I can think of no finer way than to wake up like one of my cats. Alf Capone (Used Furniture Dealer) in particular. He has this way of stretching, in a leisurely sort of way, then he pulls his whiskers forward as his mouth makes a sort of pouty, kissing shape, and finally …. he yawns the yawn of a LION. Totally. The only thing which is missing is that LION growl. But … the important thing is ... his whiskers twitch.
Maisie Doats (other cat residing in Cobweb Towers, – a minuscule cat – 1:12th scale) (well,no, not really 1:12th scale, but she is very small). Aaanyway [stop waffling Cobs!]… back to Maisie Doats … her whiskers twitch too – but it’s normally when she getting royally indignant about something (or some cat) she’s spotted in HER garden. If I had the courage of that little cat, I swear to dog that I’d be able to run the world.
Alf …. aw, now he’s a lover not a fighter. But Maisie …. ah, she’s a F.I.G.H.T.E.R of the first degree. A right bruiser. Trouble is that she normally comes off the worst in a fight.
I know when she has an injury because she hides under the sofa. You see … she knows that if I see she’s injured, out comes the cotton wool and the antiseptic in a bowl of tepid water, and in mummy wades to bathe the wounds. SHE HATES IT! She won’t speak to me for hours after I’ve done it – just to make sure that I know what I’ve done wrong. It’s her version of putting me on the naughty step.
Aaanyhoo …. I’m here to share the Catified version of the Waggy Tails cards (<–clickable link – opens in a new tab) which I shared on Monday, so I shall hush up and share!
Now did that face make you smile? If you didn’t smile, maybe now’s the moment to check your pulse.
Originally I was only going to make a nose, cheeks, mouth with whiskers combination … but a little tickle happened somewhere inside me and I added a very tiny pair of beady eyes, just for laughs. Not to do anything which would turn the twitchy whiskers into a ‘real’ cat face – I never wanted this to look like a proper cat face, for I wanted it to be a smile in a card. The whole ‘thing’ about these cards is that they’re meant to be fun and funny. But the beady eyes just gave a sort of added comical twist to it, and … well … I just hadta.
A view from the side so that you can see how ‘proud’ the face is from the card itself.
The whiskers … they can be touched and ‘twanged’. They definitely have the twitchy factor. 🙂
Did you know ….
A cat’s nose is as unique to a particular cat as a fingerprint is to a human – no two cats have the same nose.
The naked skin around a cat’s nostrils is known as “nose leather”.
The colour of a cat’s nose leather depends on the colour of their coats – it can be pink, black, blue, chocolate, brown, lavender and brick-red.
Chinchilla cats have nose leather that’s outlined with a lovely grey colour.
Some cats even boast freckles on their noses!
Since making the Waggy Tails and Twitchy Whiskers Cards, my brain has gone on a ‘jolly’ with this idea and I now have ideas falling out of my ear-holes for other cards which I’d like to make. But … not quite yet. I don’t want to bore you to tears with these sorts of cards.
So I’ll jump craft lanes and come back next time with something a little different.However … expect me to make a visit to these cards at some point in the near future, as my brain is having a party with the ideas, and I can hear very clearly the laughter and the popping of corks which is happening inside my head! 😀
Thank you so much for coming and having a coffee with me, and for taking a peep at the Cats Whiskers card.
But …. take note of the sentiment and please remember to always:
BEGIN EACH DAY WITH TWITCHY WHISKERS!
Have a truly beautiful Wednesday! 😀
Sending love and squidges, from me in my corner, to you in yours.
I promised someone last week that the thing I was in the middle of making at that time, would cause a smile. And I hope that these two handmade cards do that very thing.
Can you imagine receiving a card, out of the blue, for your Birthday; to cheer you up; or just to say ‘hello’, opening it and finding this funny little dog inside…
That little chap looks like he’s kicking up the grass after he’s had a tinkle, doesn’t he? LOL!
Camera at a slightly different angle so that you can see this really is a card.
I took the next photo to give you a side view, so that you could get a true idea of how much the back-end of this little chap stands proud of the card…
And then . . . well . . . I just had to make a taller, shaggy coated white dog – which I based upon a ‘Dulux Dog’ – or – an ‘Old English Sheepdog’, as they’re actually called. . .
. . . and from a slightly different angle . . .
The photographs sadly don’t really show the detail of the coats – the ‘shaggyness’ which I’ve sculpted in. The bodies look far more ‘hairy’ looking in real life – to the natural eye.
Another photo to show the depth of the clay dog.
And finally . . . a paws for thought . . .
. . . I forgot to take a shot of their feet, so dashed back to the craft room to take an extra photo. The photograph above shows the pinky feet of the white dog, and you can just about see that the brown woofer has pinky brown feet. But what the photo doesn’t pick up is that each paw has individual pads– just as a real dog does. In this case, each pad has one large central pad, and three little smaller pads around the front of the paw.
I think if I were sent one of these cards, for whatever reason, after displaying it as a card should be displayed, I’d frame it afterwards and hang it on the wall. It’s way too much fun to go into a drawer!
Now I’m very aware that not everyone is a dog person, so I gave some thought to what Cat people might enjoy . . . and [whispering]. . . “shhhh . . . something is in the pipeline for those people who love cats! Coming very, verysoon!
Thank you so much for coming for a visit, and for sharing a coffee moment with me. I hope you found a smile or two looking at the Waggy Tails!
It’s really lovely to see you, and even more lovely to ‘hear’ your comments and chat, so please, do let me know you’ve visited.
Have a truly blessed rest of your day, my lovely blogging friends!
Yesterday, Thursday, was the first day FOR WEEKS that it didn’t rain (or snow). Personally I think a celebration is in order!
We’ve had the most awful rain here in the South of England. Heavy, bucketing it down, soak you to the skin, horrid, horrible rain. I’ve had to remind myself, over and over, that God doesn’t tell me when to water my garden, so I don’t have the right to tell him when to water his. I’m pretty sure that there’s method in what I consider to be a ‘rain madness’ – and I’m sure that all will become clear(ish) eventually. But until then, I’ve agreed with Mr.Cobs that it’s probably better that he continue to build the Ark from the kit I bought him, which he began work on a few weeks ago:
Not entirely convinced that it’s going to be big enough for all those 2×2 animals from around the world that are the requirement for a structure like this – but we’ll do our best, and if they have to be Lego sized, then so be it. I’ll pack a magician who might be able to turn them into the real deal when we get through the journey. 😀
Aaanyhoo . . . I thought we could do with a smidgen of fun on a Friday, since we are now officially in Spring (except for those of you on the other side of the planet – and I’m sure ‘fun’ is a requirement for Autumn going into Winter, down there!). So with FUN in mind, I share with you a Text Message received from daughter No.2 . . .
She sent me, in full, the following:
The Washington Post has published its yearly neologism contest in which readers are asked to supply alternate meaning for common words … and the winners are:
Coffee (n), the person upon whom one coughs.
Flabbergasted (adj) appalled over how much weight you have gained.
Abdicate (v) to give up all hope of ever having a flat stomach.
Esplanade (v) to attempt an explanation while drunk.
Willy-nilly (adj), impotent.
Negligent (adj), describes a condition in which you absent mindedly answer the door in your nightgown.
Lymph (v), to walk with a lisp.
Gargoyle (n), gross olive-flavoured mouthwash.
Flatulence (n), emergency vehicle that picks you up after you are run over by a steamroller.
Balderdash (n), a rapidly receding hairline.
Rectitude (n), the formal, dignified bearing adopted by proctologists.
Pokemon (n), a Rastafarian proctologists.
