Tomorrow's food holiday will be 'National Carrot Cake Day'. From Wikipedia: 'Carrot cake is a cake that contains carrots mixed into the batter. The carrot softens in the cooking process, and the cake usually has a soft, dense texture.'
'Carrots have been used in sweet cakes since the medieval period, during which time sweeteners were scarce and expensive, while carrots, which contain more sugar than any other vegetable besides the sugar beet, were much easier to come by and were used to make sweet desserts. The origins of carrot cake are disputed. Recipes for carrot cake occur as early as 1827. The oldest known recipe of carrot cake dates from 1892, in a book of the housekeeping school of Kaiseraugst (Canton of Aargau, Switzerland).
According to the Culinary Heritage of Switzerland, it is one of the most popular cakes in Switzerland, especially for the birthdays of children'.
'The popularity of carrot cake was probably revived in Great Britain because of rationing during the Second World War. Carrot cakes first became commonly available in restaurants and cafeterias in the United States in the early 1960s. They were at first a novelty item, but people liked them so much that carrot cake became standard dessert fare. In 2005, the American-based television channel Food Network listed carrot cake, with its cream-cheese icing, as number five of the top five fad foods of the
1970s. Carrot cake was voted as the favourite cake in the United Kingdom, according to a survey in the Radio Times in 2011'.
[The Hankster says] Let's be truthful now. The cake is good, but we all eat it for the thick cream cheese icing, now, don't we?
Other celebrations/observances tomorrow:
- 'National The Day the Music Died Day'.
Remembers the February 3, 1959 deaths of Buddy Holly, Richie Valens and J. P. Richardson (The Big Bopper). The name is consistent with Don McLean's song, American Pie, and the lyrics therein.
- 'Four Chaplains Memorial Day'.
From Wikipedia: 'The Four Chaplains, also sometimes referred to as the "Immortal Chaplains" or the "Dorchester Chaplains" were four United States Army chaplains who gave their lives to save other civilian and military personnel as the troop ship SS Dorchester sank on February 3, 1943, during World War II. They helped other soldiers board lifeboats and gave up their own life jackets when the supply ran out. The chaplains joined arms, said prayers, and sang hymns as they went down with the ship.'
'In 1988, February 3 was established by a unanimous act of Congress as an annual "Four Chaplains Day." Some state or city officials commemorate the day with official proclamations, sometimes including the order that flags fly at half-mast in memory of the fallen chaplains. In some cases, official proclamations establish observances at other times: for example, North Dakota legislation requests that the Governor issue an annual proclamation establishing the first Sunday in February as "Four Chaplains
Sunday.
- 'Elmo's Birthday', Elmo, of Sesame Street, always turns 3 on February 3rd.
[The Hankster says] Seems like a good philosophy to me. No fountains needed.
- 'National Girls and Women in Sports Day'. First Wednesday in February. Focus on girls and women in sports.
Historical events in the past on: February 3
- In 1690, The first paper money in America is issued.
From Wikipedia: 'One by one, colonies began to issue their own paper money to serve as a convenient medium of exchange. In 1690, the Province of Massachusetts Bay created "the first authorized paper money issued by any government in the Western World." This paper money was issued to pay for a military expedition during King William's War. Other colonies followed the example of Massachusetts Bay by issuing their own paper currency in subsequent military conflicts'.
- In 1876, Albert Spalding with $800, starts a sporting goods company, manufacturing the first official baseball, tennis ball, basketball, golf ball, and football.
From Wikipedia: 'In 1874 while Spalding was playing and organizing the league, Spalding and his brother Walter began a sporting goods store in Chicago, which grew rapidly (14 stores by 1901) and expanded into a manufacturer and distributor of all kinds of sporting equipment. The company became "synonymous with sporting goods" and is still a going concern.
'Spalding published the first official rules guide for baseball. In it he stated that only Spalding balls could be used (previously, the quality of the balls used had been subpar). Spalding also founded the "Baseball Guide", which at the time was the most widely read baseball publication'.
- In 1913, The 16th Amendment to the U.S. Constitution is ratified. It was for an income tax.
From Wikipedia: 'The Sixteenth Amendment (Amendment XVI) to the United States Constitution allows the Congress to levy an income tax without apportioning it among the states or basing it on the United States Census. This amendment exempted income taxes from the constitutional requirements regarding direct taxes, after income taxes on rents, dividends, and interest were ruled to be direct taxes in the court case of Pollock v. Farmers' Loan & Trust Co. (1895). The amendment was adopted on February 3,
1913'.
