Tuesday, June 24, 2008


The Whirlpool Galaxy M-51 as seen with the Hubble Space Telescope.


Today's Jumble (6/24/08):


HAWTE = WHEAT; PREKO = POKER; TRUFOH = FOURTH; BOYDUL = DOUBLY

CIRCLED LETTERS = HTOEFOTDO

What the bathers did when they hit the burning sand.

"HOT FOOTED (IT).


Today is U.F.O. Day - First documented UFO sighting on this day in 1947 near Washington's Cascade Mountains.


Other things on this day in history:


972 - Battle of Cedynia, the first documented victory of Polish forces.
1128 - Battle of São Mamede, near Guimarães. Portuguese forces led by Alfonso I defeat his mother D.Teresa and D.Fernão Peres de Trava. After this battle, the future king calls himself "Prince of Portugal", the first step towards "official independence" in 1139, after the Battle of Ourique.
1314 - First War of Scottish Independence: Battle of Bannockburn concludes with a decisive victory of the Scottish forces led by Robert the Bruce. Scotland regains its independence in the aftermath of this battle.
1340 - Hundred Years' War: Battle of Sluys The French fleet was almost totally destroyed by the English Fleet commanded in person by Edward III of England.
1374 - A sudden outbreak of St. John's Dance causes people in the streets of Aachen, Germany, to experience hallucinations and begin to jump and twitch uncontrollably until they collapse from exhaustion.
1441 - Eton College founded.
1497 - John Cabot lands on North America in Newfoundland; first European exploration of the region since the Vikings.
1497 - Cornish traitors Michael An Gof and Thomas Flamank executed at Tyburn, London
1509 - Henry VIII and Catherine of Aragon crowned King and Queen of England.
1535 - The Anabaptist state of Münster is conquered and disbanded.
1571 - Miguel Lopez de Legazpi founded Manila, the capital of the Republic of the Philippines.
1597 - The first Dutch voyage to the East Indies reaches Bantam (on Java).
1662 - Dutch attempt but fail to capture Macau.
1664 - The colony of New Jersey is founded.
1692 - Kingston, Jamaica is founded.
1717 - The Grand Lodge of England, the first Freemasonic Grand Lodge (now the United Grand Lodge of England), is founded in London, England.
1748 - Kingswood School opened by John Wesley and his brother Charles Wesley in Bristol. School later moved to Bath.
1793 - First republican constitution in France adopted.
1794 - Bowdoin College is founded.
1812 - Napoleonic Wars: Napoleon's Grande Armée crosses the Neman River beginning his invasion of Russia.
1813 - Battle of Beaver Dams : A British, and Indian joint force defeat the U.S Army.
1821 - Battle of Carabobo - Battle of Carabobo was the decisive battle in the war of independence of Venezuela from Spain.
1859 - Battle of Solferino: (Battle of the Three Sovereigns). Sardinia and France defeat Austria in Solferino, northern Italy.
1880 - First performance of O Canada, the song that would become the national anthem of Canada, at the Congrès national des Canadiens-Français.
1894 - Marie Francois Sadi Carnot assassinated by Sante Geronimo Caserio.
1901 - First exhibition of Pablo Picasso's work opens.
1902 - King Edward VII of the United Kingdom develops appendicitis, delaying his coronation.
1913 - Greece and Serbia annul their alliance with Bulgaria.
1916 - Mary Pickford becomes first female film star to get million dollar contract.
1916 - Battle of the Somme begins with a week long artillery bombardment on the German Line. 1918 - First airmail service in Canada from Montreal to Toronto.
1928 - With declining business, the Great Gorge and International Railway begins using one-person crews on trolley operations in Canada
1932 - A military coup ends the absolute power of the king of Siam (Thailand).
1938 - A 450 metric ton meteorite strikes the earth in an empty field near Chicora, Pennsylvania.
1940 - France and Italy sign an armistice.
1945 - Moscow Victory Parade
1947 - Kenneth Arnold makes the first widely reported UFO sighting near Mount Rainier, Washington.
1948 - Start of the Berlin Blockade. The Soviet Union makes overland travel between the West with West Berlin impossible.
1949 - The first Television Western, Hopalong Cassidy, is aired on NBC starring William Boyd.
1957 - The U.S. Supreme Court rules that obscenity is not protected by the First Amendment.
1963 - Zanzibar is granted internal self-government by the UK.
1975 - An Eastern Air Lines Boeing 727 crashes at John F. Kennedy Airport, New York. 113 people die.
1981 - What would be the world's longest single-span suspension bridge for 17 years, the Humber Bridge opens, connecting Yorkshire and Lincolnshire.
1982 - British Airways Flight 9, sometimes referred to as the Jakarta incident, flew into a cloud of volcanic ash thrown up by the eruption of Mount Galunggung, resulting in the failure of all four engines.
1983 - Space Shuttle program: STS-7 Mission Sally Ride, first female American astronaut, returns to earth.
1985 - STS-51-G Space Shuttle Discovery completed its mission, best remembered for having Sultan bin Salman bin Abdulaziz Al Saud, the first Arab and first Muslim in space, as a Payload Specialist.
1993 - Yale computer science professor Dr. David Gelernter loses the sight in one eye, the hearing in one ear, and part of his right hand after receiving a mailbomb from the Unabomber.
1994 - A United States Air Force B-52 aircraft crashes at Fairchild Air Force Base, killing all four members of its crew.
1995 - South Africa defeats New Zealand in the 1995 Rugby World Cup. The 1995 World cup was the first major sporting event in South Africa after Apartheid.
2002 - The Igandu train disaster in Tanzania kills 281, the worst train accident in African history.
2004 - Habib Dodo, the general secretary of the Communist Youth of Côte d'Ivoire is assassinated by pro-government forces.
2004 - In New York, capital punishment was declared unconstitutional.
2007 - The Angora Fire starts near South Lake Tahoe, California destroying 200+ structures in its first 48 hours.

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