Circumvent (n), an opening in the front of boxer shorts worn by Jewish men.
Frisbeetararianism (n), (back by popular demand): The belief that when you die, your soul flies up onto the roof and gets stuck there.
Those tickled me in just the right place, and also brought back a memory of something I read a few years ago, about words which had a meaning of what they meant, and also the opposite of what they meant. Get these . . . .
Dust,along with the next two words, is a noun turned into a verb meaning either to add or to remove the thing in question. Only the context will tell you which it is. When you dust are you applying dust or removing it? It all depends whether you’re dusting the crops or the furniture.
Screen can mean ‘to show’ (a movie) or ‘to hide’ (an unsightly view).
Seedcan also go either way. If you seed the lawn you add seeds, but if you seed a tomato you remove them.
Stoneis another verb to use with caution. You can stone some peaches, but please don’t stone your neighbour (even if he says he likes to get stoned).
Trimas a verb predates the noun, but it can also mean either adding or taking away. Arising from an Old English word meaning ‘to make firm or strong; to settle, arrange,’ “trim” came to mean ‘to prepare, make ready.’ Depending on who or what was being readied, it could mean either of two contradictory things: ‘to decorate something with ribbons, laces, or the like to give it a finished appearance’ or ‘to cut off the outgrowths or irregularities of.’ And the context doesn’t always make it clear. If you’re trimming the tree are you using tinsel or a chain saw?
Resignworks as a contronym in writing. This time we have homographs, but not homophones. “Resign,” meaning ‘to quit,’ is spelled the same as “resign,” meaning ‘to sign up again,’ but it’s pronounced differently.
Offmeans ‘deactivated,’ as in “to turn off,” but also ‘activated,’ as in “The alarm went off.”
See … even on non edumacational days, you STILL learn something new! lol
Have a truly blessed rest of your day, and a wonderful weekend.
HAPPY NEW YEAR! Gosh, I haven’t seen you since last year! Time flies.
It’s my first day back posting on my blog here since a couple of days before Christmas, and Christmas only seems like it was last week! I cannot believe how quickly the time has flown past. I knew I was going to give myself a little holiday from actually posting on my blog – but I only thought it would be …. “aw, around a week or so” … well I was obviously enjoying Christmas and the New Year so much that I just lost track of time!
I’ve been visiting blogs in an effort to keep up with the reading and commenting – but I’m behind. So … if I’ve missed something on your blog that you really wanted me to see, then pleeeeeeeease – leave a link to it in a comment and I’ll pop along and have a read.
I haven’t been crafting. Nope, not even one bit – but I have been trying to clear up the unimaginable mess I made before Christmas. I was crafting right up till lunch time on the 24th December. I did think about take a photograph of my craft room .. but I was so ashamed of the mess that I just couldn’t. So I’ll leave it to your imagination to build the scene. Eeeeek!
But anyhoo . . . You’re here now to take a gander over what happened on this day in times gone by … so in an endeavour to take up the chalk and educationamalise you a little more, I shall begin where I usually do, by saying:
On This Day In History
1759 – George Washington marriesMartha Dandridge Custis.
1846 – The United States House of Representatives votes to stop sharing the Oregon Territory with the United Kingdom. 1854 – The San Francisco steamer sinks, killing 300 people.
1895 – Dreyfus Affair: French officer Alfred Dreyfus is stripped of his rank and sentenced to life imprisonment on Devil’s Island. The Dreyfus Affair was a political scandal which divided France from the 1890s to the early 1900s. It involved the conviction for treason in November 1894 of Captain Alfred Dreyfus, a young French artillery officer of Jewish background who was in advanced training with the Army’s General Staff. Alfred Dreyfus was sentenced to life imprisonment, which he began to serve in solitary confinement on Devil’s Island in French Guiana.
Two years later, in 1896, the real culprit was brought to light and identified: a French Army major named Ferdinand Walsin Esterhazy. However, French high-level military officials dismissed or ignored this new evidence which exonerated Alfred Dreyfus. Thus, in January 1898, military judges unanimously acquitted Esterhazy on the second day of his trial. Worse, French military counter-intelligence officers fabricated false documents designed to secure Dreyfus’s conviction as a spy for Germany. They were all eventually exposed, in large part due to a resounding public intervention by writer Emile Zola in January 1898. The case had to be re-opened, and Dreyfus was brought back from Guiana in 1899 to be tried again. The intense political and judicial scandal that ensued divided French society between those who supported Dreyfus (the Dreyfusards) and those who condemned him (the anti-Dreyfusards, such as Edouard Drumont, director of La Libre Parole, and Hubert-Joseph Henry).
Eventually, all the accusations against Alfred Dreyfus were demonstrated to be baseless. Dreyfus was exonerated and reinstated as a major in the French Army in 1906. He later served during the whole of World War I, ending his service with the rank of Lieutenant-Colonel.
1896 – An Austrian newspaper reported that Wilhelm Roentgen has discovered a type of radiation later known as X-rays.
1914 – The Ford Motor Company announcesan eight-hour workday and a minimum wage of $5 for a day’s labor. 1918 – The Free Committee for a German Workers Peace, which would become the Nazi party, is founded.
1925 – Nellie Taylor Ross of Wyomingbecomes the first female governor in the United States.
1933 – Construction of the Golden Gate Bridge begins in San Francisco Bay.
1944 – The Daily Mail becomes the first transoceanic newspaper. The Daily Mail is a British newspaper, currently published in a tabloid format. First published in 1896 by Lord Northcliffe, it is the United Kingdom’s second biggest-selling daily newspaper after The Sun. Its sister paper, The Mail on Sunday, was launched in 1982. An Irish edition of the paper was launched in 2006. The Daily Mail was Britain’s first daily newspaper aimed at what is now considered the middle-market and the first to sell 1 million copies a day.
1962 – A replica of the miraculous statue, the Holy Infant of Good Health,is presented to Blessed Pope John XXIII. The Holy Infant of Good Health (Santo Niño de la salud) is a statue of the Christ Child regarded by many to be miraculous, which was found in 1939, in Morelia (Michoacán State), Mexico. The statue is eleven inches tall and has apparently been responsible for many healings.
The veneration of the statue was approved by Luis M Altamirano y Bulnes, Archbishop of Morelia, in 1944. That same year, the image was solemnly crowned by pontifical command. On January 5, 1959, a replica of the Infant was presented to Blessed Pope John XXIII. And on November 12, 1970, an Order of Religious sisters, the Missionaries of the Holy Infant of Good Health, were founded in Morelia.
The little statue is dressed “with symbols of the power of Christ, wearing a royal mantle, trimmed in ermine, a golden scepter in the left hand while the right is raised in blessing, and on the head an imperial crown of precious stones.” The Holy Infant of Good Health’s Feast Day is celebrated on April 21st.
1972 – U.S. President Richard Nixon orders the development of a space shuttle program. 1975 – The Tasman Bridge in Tasmania, Australia, is struck by the bulk ore carrier Lake Illawarra, killing twelve people.
1993 – The oil tanker MV Braer runs agroundon the coast of the Shetland Islands,spilling 84,700 tons of crude oil. Fortunately for Shetland, the Gulfaks crude the Braer was carrying is not a typical North Sea oil. It is lighter and more easily biodegradable than other North Sea crude oils, and this, in combination with some of the worst storms seen in Shetland (naturally dispersing the oil by wave action and evaporation), prevented the event becoming an even bigger disaster. However, the destruction to wildlife was still massive. The total number of bird corpses recovered from beaches, due to this oil spill, during January was 1538.
