section, officially known as the Willie L. Brown Jr. Bridge (after former San Francisco Mayor and California State Assembly Speaker Willie L. Brown Jr.), connects downtown San Francisco to Yerba Buena Island and the newer unnamed eastern section connects the island to Oakland. The Willie Brown bridge (west span) is a double suspension bridge with two decks, westbound traffic is carried on the upper deck and eastbound on the lower deck. The largest span of the original eastern section was a cantilever bridge. During the 1989 Loma Prieta earthquake, a section of the eastern span's upper deck collapsed onto the lower deck and the bridge was closed for a month. Reconstruction of the eastern section of the bridge as a causeway connected to a self-anchored suspension bridge began in 2002; the new bridge opened September 2, 2013 at a reported cost of over $6.5 billion. Unlike the west span and the original east span, the new east span is a single deck with the eastbound and westbound lanes on each side making it the world's widest bridge, according to Guinness World Records, as of 2014. Demolition of the old east span is expected to last until 2018'.
    - At Wikipedia: More
    - On YouTube: More
  • In 1942, During World War II, the Naval Battle of Guadalcanal between Japanese and American forces begins near Guadalcanal. The battle lasts for three days and ends with an American victory.
    From Wikipedia: 'The Naval Battle of Guadalcanal, sometimes referred to as the Third and Fourth Battles of Savo Island, the Battle of the Solomons, the Battle of Friday the 13th, or, in Japanese sources, the Third Battle of the Solomon Sea, took place from 12–15 November 1942, and was the decisive engagement in a series of naval battles between Allied (primarily American) and Imperial Japanese forces during the months-long Guadalcanal Campaign in the Solomon Islands during World War II. The action consisted of combined air and sea engagements over four days, most near Guadalcanal and all related to a Japanese effort to reinforce land forces on the island. The only two U.S. Navy admirals to be killed in a surface engagement in the war were lost in this battle.

    Allied forces, primarily from the U.S., had landed on Guadalcanal on 7 August 1942 and seized an airfield, later called Henderson Field, that was under construction by the Japanese military. There were several subsequent attempts by the Imperial Japanese Army and Navy, using reinforcements delivered to Guadalcanal by ship, to recapture the airfield, which ultimately failed. In early November 1942, the Japanese organized a transport convoy to take 7,000 infantry troops and their equipment to Guadalcanal to attempt once again to retake the airfield. Several Japanese warship forces were assigned to bombard Henderson Field with the goal of destroying Allied aircraft that posed a threat to the convoy. Learning of the Japanese reinforcement effort, U.S. forces launched aircraft and warship attacks to defend Henderson Field and prevent the Japanese ground troops from reaching Guadalcanal.

    In the resulting battle, both sides lost numerous warships in two extremely destructive surface engagements at night. Nevertheless, the U.S. succeeded in turning back attempts by the Japanese to bombard Henderson Field with battleships. Allied aircraft also sank most of the Japanese troop transports and prevented the majority of the Japanese troops and equipment from reaching Guadalcanal. Thus, the battle turned back Japan's last major attempt to dislodge Allied forces from Guadalcanal and nearby Tulagi, resulting in a strategic victory for the U.S. and its allies and deciding the ultimate outcome of the Guadalcanal campaign in their favor'.
    - At Wikipedia: More
    - On YouTube: More
    - On YouTube: More
  • In 1946, Walt Disney's, Song Of The South, was released.
    From Wikipedia: 'Song of the South is a 1946 American live-action/animated musical film produced by Walt Disney and released by RKO Radio Pictures, based on the Uncle Remus stories collected by Joel Chandler Harris. The film stars James Baskett in a dual role, Bobby Driscoll, Luana Patten, Glenn Leedy, Ruth Warrick, Lucile Watson, Hattie McDaniel, and the voices of Johnny Lee and Nick Stewart. It was one of the earliest of Disney's films to feature live actors (the first being The Reluctant Dragon), who provide a frame story for the animated segments. The film depicts the character Uncle Remus, presumably a former slave, relating to several children, including the film's protagonist, the folk tales of the adventures of anthropomorphic Br'er Rabbit and his enemies, Br'er Fox and Br'er Bear. The film's song "Zip-a-Dee-Doo-Dah" won the 1947 Academy Award for Best Song, is frequently used as part of Disney's montage themes, and has become widely used in popular culture. James Baskett was given an honorary Academy Award in 1948 for his portrayal of Uncle Remus. This marked the first Oscar (although an honorary one) awarded to a black male actor. The film inspired the Disney theme park attraction Splash Mountain.