- In 1943, The U.S. Army Transport ship 'USAT Dorchester' is sunk by a German U-boat. Only 230 of 902 men aboard survived. The Chapel of the Four Chaplains, dedicated by President Harry Truman, is one of many memorials established to commemorate the Four Chaplains, George Fox, Alexander Goode, Clark Poling, John Washington, who died after giving their lifebelts to others.
From Wikipedia: 'The Four Chaplains Memorial Foundation, the only 501(c)(3) charity related to the Four Chaplains' legacy, is housed at the former U.S. Naval Chapel located at the former South Philadelphia Navy Yard. Its official mission statement is "to further the cause of 'unity without uniformity' by encouraging goodwill and cooperation among all people".' 'There are many additional awards chapels and memorials.'
Also: 'Dorchester is best remembered today for four of the Army officers among the military personnel being transported overseas for duty: the Four Chaplains who died because they gave up their life jackets to save others. These chaplains included Methodist minister George L. Fox, Reformed Church in America minister Clark V. Poling, Catholic Church priest John P. Washington and Rabbi Alexander B. Goode. Congress established February 3 as "Four Chaplains Day" to commemorate this act of heroism, and
on July 14, 1960, created the Chaplain's Medal for Heroism, presented posthumously to the next of kin of each of the chaplains by Secretary of the Army Wilber M. Brucker at Fort Myer, Virginia on January 18, 1961'.
- In 1945, The Walt Disney movie, '3 Caballeros' is released. It is a mixture of cartoon and live actors.
From Wikipedia: 'The Three Caballeros is a 1944 American animated musical film produced by Walt Disney Productions. The film premiered in Mexico City on December 21, 1944. It was released in the United States on February 3, 1945 and in the UK that March. The seventh animated feature in the Walt Disney Animated Classics series, the film plots an adventure through parts of Latin America, combining live-action and animation. This is the second of the six package films released by Walt Disney Animation
Studiosin the 1940s.'
'The film was produced as part of the studio's good will message for South America. The film stars Donald Duck, who in the course of the film is joined by old friend José Carioca, the cigar-smoking parrot from the 1942 film Saludos Amigos, who represents Brazil, and later becomes friends with a pistol-packing rooster named Panchito Pistoles, who represents Mexico'.
- In 1947, The lowest temperature in North America, -63.9 C (-83.0 F), was recorded in Snag, Yukon.
From Wikipedia: 'Snag is a village located on a small, dry-weather sideroad off the Alaska Highway 25 kilometres (16 mi) east of Beaver Creek, Yukon, Canada.
'On February 3, 1947, the record-low temperature for continental North America was recorded in Snag: -63.0 °C (-81.4 °F). That same winter, two previous records had already been set: one in December noted various phenomena, particularly sound such as voices being heard clearly miles from their source. There was a clear sky (except for some ice fog), and mild to little wind. There were 38.1 centimetres (15.0 in) of snow on the ground, but it was decreasing. Another town 180 km (112 mi) northeast of
Snag, Fort Selkirk, claimed an even lower temperature of -65 °C (-85 °F), but the claim could not be confirmed'.
- In 1959, Deaths of rock and roll musicians Buddy Holly, Ritchie Valens, and J. P. "The Big Bopper" Richardson, in a plane crash near Clear Lake, Iowa.
From Wikipedia: 'On February 3, 1959, rock and roll musicians Buddy Holly, Ritchie Valens, and J. P. "The Big Bopper" Richardson were killed in a plane crash near Clear Lake, Iowa, together with the pilot, Roger Peterson. The event later became known as "The Day the Music Died", after singer-songwriter Don McLean so referred to it in his song "American Pie".
'At the time, Holly and his band, consisting of Waylon Jennings, Tommy Allsup, and Carl Bunch, were playing on the "Winter Dance Party" tour across the Midwest. Rising artists Valens and Richardson had joined the tour as well.
'The long journeys between venues on board the cold, uncomfortable tour buses adversely affected the performers, with cases of flu and even frostbite. After stopping at Clear Lake to perform, and frustrated by such conditions, Holly fatefully decided to charter a plane to reach their next venue in Moorhead, Minnesota. Richardson, who had flu, swapped places with Jennings, taking the latter's seat on the plane, while Allsup lost his seat to Valens on a coin toss.
'Soon after take-off, late at night and in poor, wintry weather conditions, the pilot lost control of the light aircraft, a Beechcraft Bonanza, which subsequently crashed into a cornfield, leaving no survivors'.
- In 1961, The U.S. Air Forces begins 'Operation Looking Glass', and over the next 30 years, a 'Doomsday Plane' is always in the air, with the capability of taking direct control of the United States' bombers and missiles in the event of the destruction of the S.A.C.'s (Strategic Air Command) command post.