1993 – Washington state executes Westley Allan Doddby hanging (the first legal hanging in America since 1965). Westley Allan Dodd (July 3, 1961 – January 5, 1993) was a convicted serial killer and child molester from Richland, Washington.
Dodd began sexually abusing children when he was 13 years old; his first victims were his own cousins. All his victims (over 50 in all) were children below the age of 12, some of them as young as two. Dodd’s fantasies became increasingly violent over the years. He eventually progressed from molesting his victims to torturing, raping and then murdering them.
After he was arrested for trying to abduct a boy from a movie theater, the police found a homemade torture rack in his home, as yet unused. He was arrested by local police in Camas, Washington and interviewed by task force detectives. Portland Police Bureau Detective C. W. Jensen and Clark County Detective Sergeant Dave Trimble obtained Dodd’s confession and served the search warrant on his home.
Dodd was sentenced to death in 1990 for molesting and then stabbing to death Cole Neer (age 11) and his brother William (10) near a Vancouver, Washington, park in 1989, as well as for the separate rape and murder of Lee Iseli (aged 4).
Less than four years elapsed between the murders and Dodd’s execution. He refused to appeal his case or the capital sentence, stating “I must be executed before I have an opportunity to escape or kill someone within the prison. If I do escape, I promise you I will kill prison guards if I have to and rape and enjoy every minute of it.” While in court he said that, if he escaped from jail, he would immediately go back to “killing kids.”.
Dodd was executed by hanging at 12:05 a.m. on January 5, 1993 at Washington State Penitentiary in Walla Walla. By Washington state law, Dodd had to choose the method of his execution, and state law gave Dodd two options: lethal injection or hanging. Dodd chose hanging. He also requested that his hanging be televised, but that request was denied.
His execution was witnessed by 12 members of local and regional media, prison officials, and representatives of the families of the three victims. He ate salmon and potatoes for his last meal. His last words, spoken from the second floor of the indoor gallows, were recorded by the media witnesses as: “I was once asked by somebody, I don’t remember who, if there was any way sex offenders could be stopped. I said, `No.’ I was wrong. I was wrong when I said there was no hope, no peace. There is hope. There is peace. I found both in the Lord, Jesus Christ. Look to the Lord, and you will find peace.”.
Dodd was pronounced dead by the prison doctor and his body transported to Seattle for autopsy. The King County Medical Examiner, Dr. Donald Reay, found that Dodd had died quickly and probably with little pain. He was cremated following the autopsy, and his ashes turned over to his family.
2005 – Eris, the largest known dwarf planet in the solar system, is discoveredby the team of Michael E. Brown, Chad Trujillo, and David L. Rabinowitz using images originally taken on October 21, 2003, at the Palomar Observatory.
Eris was first spotted in 2003 by a Palomar Observatory-based team led by Mike Brown but not identified until 2005. Eris has one moon, Dysnomia; and recent observations have found no evidence of further satellites. The current distance from the Sun is 96.7 AU, roughly three times that of Pluto. With the exception of some comets the pair are the most distant known natural objects in the Solar System.
Because Eris is larger than Pluto, its discoverers and NASA called it the Solar system’s tenth planet. This, along with the prospect of other similarly sized objects being discovered in the future, motivated the International Astronomical Union (IAU) to define the term planet for the first time. Under a new definition approved on August 24, 2006, Eris is a “dwarf planet” along with Pluto, Ceres, Haumea and Makemake.
❤️ 💛 💚 💙 💜
Born On This Day
1829 – Sir Roger Tichborne, missing U.K. heir who was the subject of the longest criminal trial in British history (d. c. 1854)
1834 – William John Wills, English explorer of Australia, member of the Burke and Wills expedition (d. 1861)
1903 – Harold Gatty, Australian aviator, navigator with Wiley Post (d. 1957)
1906 – Kathleen Kenyon, English archaeologist (d. 1978)
1917 – Jane Wyman, American actress (d. 2007)
1931 – Robert Duvall, American actor
1940 – Michael O’Donoghue, American writer (d. 1994)
1940 – Athol Guy, Australian singer, member of The Seekers
1942 – Jan Leeming, English television presenter and newsreader
1946 – Diane Keaton, American actress
1949 – George Brown,American drummer (Kool & The Gang)
1950 – Chris Stein, American guitarist (Blondie)
1965 – Vinnie Jones, English-born Welsh footballer and actor
1969 – Marilyn Manson, American singer
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Died on this day and Remembered here:
1939 – Amelia Earhart, American aviator declared dead after disappearance in 1937. (b. 1897)
1941 – Amy Johnson,English aviator (b. 1903)
1998 – Sonny Bono, American entertainer and politician (b. 1935)
2003 – Roy Jenkins, British politician (b. 1920)
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Thought for the Day
If you could make a wish, right now, right at this very moment, what would you wish for? Be quick! You only have a tiny window of opportunity to answer this question so make your wish NOW!
What did you wish for? Money? New house? New Car? Love? Great Job? Jewellery?
I wonder what you’d have got if your next door neighbour had to make the wish for you? Would they have wished for what you might have wanted?
What about if this question was asked of me…. What if the Genie in the Bottle had popped up and said that I had to make your wish for you. Do you think I might have made the right wish? Would I have wished a wish that would have given you what your heart longed for?
Would you still be talking to me, I wonder, if I told you that the thing I would have wished for you to be in receipt of was . . . . . . contentment?
A little while ago I was chatting with someone I know, and we were talking about writing Christmas and New Year Cards, and what to write on them. I said that when I was wishing anyone a Happy New Year, or writing a card for a wedding; for the birth of a new baby; Engagement; Anniversary . . . or anything that required me to wish that person(s) something tangible, I ALWAYS wished contentment for them.
You see, I believe that if a person has contentment then everything else just falls into place. There is nothing to really wish for that they didn’t already have, for they are content! Nothing of any import missing. Nothing for them to feel ‘disgruntled’ about.
Contentment, for me, is the ultimate goal every single day. If I can go to bed at night-time and think back over my day, and feel contented, then I know I’ve had a really great day.
Think about it for a moment . . . and while you’re thinking, … I’ll make my wish for you, ~ for contentment.
May you have oodles of contentment. May each day fill you with sleepy contentment at the end of it, and may you wake up each morning knowing that the only goal you have to reach that day is contentment.
And … when you go to bed tonight …. may you think about what I’ve said and look back over your day, to find that you actually are content. Oh … and don’t forget to thank your God, the universe, or whoever you personally thank for the wonderful things in your life.
❤️ 💛 💚 💙 💜
[Play Time Bell Rings . . . .]
These are the Jokes Folks!
Crime in multi-storey car parks. That is wrong on so many different levels.
I have downloaded this new app. Its great, it tells you what to wear, what to eat and what you shouldnt be eating, if you’ve put on weight.Its called the Daily Mail newspaper.
I was playing chess with my friend and she said, ‘Let’s make this interesting’. So we stopped playing chess.
My friend Richard told me: “I usually meet my girlfriend at 12:59 because I like that one-to-one time.”
My husband surprised me the other day when he said: “When I was younger I felt like a man trapped inside a woman’s body. Then I was born.”
My grandad has a chair in his shower which makes him feel old,so in order to feel young he sits on it backwards like a cool teacher giving an assembly about drugs.
Is it possible to mistake schizophrenia for telepathy?I hear you ask.
You can’t lose a homing pigeon. If your homing pigeon doesn’t come back,then what you’ve lost is a pigeon.
My husband told me: ‘Sex is better on holiday.’ . . . That really wasn’t a nice postcard to receive.