    The film's depiction of black freedmen and of race relations in Reconstruction-Era Georgia has been controversial with a number of critics, both at the time of its release and in later decades, describing it as racist. Because of this, the film has never been officially released in its entirety on home video in the United States'.
    - At Wikipedia: More
    - On YouTube: More
  • In 1948, In Tokyo, an international war crimes tribunal sentences seven Japanese military and government officials, including General Hideki Tojo, to death for their roles in World War II.
    From Wikipedia: Japanese war crimes include both alleged and legally proven violations of the laws of war in many Asian and Pacific countries during the period of Japanese militarism, primarily during the Second Sino-Japanese War and World War II. These incidents have also been described as an Asian Holocaust and Japanese war atrocities. Some war crimes were committed by military personnel from the Empire of Japan in the late 19th century, although most took place during the first part of the Showa Era, the name given to the reign of Emperor Hirohito, until the surrender of the Empire of Japan, in 1945.

    Some historians and governments hold Japanese military forces, namely the Imperial Japanese Army, the Imperial Japanese Navy, and the Imperial Japanese family, especially under Emperor Hirohito, responsible for the deaths of millions, some estimate between 3,000,000 and 14,000,000 civilians and prisoners of war through massacre, human experimentation, starvation, and forced labor that was either directly perpetrated or condoned by the Japanese military and government. Some Japanese soldiers have admitted to committing these crimes. Airmen of the Imperial Japanese Army Air Service and Imperial Japanese Navy Air Service were not included as war criminals because there was no positive or specific customary international humanitarian law that prohibited the unlawful conduct of aerial warfare either before or during World War II. The Imperial Japanese Army Air Service took part in conducting chemical and biological attacks on enemy nationals during the Second Sino-Japanese War and World War II and the use of such weapons in warfare were generally prohibited by international agreements signed by Japan, including the Hague Conventions (1899 and 1907), which banned the use of "poison or poisoned weapons" in warfare.

    Since the 1950s, senior Japanese Government officials have issued numerous apologies for the country's war crimes. Japan's Ministry of Foreign Affairs states that the country acknowledges its role in causing "tremendous damage and suffering" during World War II, especially in regard to the IJA entrance into Nanjing during which Japanese soldiers killed a large number of non-combatants and engaged in looting and rape. That being said, some members of the Liberal Democratic Party in the Japanese government such as former prime minister Junichiro Koizumi and current Prime Minister Shinzo Abe have prayed at the Yasukuni Shrine, which includes convicted Class A war criminals in its honored war dead. Some Japanese history textbooks only offer brief references to the various war crimes, and members of the Liberal Democratic Party have denied some of the atrocities such as government involvement in abducting women to serve as "comfort women" (sex slaves).

    'The International Military Tribunal for the Far East was formed to try accused people in Japan itself.

    High-ranking officers who were tried included Koichi Kido and Sadao Araki. Three former (unelected) prime ministers: Koki Hirota, Hideki Tojo and Kuniaki Koiso were convicted of Class-A war crimes. Many military leaders were also convicted. Two people convicted as Class-A war criminals later served as ministers in post-war Japanese governments.