From Wikipedia: 'Looking Glass (or Operation Looking Glass) is the code name for an airborne command and control center operated by the United States. It provides command and control of U.S. nuclear forces in the event that ground-based command centers were destroyed or otherwise rendered inoperable. In such an event, the general officer aboard the Looking Glass serves as the Airborne Emergency Action Officer (AEAO) and by law assumed the authority of the National Command Authority and could command
execution of nuclear attacks. The AEAO is supported by a battle staff of approximately 20 people, with another dozen responsible for the operation of the aircraft systems.
'On October 1, 1998 the U.S. Navy's fleet of E-6Bs replaced the EC-135C in performing the "Looking Glass" mission, previously carried out for 37 years by the U.S. Air Force; unlike the original Looking Glass aircraft, the E-6Bs are modified Boeing 707 aircraft, not the military-only KC-135. The E-6B provides the National Command Authority with the same capability as the EC-135 fleet to control the nation's Intercontinental Ballistic Missile ICBM force, land-based nuclear capable bombers and
Submarine-Launched Ballistic Missiles SLBM. With the assumption of this mission, a battle staff now flies with the TACAMO crew.
'If the USSTRATCOM GOC is unable to function in its role, the E-6B Looking Glass can assume command of all U.S. nuclear forces. Flying aboard each ABNCP is a crew of 22, which includes an aircrew, an Information Systems Officer and team, an Airborne Emergency Action Officer (an Admiral or General officer), an Intelligence Officer, Meteorologist, and an Airborne Battle Operations Team. In addit to being able to direct the launch ICBMs, the E-6B can communicate Emergency Action Messages (EAM) to nuclear
submarines running at depth by extending a 2˝-mile-long trailing wire antenna (TWA) for use with the Survivable Low Frequency Communications System (SLFCS), as the EC-135C could'.
- In 1966, The unmanned Soviet 'Luna 9' spacecraft makes the first controlled rocket-assisted landing on the Moon.
From Wikipedia: 'Luna 9, internal designation Ye-6 No.13, was an unmanned space mission of the Soviet Union's Luna programme. On 3 February 1966 the Luna 9 spacecraft became the first spacecraft to achieve a soft landing on the Moon, or any planetary body other than Earth, and to transmit photographic data to Earth from the surface of another planetary body'.
- In 1972, The first day of the seven-day 1972, Iran blizzard, which would kill at least 4,000 people, making it the deadliest snowstorm in history.
From Wikipedia: 'The Iran Blizzard of February 1972 resulted in the deaths of approximately 4,000 people. A week-long period of low temperatures and winter storms, lasting from 3 to 9 February dc 1972, dumped more than 10 feet (3.0 m) of snow across rural areas in northwestern, central and southern Iran.
'Southern Iran sustained as much as 26 feet (7.9 m) of snow, burying at least 4,000 individuals. According to contemporary reports by the newspaper Ettela'at, the city of Ardakan and outlying villages were hardest hit, with no survivors in Kakkan or Kumar. In the northwest, near the border with Turkey, the village of Sheklab and its 100 inhabitants were buried.
'This blizzard remains the deadliest in history'.
- In 1984, The first baby conceived by embryo transplant is born.
From Wikipedia: 'Embryo transfer refers to a step in the process of assisted reproduction in which embryos are placed into the uterus of a female with the intent to establish a pregnancy. This technique (which is often used in connection with in vitro fertilization (IVF)), may be used in humans or in animals, in which situations the goals may vary.'
'The first transfer of an embryo from one human to another resulting in pregnancy was reported in July 1983 and subsequently led to the announcement of the first human birth February 3, 1984. This procedure was performed at the Harbor UCLA Medical Center under the direction of Dr. John Buster and the University of California at Los Angeles School of Medicine.'
'In the procedure, an embryo that was just beginning to develop was transferred from one woman in whom it had been conceived by artificial insemination to another woman who gave birth to the infant 38 weeks later. The sperm used in the artificial insemination came from the husband of the woman who bore the baby'.
- In 1995, Astronaut Eileen Collins becomes the first woman to pilot the Space Shuttle as mission STS-63 launches.
From Wikipedia: 'STS-63 was the second mission of the US/Russian Shuttle-Mir Program, which carried out the first rendezvous of the American Space Shuttle with Russia's space station Mir. Known as the 'Near-Mir' mission, the flight used Space Shuttle Discovery, which lifted off from launch pad 39B on 3 February 1995 from Kennedy Space Center, Florida. A night launch and the 20th mission for Discovery, it marked the first time a Space Shuttle mission had a female pilot, Eileen Collins, the first EVAs
for both a UK born astronaut Michael Foale and a US astronaut of African heritage Bernard A. Harris, Jr. and it also carried out the successful deployment and retrieval of the Spartan-204 platform, along with the scheduled rendezvous and flyaround of Mir, in preparation for STS-71, the first mission to dockwith Mir'.