As a child I was made to walk the plank.We couldn’t afford a dog.
Oh my goodness!!!, mega drama the other day: My dishwasher stopped working!Yup, his visa expired.
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Hopefully, your chuckle muscle has received a good workout now and may even be aching a little bit! 😀 You’ll now be able to tell people that you’ve already had your workout today.
It’s lovely to be back in the saddle and here, chatting with you. I’ve missed you. 😊
May your day today be a truly great one for you, and may your weekend be filled with contentment. Take very good care of yourself, and, whatever you’re doing or wherever you’re going, may your God go with you.
Sending squidges, and love, in a rainbow of colours. ❤️ 💛 💚 💙 💜
OK …. let’s get this over and done with. It’s unpleasant, and I know that it will cause you some anguish and pain, and even cause you to close all the curtains and lie down with either a cake, a bar of chocolate or a stiff drink …. or maybe all three if the first one doesn’t work … so we’ll just do it and get it over with, OK?
Get ready. Sit up straight and gird your loins.
We know that this may be dangerous or difficult for your brain to compute, but we’re going to do it because we is ADULTS!
Ready?
Deep breath in ….. let it out slowly as if you are blowing down a straw ….
…. …. …. there are … … … … ninedaystillChristmas (not counting today or the day itself).
I know… I know. Some of you will find that a thoroughly unpleasant thought. But we have to face it at some point. No good skirting around it or believing that, if no one mentions it then it’s not really that close. Your advent calendar should be telling you the truth! Look on me as your unpaid for, not stolen, loving, living, breathing, caring, Advent Calendar.
So anyhoo … we’ve got that over and done with so shall we get on with some edumacation? Good. Let’s get on with it then . . .
On This Day in History
1791 – The United States Bill of Rights becomes law when ratified by the Virginia legislature.
1863 – Romania used for the first time a mountain railway (from Anina to Oravita). A mountain railway is a railway that ascends and descends a mountain slope that has a steep grade. Such railways can use a number of different technologies to overcome the steepness of the grade. Mountain railways commonly have a narrow gauge to allow for tight curves in the track and reduce tunnel size and structure gauge, and hence construction cost and effort.
1891 – James Naismith introduces the first version of basketball, with thirteen rules, a peach basket nailed to either end of his school’s gymnasium, and two teams of nine players.
1905 – The Pushkin House is established in St. Petersburg to preserve the cultural heritage of Alexander Pushkin. Alexander Sergeevich Pushkin (June 6 1799 – February 10 1837) was a Russian Romantic author who is considered to be the greatest Russian poet and the founder of modern Russian literature. Pushkin pioneered the use of vernacular speech in his poems and plays, creating a style of storytelling – mixing drama, romance, and satire – associated with Russian literature ever since and greatly influencing later Russian writers.
Born in Moscow, Pushkin published his first poem at the age of fifteen, and was widely recognized by the literary establishment by the time of his graduation from the Imperial Lyceum in Tsarskoe Selo. Pushkin gradually became committed to social reform and emerged as a spokesman for literary radicals; in the early 1820s he clashed with the government, which sent him into exile in southern Russia. While under the strict surveillance of government censors and unable to travel or publish at will, he wrote his most famous play, the drama Boris Godunov, but could not publish it until years later. His novel in verse, Eugene Onegin, was published serially from 1825 to 1832.
Pushkin and his wife Natalya Goncharova, whom he married in 1831, later became regulars of court society. In 1837, while falling into greater and greater debt amidst rumors that his wife had started conducting a scandalous affair, Pushkin challenged her alleged lover, Georges d’Anthe’s, to a duel. Pushkin was mortally wounded and died two days later.
Because of his liberal political views and influence on generations of Russian rebels, Pushkin was portrayed by Bolsheviks as an opponent to bourgeois literature and culture and a predecessor of Soviet literature and poetry. In 1937, the town of Tsarskoe Selo was renamed Pushkin in his honor.
1914 – Gas explosion at Mitsubishi Hojyo coal mine Japan, 687 killed. This accident is the worst coal mine disaster in Japanese history.
1939 – Gone with the Wind premiered at Loew’s Grand Theater in Atlanta, GA, USA. Gone with the Wind is a 1939 American dramatic-romantic-war film adapted from Margaret Mitchell’s 1936 novel of the same name and directed by Victor Fleming (Fleming replaced George Cukor). The epic film, set in the American South in and around the time of the Civil War, stars Vivien Leigh, Clark Gable, Leslie Howard, and Olivia de Havilland, and tells a story of the Civil War and its aftermath from a white Southern viewpoint.
It received ten Academy Awards, a record that stood for twenty years. In the American Film Institute’s inaugural Top 100 American Films of All Time list of 1998, it was ranked number four, although in the 2007 10th Anniversary edition of that list, it was dropped two places, to number six. In June 2008, AFI revealed its 10 top 10 the best ten films in ten American film genres after polling over 1,500 persons from the creative community. Gone with the Wind was acknowledged as the fourth best film in the Epic genre. It has sold more tickets in the U.S. than any other film in history, and is considered a prototype of a Hollywood blockbuster. Today, it is considered one of the greatest and most popular films of all time and one of the most enduring symbols of the golden age of Hollywood. (I haven’t ever managed to watch this film all the way through. I’ve seen bits of it, but never seen the film from start to finish, in full).
1960 – Richard Paul Pavlick is arrested for attempting to blow up and assassinate the U.S. President-Elect, John F. Kennedy only four days earlier. Richard Paul Pavlick (February 13, 1887 ¨C November 11, 1975) was a retired postal worker from New Hampshire who stalked and then attempted to assassinate U.S. President-Elect John F. Kennedy on Sunday, December 11, 1960 in Palm Beach, Florida. He failed, but 3 years later in Dallas, Texas, Kennedy was killed by Lee Harvey Oswald.
Richard Paul Pavlick
Pavlick, 73 years old at the time of the assassination attempt, had previously lived in the small town of Belmont, New Hampshire with no family. He became known at local public meetings for his angry political rants, which included complaints that the American flag was not being displayed appropriately, and also criticized the government and disparaged Catholics, focusing much of his anger on the Kennedy family and their wealth. On one occasion, Pavlick’s anger erupted when he met the supervisor of the local water company at his home with a gun, which was then confiscated.
Pavlick’s enmity toward John F. Kennedy boiled over after the close 1960 U.S. Presidential election, in which Kennedy had defeated Republican Richard Nixon by 118,000 votes. Turning over his run-down property to a local youth camp, Pavlick disappeared after loading his meager possessions into his 1950 Buick.
After Pavlick left town, Thomas M. Murphy, the 34-year-old U.S. Postmaster of the town of Belmont, New Hampshire began receiving bizarre postcards from Pavlick that stated the town would hear from him soon “in a big way.” Murphy soon noticed that the postmarked dates coincided with visits by John F. Kennedy to the communities and he then called the local police. The local police, in turn, contacted the Secret Service, who interviewed locals and learned of his previous outbursts. In the midst of these conversations, they also found out that Pavlick had purchased dynamite.
During his travels, Pavlick had visited the Kennedy compound at Hyannis Port, Massachusetts, photographing the Kennedy home while also checking out the compound’s security.
Shortly before 10 a.m. on Sunday, December 11, as John F. Kennedy was preparing to leave for Mass at St. Edward Church in Palm Beach, Pavlick waited in his dynamite-laden car hoping to crash his car into Kennedy’s vehicle to cause a fatal explosion. However, Pavlick changed his mind after seeing John F. Kennedy with his wife, Jacqueline, and the couple’s two small children.