    Hirohito and all members of the imperial family implicated in the war such as Prince Chichibu, Prince Asaka, Prince Takeda and Prince Higashikuni were exonerated from criminal prosecutions by MacArthur, with the help of Bonner Fellers who allowed the major criminal suspects to coordinate their stories so that the Emperor would be spared from indictment. Some historians criticize this decision. According to John Dower, "with the full support of MacArthur's headquarters, the prosecution functioned, in effect, as a defense team for the emperor" and even Japanese activists who endorse the ideals of the Nuremberg and Tokyo charters, and who have labored to document and publicize the atrocities of the Showa regime "cannot defend the American decision to exonerate the emperor of war responsibility and then, in the chill of the Cold War, release and soon afterwards openly embrace accused right-winged war criminals like the later prime minister Nobusuke Kishi." For Herbert Bix, "MacArthur's truly extraordinary measures to save Hirohito from trial as a war criminal had a lasting and profoundly distorting impact on Japanese understanding of the lost war."

    Between 1946 and 1951, the United States, the United Kingdom, China, the Soviet Union, Australia, New Zealand, Canada, France, the Netherlands and the Philippines all held military tribunals to try Japanese indicted for Class B and Class C war crimes. Some 5,600 Japanese personnel were prosecuted in more than 2,200 trials outside Japan. Class B defendants were accused of having committed such crimes themselves; class C defendants, mostly senior officers, were accused of planning, ordering or failing to prevent them'.
    - At Wikipedia: More
    - On YouTube: More
  • In 1954, Ellis Island shuts its doors.
    From Wikipedia: 'Ellis Island, in Upper New York Bay, was the gateway for over 12 million immigrants to the United States as the nation's busiest immigrant inspection station from 1892 until 1954. The island was greatly expanded with land reclamation between 1892 and 1934. Before that, the much smaller original island was the site of Fort Gibson and later a naval magazine. The island was made part of the Statue of Liberty National Monument in 1965, and has hosted a museum of immigration since 1990. Long considered part of New York state, a 1998 United States Supreme Court decision found that most of the island is in New Jersey. The south side of the island, home to the Ellis Island Immigrant Hospital, is closed to the general public and the object of restoration efforts spearheaded by Save Ellis Island.

    In the 35 years before Ellis Island opened, more than eight million immigrants arriving in New York City had been processed by New York State officials at Castle Garden Immigration Depot in Lower Manhattan, just across the bay. The federal government assumed control of immigration on April 18, 1890, and Congress appropriated $75,000 to construct America's first federal immigration station on Ellis Island. Artesian wells were dug, and landfill was hauled in from incoming ships' ballast and from construction of New York City's subway tunnels, which doubled the size of Ellis Island to over six acres. While the building was under construction, the Barge Office nearby at the Battery was used for immigrant processing.

    The first station was an enormous three-story-tall structure, with outbuildings, built of Georgia pine, containing all of the amenities that were thought to be necessary. It opened with celebration on January 1, 1892. Three large ships landed on the first day and 700 immigrants passed over the docks. Almost 450,000 immigrants were processed at the station during its first year. On June 15, 1897, a fire of unknown origin, possibly caused by faulty wiring, turned the wooden structures on Ellis Island into ashes. No loss of life was reported, but most of the immigration records dating back to 1855 were destroyed. About 1.5 million immigrants had been processed at the first building during its five years of use. Plans were immediately made to build a new, fireproof immigration station on Ellis Island. During the construction period, passenger arrivals were again processed at the Barge Office.

    The present main structure was designed in French Renaissance Revival style and built of red brick with limestone trim. After it opened on December 17, 1900, the facilities proved to be able to barely handle the flood of immigrants that arrived in the years before World War I. Writer Louis Adamic came to America from Slovenia in southeastern Europe in 1913 and described the night he and many other immigrants slept on bunk beds in a huge hall. Lacking a warm blanket, the young man "shivered, sleepless, all night, listening to snores" and dreams "in perhaps a dozen different languages". The facility was so large that the dining room could seat 1,000 people.