- In 2011, With the internet growing rapidly, the last five remaining IPv4 address blocks are distributed - meaning that Internet Protocol version 6 would begin.
From Wikipedia: 'An Internet Protocol address (IP address) is a numerical label assigned to each device (e.g., computer, printer) participating in a computer network that uses the Internet Protocol for communication. An IP address serves two principal functions: host or network interface identification and location addressing. Its role has been characterized as follows: "A name indicates what we seek. An address indicates where it is. A route indicates how to get there."'
'The rapid exhaustion of IPv4 address space prompted the Internet Engineering Task Force (IETF) to explore new technologies to expand the addressing capability in the Internet. The permanent solution was deemed to be a redesign of the Internet Protocol itself. This new generation of the Internet Protocol was eventually named Internet Protocol Version 6 (IPv6) in 1995. The address size was increased from 32 to 128 bits (16 octets), thus providing up to 2128 (approximately 3.403×1038) addresses. This
is deemed sufficient for the foreseeable future.
'High levels of demand have decreased the supply of unallocated Internet Protocol Version 4 (IPv4) addresses available for assignment to Internet service providers and end user organizations since the 1980s. This development is referred to as IPv4 address exhaustion. IANA's primary address pool was exhausted on 3 February 2011, when the last five blocks were allocated to the five RIRs. APNIC was the first RIR to exhaust its regional pool on 15 April 2011, except for a small amount of address space
reservedfor the transition to IPv6, intended to be allocated in a restricted process'.
No. 1 song
Top movie
Monthly holiday / awareness days in February
Food
Barley Month
Fabulous Florida Strawberry Month
Grapefruit Month
National Cherry Month
National Hot Breakfast Month
Health
AMD/Low Vision Awareness Month
American Heart Month
International Boost Self-Esteem Month
International Expect Success Month
International Prenatal Infection Prevention Month
Marfan Syndrome Awareness Month
National Condom Month
National Children's Dental Health Month
National Therapeutic Recreation Month
Animal / Pet
Adopt A Rescued Rabbit Month
Beat The Heat Month
Dog Training Education Month
International Hoof-care Month
National Bird Feeding Month
National Pet Dental Health Month
Responsible Pet Owner's Month
Spay/Neuter Awareness Month
Other
Cricket World Cup
International Month of Black Women in The Arts
Library Lovers Month
Love The Bus Month
National African American History / Black History Month
National African American Read-In
National Care About Your Indoor Air Month
National Parent Leadership Month
National Teen Dating Violence Awareness Month
National Time Management Month
National Weddings Month
National Women Inventors Month
North American Inclusion Month
Relationship Wellness Month
Return Shopping Carts to the Supermarket Month
Youth Leadership Month
February is:
February origin (from Wikipedia):
'The Roman month Februarius was named after the Latin term
februum, which means purification, via the purification ritual
Februa held on February 15 (full moon) in the old lunar Roman
calendar. January and February were the last two months to
be added to the Roman calendar, since the Romans originally
considered winter a monthless period. They were added by
Numa Pompilius about 713 BC. February remained the last month
of the calendar year until the time of the decemvirs (c. 450 BC),
when it became the second month. At certain intervals February
was truncated to 23 or 24 days, and a 27-day intercalary month,
Intercalaris, was inserted immediately after February to realign
the year with the seasons.
Under the reforms that instituted the Julian calendar, Intercalaris
was abolished, leap years occurred regularly every fourth year,
and in leap years February gained a 29th day. Thereafter, it
remained the second month of the calendar year, meaning the
order that months are displayed (January, February, March,
..., December) within a year-at-a-glance calendar. Even during
the Middle Ages, when the numbered Anno Domini year began
on March 25 or December 25, the second month was February
whenever all twelve months were displayed in order. The
Gregorian calendar reforms made slight changes to the system
for determining which years were leap years and thus contained
a 29-day February.'
February is the second month of the year in the Julian and
Gregorian calendars. It is the shortest month and the only month
with fewer than 30 days. The month has 28 days in common years
or 29 days in leap years.
February is the third month of meteorological winter in the
Northern Hemisphere. In the Southern Hemisphere, February
is the third month of summer (the seasonal equivalent of August
in the Northern Hemisphere, in meteorological reckoning).
February at Wikipedia: More
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Sites for downloading or reading free Public Domain eBooks. Available in various formats. More