While waiting for another opportunity over the next few days, Pavlick visited the church to learn its interior, but the Secret Service had informed local Palm Beach police to look for Pavlick’s automobile.
Four days after the attempt, on Thursday, December 15, Palm Beach, police officer, Lester Free, spotted Pavlick’s vehicle as he entered the city via the Flagler Memorial Bridge into Royal Poinciana Way. Police immediately surrounded the car (which still contained 10 sticks of dynamite) and arrested him. After his arrest, Pavlick said, “Kennedy money bought the White House and the presidency. I had the crazy idea I wanted to stop Kennedy from being President.”
On January 27, 1961, Pavlick was committed to the United States Public Health Service mental hospital in Springfield, Missouri, then was indicted for threatening Kennedy’s life seven weeks later.
In a tragically ironic twist, charges against Pavlick were dropped on December 2, 1963, ten days after Kennedy’s assassination in Dallas. Judge Emmet C. Choate ruled that Pavlick was unable to distinguish between right and wrong in his actions, but kept him in the mental hospital. The federal government also dropped charges in August 1964, and Pavlick was eventually released from the New Hampshire State Mental Hospital on December 13, 1966.
Pavlick died at the age of 88 on November 11, 1975 at the Veterans Administration Hospital in Manchester, New Hampshire-eleven days short of the 12th anniversary of Kennedy assassination.
1973 – John Paul Getty III,grandson of J. Paul Getty, American billionaire is found alive near Naples, Italy, after being kidnapped by an Italian gang on July 10, 1973.
1993 – History of Northern Ireland: The Downing Street Declaration is issued by British Prime Minister John Major and Irish Taoiseach Albert Reynolds.The Downing Street Declaration was a joint declaration issued on December 15, 1993 by the Prime Minister of the United Kingdom, John Major and Albert Reynolds, the Taoiseach of Ireland. It affirmed the right of the people of Northern Ireland to self-determination, and that the province would be transferred to the Republic of Ireland from the United Kingdom if and only if a majority of its population was in favour of such a move. It included for the first time in the history of Anglo-Irish relationships, as part of the prospective of the so-called Irish dimension, the principle that the people of the island of Ireland, North and South had the exclusive right to solve the issues between North and South by mutual consent. The latter statement was key to produce a positive change of attitude by the Republicans towards a negotiated settlement.
The joint declaration also pledged the governments to seek a peaceful constitutional settlement, and promised that parties linked with paramilitaries (such as Sinn Fein) could take part in the talks, so long as they abandoned violence.
The declaration, after it was ‘clarified’ by the Northern Ireland Office, was considered sufficient by the Provisional Irish Republican Army to announce a ceasefire on August 31, 1994 which was then followed on October 13, by an announcement of a ceasefire from the Combined Loyalist Military Command.
2001 – The Leaning Tower of Pisa reopensafter 11 years and $27,000,000 to fortify it, without fixing its famous lean. The Leaning Tower of Pisa (Italian: Torre pendente di Pisa) or simply The Tower of Pisa (La Torre di Pisa) is the campanile, or freestanding bell tower, of the cathedral of the Italian city of Pisa. It is situated behind the cathedral and is the third oldest structure in Pisa’s Piazza del Duomo (Cathedral Square) after the cathedral and the baptistry.
Although intended to stand vertically, the tower began leaning to the southeast soon after the onset of construction in 1173 due to a poorly laid foundation and loose substrate that has allowed the foundation to shift direction. The tower presently leans to the southwest.
The height of the tower is 55.86 m (183.27 ft) from the ground on the lowest side and 56.70 m (186.02 ft) on the highest side. The width of the walls at the base is 4.09 m (13.42 ft) and at the top 2.48 m (8.14 ft). Its weight is estimated at 14,500 metric tons (16,000 short tons). The tower has 296 or 294 steps; the seventh floor has two fewer steps on the north-facing staircase. The tower leans at an angle of 3.97 degrees. This means that the top of the tower is 3.9 metres (12 ft 10 in) from where it would stand if the tower were perfectly vertical. BBC News on the Day – The Leaning Tower of Pisa
2005 – The 2005 Atlantic Power Outage began. The Atlantic Power Outage of 2005 caused hundreds of thousands of people along the Atlantic coast of the United States to suffer power outages. Winter ice storms caused power cuts starting on December 15, 2005.
Electricity was not restored in many places until December 20, 2005, by which time one death was blamed on the outage.
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Born on This Day
1892 – J. Paul Getty, American oil tycoon (d. 1976)
1939 – Cindy Birdsong, American singer (The Supremes)
1942 – Dave Clark, English musician (The Dave Clark Five)
1948 – Cassandra Harris,Australian actress (d. 1991) – Born Sandra Colleen Waites in Sydney, Australia, Harris was a student of NIDA acting school from 1960 to 1963 and performed in the successful Sydney stage production of Boeing Boeing from 1964 to 1965. She appeared in The Greek Tycoon (1978), Rough Cut (1980), and the James Bond film, For Your Eyes Only as the Countess Lisl von Schlaf, the ill-fated mistress of Milos Colombo (played by Israeli actor Topol). While she was filming this movie, her third husband, Pierce Brosnan, met James Bond series producer Albert R. Broccoli, which eventually led to his casting as the new James Bond with starring roles in four James Bond films. Harris had allegedly always wanted to see her husband portray James Bond, but her death occurred prior to his selection for the role in “Golden Eye.”
1949 – Don Johnson, American actor
1955 – Paul Simonon, English bassist (The Clash)
1963 – Andrew Luster, Max Factor heir
1970 – Frankie Dettori, Italian jockey
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Died on this Day and Remembered here
1944 – Glenn Miller, American musician (later declared dead on this date, exact date of death unknown) (b. 1904)
1962 – Charles Laughton, English actor (b. 1899)
1966 – Walt Disney, American animator (b. 1901)
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Thought for the Day
Every book starts with just one word.
Every great idea is sparked by a single thought.
Every morning sees a new sunrise.
And every journey begins with a single step.
So now, knowing all of this, why are you waiting for whatever you’re waiting for?
If you don’t begin, you can’t win!
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And finally . . .
I think it’s time, since it’s only NINE DAYS TILL CHRISTMAS DAY, to break out the old joke book and give you a few smiles to take out into your day, and annoy other people with. Obviously, given the time of year, it’s going to be Christmas Jokes, so whine all you like, I shall simply end up asking you if you’d like a little cheese with that whine.
What does Santa suffer from if he gets stuck in a chimney? Claustrophobia!
What do you call an elf who sings?
A wrapper!
Why does Santa have three gardens? So he can ‘ho ho ho’!
Why does Santa Claus go down the chimney on Christmas Eve?
Because it soot’s him
Why did Santa go to the doctor? Because of his bad “elf”!
Why are Christmas trees so fond of the past?
Because the present’s beneath them.
What kind of motorbike does Santa ride? A Holly Davidson!
What do you call a cat in the desert? Sandy Claws!
And that, indeed, is ‘all folks’!
Thank you so much for coming and having a coffee moment with me. I so love it when we all get together around the table and have a few giggles and laughs over a coffee, and a bit of an Ooooh and Aaaah, over the history of the day.
May your Friday be wonderful. I hope the day gently does what Fridays normally do – get to the end and give you a sigh. May you find some fun in the day, and see that the mood you’re in was a choice. When you realise this, you can then decide to make a better choice. Choose your mood wisely. Who knows what might be dependant upon what mood you’re in.
Sending you my warmest wishes during this cold December that most of us are experiencing. Stay warm, dress right for the weather, and come home safely.