    After its opening, Ellis Island was again expanded with landfill and additional structures were built. By the time it closed on November 12, 1954, twelve million immigrants had been processed by the U.S. Bureau of Immigration. It is estimated that 10.5 million immigrants departed for points across the United States from the Central Railroad of New Jersey Terminal, located just across a narrow strait. Others would have used one of the other terminals along the North River (Hudson River) at that time'.
    - At FamousDaily: More
    - At Wikipedia: More
    - On YouTube: More
  • In 1980, The NASA space probe Voyager I makes its closest approach to Saturn and takes the first images of its rings.
    From Wikipedia:

    Voyager 1 is a space probe launched by NASA on September 5, 1977. Part of the Voyager program to study the outer Solar System, Voyager 1 launched 16 days after its twin, Voyager 2. Having operated for 39 years, 2 months and 6 days, the spacecraft still communicates with the Deep Space Network to receive routine commands and return data. At a distance of 135 AU (2.02×1010 km) from the Sun as of June 2016, it is the farthest spacecraft from Earth.

    'The gravitational assist trajectories at Jupiter were successfully carried out by both Voyagers, and the two spacecraft went on to visit Saturn and its system of moons and rings. Voyager 1 encountered Saturn in November 1980, with the closest approach on November 12, 1980, when the space probe came within 124,000 kilometers (77,000 mi) of Saturn's cloud-tops. The space probe's cameras detected complex structures in the rings of Saturn, and its remote sensing instruments studied the atmospheres of Saturn and its giant moon Titan.

    Voyager 1 found that about 7 percent of the volume of Saturn's upper atmosphere is helium (compared with 11 percent of Jupiter's atmosphere), while almost all the rest is hydrogen. Since Saturn's internal helium abundance was expected to be the same as Jupiter's and the Sun's, the lower abundance of helium in the upper atmosphere may imply that the heavier helium may be slowly sinking through Saturn's hydrogen; that might explain the excess heat that Saturn radiates over energy it receives from the Sun. Winds blow at high speeds in Saturn. Near the equator, the Voyagers measured winds about 500 m/s (1,100 mph). The wind blows mostly in an easterly direction'.
    - At Wikipedia: More
    - On YouTube: More
  • In 1990, The World Wide Web is formally proposed by Tim Berners-Lee.
    From Wikipedia: 'The World Wide Web (abbreviated WWW or the Web) is an information space where documents and other web resources are identified by Uniform Resource Locators (URLs), interlinked by hypertext links, and can be accessed via the Internet. English scientist Tim Berners-Lee invented the World Wide Web in 1989. He wrote the first web browser computer programme in 1990 while employed at CERN in Switzerland.

    The World Wide Web has been central to the development of the Information Age and is the primary tool billions of people use to interact on the Internet. Web pages are primarily text documents formatted and annotated with Hypertext Markup Language (HTML). In addition to formatted text, web pages may contain images, video, audio, and software components that are rendered in the user's web browser as coherent pages of multimedia content. Embedded hyperlinks permit users to navigate between web pages. Multiple web pages with a common theme, a common domain name, or both, make up a website. Website content can largely be provided by the publisher, or interactive where users contribute content or the content depends upon the user or their actions. Websites may be mostly informative, primarily for entertainment, or largely for commercial, governmental, or non-governmental organisational purposes'.
    - At FamousDaily: More
    - At Wikipedia: More
    - On YouTube: More
  • In 2003, Shanghai Transrapid sets new commercial railway world speed record of 311 mph.
    From Wikipedia: 'The Shanghai Maglev Train or Shanghai Transrapid is a magnetic levitation train, or maglev line that operates in Shanghai, China. The line is the first commercially operated high-speed magnetic levitation line in the world.