There are 51 Days (plus a few hours) till Christmas Day! but hey – who’s counting?
Pin back your lugholes, for here is your first round of Edumacation for November!
On this Day in History
1783 – John Austin, a highwayman, is the last to be publicly hanged at London’s Tyburn gallows.
1911 – Chevrolet officially enters the automobile marketin competition with the Ford Model T. 1913 – The United States introduces an income tax.
1936 – President Franklin D. Rooseveltwas re-elected in a landslide over Republican Alfred M. ”Alf” Landon. The New York Times front page News
1941 – English broadcaster Roy Plomley conceived the idea for ‘Desert Island Discs’. The programme was first broadcast on BBC Radio in January 1942.
1957 – Sputnik program:The Soviet Union launches Sputnik 2. On board is the first animal to enter orbit: a dog named Laika. BBC News Report
1964 – Washington D.C.residents are able to votein a presidential election for the first time. 1964 – Lyndon B Johnson, who took over after President Kennedy’s assassination, won the White House race BBC News Report complete with Video Footage 1969 – Vietnam War:U.S. President Richard M. Nixon addresses the nation on television and radio, asking the “silent majority” to join him in solidarity on the Vietnam War effort and to support his policies.
1973 – Mariner program: NASA launches the Mariner 10 toward Mercury, on March 29, 1974, becoming the first space probe to reach that planet. 1975 – Queen Elizabeth II opened the North Sea pipeline – the first to be built underwater – bringing ashore 400,000 barrels a day to Grangemouth Refinery on the Firth of Forth in Scotland. BBC News Report 1976 – In Great Britain, the first £100,000 Premium Bond was won, by an anonymous person in Hillingdon.
1985 – Two French agents in New Zealandpleaded guilty to sinking the Greenpeace ship, Rainbow Warrior and to the manslaughter of a photographer on board. They were sentenced to ten years’ imprisonment. BBC News Report
1986 – Iran-Contra Affair:The Lebanese magazine Ash-Shiraa reports that the United States has been selling weapons to Iran in secret in order to secure the release of seven American hostages held by pro-Iranian groups in Lebanon.
1992 – Democrat Bill Clintonwas elected the 42nd president of the United States, defeating President George H.W. Bush.
1994 – Susan Smith, born in Union, South Carolina, USA, was arrested for drowning her two young sons, nine days after claiming the children had been “abducted by a black man”. (Smith is serving life in prison.)
The case gained international attention shortly after it developed, due to her false claim that a black man had carjacked her maroon Mazda Protegé and kidnapped her sons. Her defense attorneys, David Bruck and Judy Clarke, called expert witnesses to testify that she suffered from mental health issues that impaired her judgment when she committed the crimes.
According to the South Carolina Department of Corrections, Smith will be eligible for parole on November 4, 2024, after serving a minimum of 30 years.
2004 – George W Bushwas elected president of the United States for the second time, beating his Democratic rival by a comfortable margin.
2014 – One World Trade Centerofficially opens.
Born on this Day
1903 – Walker Evans, the American photographer best known for his portrayal of America during the Great Depression
1921 – Charles Bronson, American actor (d. 2003)
1933 – John Barry, English composer – best known for composing 11 James Bond movies and was hugely influential on the 007 series’ distinctive style.
1933 – Jeremy Brett, English actor (d. 1995) – famous, among other things, for his portrayal of the detective Sherlock Holmes in four British television series: The Adventures of Sherlock Holmes, The Return of Sherlock Holmes, The Casebook of Sherlock Holmes, and The Memoirs of Sherlock Holmes.
1933 – Michael Dukakis, American politician
1948 – Lulu, British actress and singer
1949 – Anna Wintour, English-American journalist
1952 – Roseanne Barr, American actress and comedian
1953 – Kate Capshaw, American actress known for her role as Willie Scott in the film Indiana Jones and the Temple of Doom, and for her marriage to director Steven Spielberg (who directed the film).
1954 – Adam Ant, English singer
1963 – Ian Wright, English footballer, manager, and sportscaster
1973 – Ben Fogle, English television host and author
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Thought for the Day
You are innocent until proven Awesome.
Be Awesome today. You never know, you might like it so much that you want to do it the next day …. and the next day … and the next. Until, eventually, you don’t realise it, but you are plain and simply just AWESOME!
I think, if I’m not mistaken,that was the whole idea.
He made an awesome thing … WE were meant to continue with the work!
So then … November arrived like a quiet little mouse who found a place to sneak in while we weren’t looking! Although… the end of October (Halloween) was entirely the opposite! Halloween saw me dressed all in black, with a witches hat on, and my face made up as a Witches Cat!
Not a scary cat, you understand. A cat with a tear drop shaped black nose, with three black whiskers on either side of my nose … and two black ears drawn above my eyebrows. All drawn on my face with a black Kohl eye pencil. To finish it all off … I put black eyeliner along my upper eye lashes, and finished them with a flick to make them look more cat-like, and added pinky nude lipstick on my lips.
I’d obviously done a goodish job with the make up because when Little Cobs arrived for Halloween Tea and fun …. he touched my face gently and asked: “Who did your make up Grammy?” – with a touch of wonderment in his voice.
We had TONS of little halloweeners. Ranging from monsters, aliens and one Frankensteins Monster, all the way to a top to toe costume of a furry, fluffy fox, a princess, a ballerina and the one which gave me the biggest ‘awwwww’ of the evening … a little one of about 10 months old, dressed up as a butterfly, complete with wings …. being carried by his Daddy. While I cooed over the baby, Daddy cooed over our front door, filled with so much admiration that I thought he was going to produce a screwdriver from his pocket and take the door with him! lol.
Little Cobs had a ball of a time meeting and greeting all the weird and wonderful costumed children. The only one which scared him was the Alien. But then … it scared me too, so I can fully understand why he jumped stood behind me, peeping around my waist and hanging on so tightly to my trousers I thought at one point he was going to pull them down. EEEK!!
Here in the UK we now have Guy Fawkes Night almost upon us (or ‘Bonfire Night’ as the children call it) – it’s on the 5th of November every year.
It’s a night of Bonfires up and down the land, and fireworks. Now Bonfires I can cope with. But fireworks scare me silly … and they scare my animals and all the animals everywhere. Horrible – legal – explosives. I would rather see these vile things allowed only at proper organised events, which have responsible, fully trained staff. Having them available to buy from a variety of stores and shops just leads to the possibility of a child or youth getting their hands on them and causing a situation which could be life changing or even fatal.
Aw … I sound exactly like a Bah Humbug kind of person, and I’m really not. I just think those things are way too dangerous to be so easily, publicly available.
Anyhoo …
Like any great school, I like to give you a little fun at the end of your lessons, and today is no different. The video I give to you now is just 2 minutes and 25 seconds long. But … it will have you stumped. I promise that there’s nothing scary going to suddenly happen (you should know me better by now to KNOW for sure that I wouldn’t give you any video which will scare the wotsit out of you) … but it will astound you and have you wondering: “How the heck did he do that?”. Watch, play along and have some fun.
Till we meet again, may the weather be kind, and life treat you nicely.
Sending love, and squidges. Oh .. and … Remember to be AWESOME!
Well a very happy Friday to you! Another week has gone by, and, here in my area of the UK (South), someone flicked the switch off for Summer, and switched on Autumn instead. The result of this is the heating here in Cobweb Towers has been on several times this week, and the snuggly warm duvet has returned to the bed.
I can clearly remember that this time last year I was walking around in shorts and a T.Shirt and saying how wonderful it was. Not too warm, but not at all cold. The sun was out, my garden was loving the warmth and we were experiencing a wonderful Indian Summer. This year, right now … even my cats and dog are snuggling into their beds. Mr. Alf Capone, even with his fabulous thick, thick, thick fur coat is burying himself under the dogs blankets, along with the dog.
Maisie Dotes, (neurotic crazy cat who thinks the world is going to get her at any minute), on the other hand feels her place should be the sofa, where she likes us to plump up a cushion for her so that she can snuggle herself up the side of it to cut out any drafts. Woe betide us if we don’t pick up the clear message she’s sending to us that she requires servament service. She stands on the sofa in an odd slightly arched back sort of way, and stares at the cushion so that we are certain of which cushion she requires to be plumped and moved into position. If we miss the message, accidentally (or on purpose), or if we get the message and put the cushion in the wrong place or at the wrong angle, she will show her clear disgust of us by turning and delicately but quickly jumping off the sofa and take herself into the conservatory where she will jump up onto the lovely desk, where I’ve laid a thick fluffy blanket on top of it, and she will curl up in the sunshine streaming through the window. Telling everyone that we need to think about what we’ve done wrong and ensure that we don’t do it again!
Hmpffft. Very well.
Aaaanyhoo… you’ve come for some edumacation time, and I’m already stood at the blackboard, so find a seat, sit down, get your pens and note pads out and we’ll begin… shall we?
On this Day in History
1830 – George Stephenson’s Manchester and Liverpool railwayopened. During the ceremony, William Huskisson, MP, became the first person to be killed by a train when he crossed the track to shake hands with the Duke of Wellington. 1831 – The locomotive John Bull operates for the first time in New Jersey on the Camden and Amboy Railroad.
1835 – The HMS Beagle, with Charles Darwin aboard, reaches the Galapagos Islands.
1871 – The first British-based international mail order businesswas begun by the Army and Navy Co-operative. They published their first catalogue in February 1872.
1916 – World War I: Tanks are used for the first time in battle, at the Battle of the Somme. Military tanks, designed by Britain’s Ernest Swinton, were first used by the British Army, in the Somme offensive.
1928 – Scottish bacteriologist Alexander Fleming discovered, by accident, a bacteria killing mould growing in his laboratory, that later became known as penicillin.
1935 – Nazi Germany adopts a new national flagwith the swastika. The swastika is an equilateral cross with its arms bent at right angles, in either right-facing form or its mirrored left-facing form. The swastika can also be drawn as a traditional swastika, but with a second 90 degree bend in each arm.
Archaeological evidence of swastika-shaped ornaments dates from the Neolithic period. An ancient symbol, it occurs mainly in the cultures that are in modern-day India and the surrounding area, sometimes as a geometrical motif (as in the Roman Republic and Empire) and sometimes as a religious symbol. It was long widely used in major world religions such as Hinduism, Buddhism and Jainism.
The swastika was used as an official emblem of the Nazi Party, a use sometimes continued by modern: Neo-Nazis.
Though once commonly used all over much of the world without stigma, because of its iconic usage in Nazi Germany, the symbol has become controversial in the Western world.
There was quite a stink kicked up, a few years ago, about a naval building, in the U.S. that had been designed and built in the shape of the swastika. (built in the 1960’s). No one had realised this, it seems, until Google Earth showed the building up on one of its maps. You can read about it in a Daily Mail report from that time.
1940 – World War II: The climax of the Battle of Britain, when the Royal Air Force shoot down large numbers of Luftwaffe. The tide turned in the Battle of Britain as the German air force sustained heavy losses inflicted by the Royal Air Force. The defeat was serious enough to convince Nazi leader Adolf Hitler to abandon his plans for an invasion of Britain. The day was chosen as “Battle of Britain Day”. BBC News complete with Audio & watch, and timeline of events
1945 – A hurricane in southern Florida and the Bahamas destroys 366 planes and 25 blimps at NAS Richmond. 1947 – The U.S. Air Force is separated from the US Army to become a separate branch.
1947 – RCA releases the 12AX7 vacuum tube. RCA Corporation, founded as Radio Corporation of America, was an electronics company in existence from 1919 to 1986. Today, the RCA trademark is owned by Thomson SA through RCA Trademark Management S.A., a company owned by Thomson. The trademark is used by two companies, namely Sony BMG Music Entertainment and Thomson SA, which licences the name to other companies like Audiovox and TCL Corporation for products descended from that common ancestor. More can be read, along with photographs, HERE.
1950 – UN stages daring assault on Inchon. The United Nations landed up to 50,000 troops behind enemy lines at Inchon, on the west coast of Korea. The first major counter-strike of the war by the US. BBC News complete with a timeline of events
1958 – A Central Railroad of New Jerseycommuter train runs through an open drawbridge at the Newark Bay, killing 58.
1959 – Nikita Khrushchev becomes the first Soviet leader to visit the United States.
Nikita Sergeyevich Khrushchev served as First Secretary of the Communist Party of the Soviet Union from 1953 to 1964, following the death of Joseph Stalin, and Chairman of the Council of Ministers from 1958 to 1964. Khrushchev was responsible for the de-Stalinization of the USSR, as well as several liberal reforms ranging from agriculture to foreign policy. Khrushchev’s party colleagues removed him from power in 1964, replacing him with Leonid Brezhnev.
1960 – London introduced Traffic Wardens onto the streets of the capital. 1961 – Hurricane Carla strikes Texas with winds of 175 miles per hour.
1962 – The Soviet ship Poltava heads toward Cuba,one of the events that sets into motion the Cuban Missile Crisis.
The Cuban Missile Crisis was a confrontation between the United States, the Soviet Union, and Cuba during the Cold War. In Russia, it is termed the “Caribbean Crisis,” while in Cuba it is called the “October Crisis.” The crisis ranks with the Berlin Blockade as one of the major confrontations of the Cold War, and is often regarded as the moment in which the Cold War came closest to a nuclear war.
The climax period of the crisis began on October 8, 1962. Later on October 14 United States reconnaissance photographs taken by an American U-2 spy plane revealed missile bases being built in Cuba, the crisis ended two weeks later on October 28, 1962, when President of the United States John F. Kennedy and United Nations Secretary-General U Thant reached an agreement with the Soviets to dismantle the missiles in Cuba in exchange for a no invasion agreement and a secret removal of the Jupiter and Thor missiles in Turkey
1963 – The 16th Street Baptist Church bombing kills four childrenat an African-American church in Birmingham, Alabama, United States.
The 16th Street Baptist Church bombing was a racially motivated terrorist attack on September 15, 1963 by members of a Ku Klux Klan group in Birmingham, Alabama in the United States. The bombing of the African-American church resulted in the deaths of four girls.
Although city leaders had reached a settlement in May with demonstrators and started to integrate public places, not everyone agreed with ending segregation. Other acts of violence followed the settlement. The bombing increased support for people working for civil rights. It marked a turning point in the U.S. civil-rights movement of the mid-20th century and contributed to support for passage of civil rights legislation in 1964.
According to news accounts, the Sixteenth Street Church had been a center for many civil rights rallies and meetings, and after the tragedy, it became a focal point drawing many moderate whites into the civil rights movement.
Investigations into this case spanned four decades. Most recently, Thomas Blanton and Bobby Frank Cherry surrendered after an Alabama grand jury indicted them on first-degree murder charges and four counts of “universal malice” on May 17, 2000. Two others prosecuted in the case were Robert Edward Chambliss, sentenced in 1977, and Gary A. Tucker, both of whom died in the 1980s. External Link:The New York Times front page story.
1966 – HMS Resolution, Britain’s first nuclear submarine, was launched at Barrow.