    Construction of the line began in March 1, 2001, and public commercial service commenced on 1 January 2004. The top operational commercial speed of this train is 431 km/h (268 mph), making it the world's fastest train in regular commercial service since its opening in April 2004. During a non-commercial test run on 12 November 2003, piloted by Jonathan Texiera, a maglev train achieved a Chinese record speed of 501 km/h (311 mph). The Shanghai Maglev has a length of 153 metres (502 ft), a width of 3.7 metres (12 ft), a height of 4.2 metres (14 ft) and a three-class, 574-passenger configuration.

    The train line was designed to connect Shanghai Pudong International Airport and the outskirts of central Pudong where passengers could interchange to the Shanghai Metro to continue their trip to the city center. It cost $1.2 billion to build. The train set was built by a joint venture of Siemens and ThyssenKrupp from Kassel, Germany and based on years of tests and improvements of their Transrapid maglev monorail. The Shanghai Maglev track (guideway) was built by local Chinese companies who, as a result of the alluvial soil conditions of the Pudong area, had to deviate from the original track design of one supporting column every 50 meters to one column every 25 meters, to ensure that the guideway meets the stability and precision criteria. Several thousand concrete piles were driven to depths up to 70 meters to attain stability for the support column foundations. A mile-long, climate controlled facility was built alongside the line's right of way to manufacture the guideways.

    The electrification of the train was developed by Vahle, Inc. Two commercial maglev systems predated the Shanghai system: the Birmingham Maglev in the United Kingdom and the Berlin M-Bahn. Both were low-speed operations and closed before the opening of the Shanghai Maglev Train.

    The train was inaugurated in 2002 by the German chancellor, Gerhard Schröder, and the Chinese premier, Zhu Rongji.

    The line is not a part of the Shanghai Metro network, which operates its own service to Pudong Airport from central Shanghai and from Longyang Road Station'.
    - At FamousDaily: More
    - At Wikipedia: More
    - On YouTube: More
  • In 2014, The Philae lander, deployed from the European Space Agency's Rosetta probe, reaches the surface of Comet 67P/Churyumov–Gerasimenko.
    From Wikipedia: 'Philae is a robotic European Space Agency lander that accompanied the Rosetta spacecraft until it separated to land on comet 67P/Churyumov–Gerasimenko, ten years and eight months after departing Earth. On 12 November 2014, Philae touched down on the comet, but it bounced when its anchoring harpoons failed to deploy and a thruster designed to hold the probe to the surface did not fire. After bouncing off the surface twice, Philae achieved the first-ever "soft" (nondestructive) landing on a comet nucleus, although the lander's final, uncontrolled touchdown left it in a non-optimal location and orientation.

    Despite the landing problems, the probe's instruments obtained the first images from a comet's surface. Several of the instruments on Philae made the first direct analysis of a comet, sending back data that will be analysed to determine the composition of the surface.

    On 15 November 2014 Philae entered safe mode, or hibernation, after its batteries ran down due to reduced sunlight and an off-nominal spacecraft orientation at its unplanned landing site. Mission controllers hoped that additional sunlight on the solar panels might be sufficient to reboot the lander. Philae communicated sporadically with Rosetta from 13 June to 9 July 2015, but contact was then lost. The lander's location was identified to within a few tens of metres, but it was not seen. Philae, though silent, was finally identified unambiguously, lying on its side in a deep crack in the shadow of a cliff, in photographs taken by Rosetta on 2 September 2016 as the orbiter was sent on orbits closer to the comet. Knowledge of its precise location will help in interpretation of the images it had sent. On 30 September 2016, the Rosetta spacecraft ended its mission by landing in the comet's Ma'at region.