1966 – U.S. President Lyndon B. Johnson,responding to a sniper attack at the University of Texas at Austin, writes a letter to the United States Congress urging the enactment of gun control legislation. Gun politics is a set of legal issues surrounding the ownership, use, and regulation of firearms as well as safety issues related to firearms both through their direct use and through legal and criminal use.
In the United Kingdom
The UK and the United States share a common origin as to the right to bear arms, which is the 1689 Bill of Rights. However, over the course of the 20th century, the UK gradually implemented tighter regulation of the civilian ownership of firearms through the enactment of the 1968, 1988, 1994 and 1997 Firearms(Amendment) Acts leading to the current outright ban on the ownership of all automatic, and most self-loading, firearms in the UK. The ownership of breach-loading handguns is, in particular, also very tightly controlled and effectively limited (other than in Northern Ireland) to those persons who may require such a handgun for the non routine humane killing of injured or dangerous animals. Each firearm owned must be registered on a Firearms Certificate (FAC) which is issued by the local police authority who will require the prospective owner to demonstrate a “good reason” for each firearm held (e.g. pest control or target shooting) and may place restrictions on the FAC relating to the type and amount of ammunition that is held and the places and the uses the firearms are put to. Self defence is not considered an acceptable “good reason” for firearm ownership. The police may amend, or revoke, a FAC at any time and refuse a FAC for any reason.
United States
The issue of firearms takes a high-profile position in United States culture and politics. Michael Bouchard, Assistant Director/Field Operations of ATF, estimates that 5,000 gun shows take place each year in the United States. Incidents of gun violence in ‘gun-free’ school zones, such as the Virginia Tech massacre of 2007 have ignited debate involving gun politics in the United States.
The American public strongly opposes bans on gun ownership, while strongly supporting limits on handguns and military-type semi-automatic weapons.
There is a sharp divide between gun-rights proponents and gun-control proponents. This leads to intense political debate over the effectiveness of firearm regulation.
On the whole, Republicans are far less likely to support gun control than are Democrats. According to a 2004 Harris Interactive survey:
Republicans and Democrats hold very different views on gun control. A 71% to 11% majority of Democrats favors stricter gun control, whereas Republicans are split 35% to 35%.
The division of beliefs may be attributable to the fact that Republicans are more likely to own guns, according to General Social Surveys conducted during the last 35 years. Research seems to show that gun ownership has generally declined; however, Republicans – especially men – are far more likely to own “guns or revolvers.”
Incidents of gun violence and self-defense have routinely ignited bitter debate. About 10,000 murders are committed using firearms annually, while an estimated 2.5 million crimes may be thwarted through civilian use of firearms annually. The American Journal of Public Health conducted a study that concluded “the United States has higher rates of firearm ownership than do other developed nations, and higher rates of homicide. Of the 233,251 people who were homicide victims in the United States between 1988 and 1997, 68% were killed with guns, of which the large majority were handguns.” The ATF estimated in 1995 that the number of firearms available in the US was 223 million.
Fully automatic firearms are legal in most states, but have requirements for registration and restriction under federal law. The National Firearms Act of 1934 required approval of the local police chief and the payment of a $200 tax for initial registration and for each transfer. The Gun Control Act of 1968 prohibited imports of all non-sporting firearms and created several new categories of restricted firearms. The act also prohibited further registry of most automatic firearms. The Firearm Owners Protection Act of 1986 imposed restrictions on some semiautomatic weapons and banned private ownership of machine guns manufactured after it took effect.
1968 – The Soviet Zond 5 spaceship is launched, becoming the first spacecraft to fly around the Moon and re-enter the Earth’s atmosphere.
1972 – A magnitude 4.5 earthquakeshakes Northern Illinois.
1981 – The United States Senate Judiciary Committee unanimously approves Sandra Day O’Connor to become the first female justice on the United States Supreme Court.
1985 – Tony Jacklin’s team of golfers beat the United States in the Ryder Cup for the first time in 28 years
1987 – U.S. Secretary of State George Shultz and Soviet Foreign Minister Eduard Shevardnadze sign a treaty to establish centers to reduce the risk of nuclear war.
2000 – In Great Britain, Home Secretary Jack Straw decided that parents would not be allowed access to the sex offenders’ register. 2001 – President George W. Bush identified Osama bin Laden as the prime suspect in the Sept. 11 terrorist attacks, and told Americans to prepare for a long, difficult war against terrorism.
Born on this Day
1254 – Marco Polo, Italian explorer (d. 1324)
1857 – William Howard Taft – 27th president of the United States and 10th chief justice of the U.S. Supreme Court
1881 – Ettore Bugatti(d 1947}, Italian builder of racing and luxury automobiles
1890 – Agatha Christie, English writer (d. 1976)
1901 – Sir Donald Bailey, British engineer (d. 1985 in Bournemouth, Dorset) was an English civil engineer who invented the Bailey bridge.
1916 – Margaret Lockwood, English actress (d. 1990)
1946 – Tommy Lee Jones, American actor.
1972 – Jimmy Carr, English comedian
1977 – Sophie Dahl, English model
1984 – Prince Henry of Wales. Prince Henry of Wales (Henry Charles Albert David; born 15 September 1984), commonly known as Prince Harry, is the younger son of Charles, Prince of Wales, and his first wife, Diana, Princess of Wales (Diana Spencer).
Died on this Day and Remembered here
1794 – Abraham Clark, American signer of the Declaration of Independence (b. 1725)
1859 – Isambard Kingdom Brunel, British engineer (b. 1806) He was involved in dock design, railway engineering and marine engineering, building the Great Western (1837), Great Britain (1843), and Great Eastern (1858), each the largest in the world at launch date.
1885 – Jumbo, P. T. Barnum’s circus elephant (hit by a train) a very large African bush elephant, born 1861 in French Sudan, imported to a Paris zoo, transferred to the London Zoo in 1865, and sold in 1882 to P. T. Barnum, for the circus.
Thought for the Day
There is an indian belief that everyone is a house of four rooms: A Physical Room; A Mental Room; An Emotional Room; and a Spiritual Room. Most of us tend to live in one room most of the time, but … unless we go into every room, every day, even if only to keep it aired, we are not complete.
This week has been a funny old week. Way too much going on, and too little time to do the things I enjoy the most. I know that crafting wise, the blog has been rather quiet and I offer my apologies for that. I seem to be doing stuff, but some of them I’m unable to blog about until they’ve been sent or received as I don’t want to risk spoiling the surprise.
Before I go and leave the class room, and before you all yell Hurrah and mess up the classroom by throwing screwed up pieces of paper at each other… I have, as usual, a bit of playtime fun.
With Halloween just around the corner, I offer you a fun little website where you can carve a virtual jack-0-lantern. You can send it as an e-card, or if you can capture the screen and use it as your desktop on your computer; or you can save the pic and use it as an avatar or graphic! You can even change the background and light a candle in it.
It’s good fun and I promise you there are no bugs or hidden nasties in this. (I and a few friends have been playing with this website for about 9 or ten years). Nothing will suddenly jump out and scare you half to death. It does have Halloween sounds – music with a dog howling and birds … but it’s not scary.
If you have children or grandchildren then they’d have a bundle of fun carving pumpkins on this!
I wish you a very happy Friday. May your day be sweet and all the people you come into contact with have either a smile on their face or one playing around their eyes.
See the humour in each moment today. Even in those moments where you don’t think there’s anything vaguely resembling humour, there will be. It’s there. You just have to look at whatever it is from a slightly different angle. See the humour. Go on. You know you want to. 😉