    The lander is named after the Philae obelisk, which bears a bilingual inscription and was used along with the Rosetta Stone to decipher Egyptian hieroglyphs. Philae is monitored and operated from DLR's Lander Control Center in Cologne, Germany'.
    - At Wikipedia: More
    - On YouTube: More
    - On YouTube: More
  II.
Henry's Heads Up! - previous days social media post (updated daily)

Tomorrow's food holiday will be: 'National Pizza With Everything (Except Anchovies) Day'. I guess about 350 times a year, I say the food of the day is my favorite. Since I love food, I can't say that is inaccurate. However, this has got to be my favorite. They have even got it right about the little fishes. Anchovies are a flavoring ingredient in things like Worcestershire sauce, but the only time I want to see little fishes is on the end a a bait-hook, to catch bigger fishes.

Another of tomorrow's holidays, by name, seems to be a food holiday, but ' Chicken Soup for the Soul Day', is not. It refers to the, best selling, 'Chicken Soup for the Soul'. book series, which deals with inspirational, true stories about ordinary people's lives.

Here is a holiday for tomorrow that is exactly what it says. It will be 'Fancy Rat and Mouse Day'. Yep, a promotion to breed exceptional rats and mice.

Tomorrow is also a World Health Organization awareness day. It will be 'World Pneumonia Day'.

Charles Caleb Colton one said 'Time is the most undefinable yet paradoxical of things; the past is gone, the future is not come, and the present becomes the past even while we attempt to define it, and, like the flash of lightning, at once exists and expires. ' [I say] it looks like we are once again in that familiar situation that only allows us to grab onto the only thing holding still for us. So, lets look at November 12 in the past, while it passively and unaltered awaits our perusal.

In 1859, Jules Leotard performs his first Flying Trapeze circus act in Paris. He also designed a garment (a functional costume) in which to perform, that bears his name.

In 1954, After 62 years, the US immigrant processing facility at Ellis Island shuts its doors. The load was taken over by US embassies. Often an immigrant would actually get a completely new life, as hard to spell names were Americanized. It was only the poorer ship passengers that went through the facility. The first and second class passengers were evaluated on board ship. BTW, most of the immigrants that settled central Texas came through a facility at Galveston Texas.

u In 1990, The World Wide Web is formally proposed by Tim Berners-Lee. His first formal proposal was rejected. The proposal was retitled and resubmitted, and was accepted.

 III.
Top Song & Movie 50 years ago today

No. 1 song

  • Last Kiss - J. Frank Wilson and the Cavaliers: More
    'We'll Sing in the Sunshine' has been displaced by 'Last Kiss', which will hold the no. 1 spot until November 14 1964, when 'Baby Love', takes over.

Top movie

  • Kitten with a Whip More
    Having displaced 'The Naked Kiss', it will be there until the weekend box office of November 15 1964 when, 'Roustabout', takes over.
  IV.
Today in the Past (reference sites): November 12
   V.
This month November 2014 (updated once a month - last updated - November 1 2014)

Food:
National Peanut Butter Lover's Month
National Georgia Pecan Month
National Pepper Month
Other:
National Alzheimer's Disease Awareness Month
National American Indian Heritage Month
National Bladder Health Awareness Month
National Candle Month
National Child Mental Health Month
National Diabetes Awareness Month
National Epilepsy Awareness Month
National Family Caregivers Month
National Fragrance Month
National Healthy Skin Month
National Home Care Month
National Lifewriting Month
National Long Term Care Awareness Month
National Marrow Awareness Month
National Military Family Month
National Native American Heritage Month
National Novel Writing Month
National Pet Awareness Month
National Scholarship Month
National Senior Pet Month


November is:

November origin (from Wikipedia): 'November is the eleventh month of the year in the Julian and Gregorian Calendars and one of four months with the length of 30 days. November was the ninth month of the ancient Roman calendar. November retained its name (from the Latin novem meaning 'nine') when January and February were added to the Roman calendar. '

'November is a month of spring in the Southern Hemisphere and autumn in the Northern Hemisphere. Therefore, November in the Southern Hemisphere is the seasonal equivalent of May in the Northern Hemisphere and vice versa.'

November 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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