Not sure if you noticed this, so draw your attention to it . . . I finally managed to work out how to get my ‘Edumacation‘ word into the title of this regular Friday Post. It’s only taken me FOR–EVER to work out how to make it short and to the point. (But then … we all know that I don’t use one word when 20 will do). lol
Before we get into this weeks Edumacation, I’m going to take this moment to get a couple of moans out of the way:
- WORDPRESS : pin back your lugholes WordPress! One of my much loved followers comments are suddenly now going into the Spam folder. Sometimes it has taken days before I’ve noticed them, and that makes me feel just awful. Please could you sort out why her comments are going straight to spam, and stop it from doing that?
- LAWS OF GRAVITY …. Kindly bu&&er off when you see me falling over. Yes, I’ve said it and I swore in saying it. Instead of you, I would like a kindly Angel or two to catch me and soften the fall for me. I’m not asking for someone to lift me up, or make me float, I’m simply asking for someone to help me NOT land [on my knees] like a SACK OF POTATOES being dropped from a hi-rise building! My latest fall happened two weeks ago tomorrow, and I am still in much pain with my poor feet (my toes got bent too far – ouch!); my knees – I can barely stand up from the chair, and when I do, I can’t walk more than about ten little bent over shuffles.; the bend of my leg at the top of my thigh – arrrrrrrrgh!; my hips – I swear my knees were pushed up to my hips when I landed; and finally …. my back. Oh. My. Goodness! I had more than enough problems there in the first place – but now there’s this new lorry load of pain to deal with on top of the original stuff! Laws of Gravity, please step out and instruct a couple of Angels to help on the next falling over.
(dearest reader – this fall wasn’t due to alcohol in any way. I rarely drink alcohol. Christmas, weddings – and then only a small glass. I’m just not over-struck with alcohol. It tastes weird and I prefer to drink plain Tonic Water with ice).
Ok … those two moans will do for now because, well, you’re here for your Edumacation lesson, so . . . without further ado, shall we begin?
23rd February
On this Day in History
1455 – Traditional date for the publication of the Gutenberg Bible, the first Western book printed from movable type.
1836 – The Battle of the Alamo begins in San Antonio, Texas.
1839 – In Boston, MA, William F. Harnden organised the first express service between Boston and New York City. It was the first express service in the U.S.
1861 – President-elect Abraham Lincoln arrives secretly in Washington, D.C., after the thwarting of an alleged assassination plot in Baltimore, Maryland.
1874 – Walter Winfield patented a game called “sphairistike.” More widely known as lawn tennis.
1886 – London Times publishes world’s 1st classified ad.
1898 – Émile Zola is imprisoned in France after writing “J’accuse,” a letter accusing the French government of Antisemitism wrongfully placing Captain Alfred Dreyfus in jail.
J’accuse (“I accuse”) was an open letter published on January 13, 1898, in the newspaper L’Aurore by the influential writer Émile Zola.
The letter was addressed to President of France Félix Faure, and accused the government of Antisemitism and the unlawful jailing of Alfred Dreyfus, a French General Staff officer sentenced to penal servitude for life for espionage. Zola pointed out judicial errors and lack of serious evidence. The letter was printed on the first page of the newspaper, and caused a stir in France and abroad. Zola was prosecuted and found guilty of libel on February 23, 1898. To avoid imprisonment, he fled to England, returning home in June 1899.
Other pamphlets proclaiming Dreyfus’s innocence include Bernard Lazare’s A Miscarriage of Justice: The Truth about the Dreyfus Affair (November 1896).
As a result of the popularity of the letter, even in the English-speaking world, J’accuse! has become a common generic expression of outrage and accusation against a powerful person.
1905 – Chicago attorney Paul Harris and three other businessmen meet for lunch – form the Rotary Club, the world’s first service club.
Rotary International is an organisation of service clubs known as Rotary Clubs located all over the world. It is a secular organisation open to all persons regardless of race, colour, creed or political preference. There are more than 32,000 clubs and over 1.2 million members world-wide. The members of Rotary Clubs are known as Rotarian’s. The stated purpose of the organisation is to bring together business and professional leaders to provide humanitarian service, encourage high ethical standards in all vocations, and help build goodwill and peace in the world. Members usually meet weekly for breakfast, lunch or dinner, which is a social event as well as an opportunity to organise work on their service goals.
Rotary’s best-known motto is “Service above Self”, and its secondary motto is “They profit most who serve best”.
1940 Walt Disney’s animated movie “Pinocchio”, released.
Pinocchio is a wooden marionette (a puppet that is manipulated with wires) and not a hand puppet (directly controlled from inside by the puppeteer’s hand). But the piece of wood from which he is derived is animated, and so Pinocchio moves independently. Basically good, he often gets carried away by bad company and is prone to lying. His nose will become longer and longer once he starts lying to others. Because of these characteristics he often finds himself in trouble, from which, however, he always manages to get out. Pinocchio undergoes transformations during the novel: he promises The Fairy with Turquoise Hair to become a real boy, flees with Candlewick to the Land of Toys, becomes a donkey, joins a circus, and becomes a puppet again. In the last chapter, out of the mouth of The Terrible Dogfish with Geppetto, finally stops being a puppet and becomes a real boy (thanks to the intervention of the Fairy in a dream).
In the novel, Pinocchio is often depicted with a pointy hat, a jacket and a pair of coloured, knee-length pants. In the Disney version, the appearance is very different, and the character is dressed in Tyrolean style, with Lederhosen and a hat with a feather.
Pinocchio’s nose is his best-known characteristic. It grows in length when he tells a lie.
The nose only appears a couple of times in the story, but it reveals the Blue Fairy’s power over Pinocchio when he acts disobediently. After struggling and weeping over his deformed nose, the Blue Fairy summons woodpeckers to peck it back to normal.
1941 – Plutonium was first produced and isolated by Dr. Glenn T. Seaborg. Plutonium is a rare transuranic radioactive element. It is an actinide metal of silvery-white appearance that tarnishes when exposed to air, forming a dull coating when oxidised. It reacts with carbon, halogens, nitrogen and silicon.
When exposed to moist air, it forms oxides and hydrides that expand the sample up to 70% in volume, which in turn flake off as a powder that can spontaneously ignite. It is also a radio-logical poison that accumulates in bone marrow. These and other properties make the handling of plutonium dangerous, although its overall toxicity is sometimes overstated.
1945 – World War II: During the Battle of Iwo Jima, a group of United States Marines and a commonly forgotten U.S. Navy Corpsman, reach the top of Mount Suribachi on the island and are photographed raising the American flag. The photo would later win a Pulitzer Prize and become the model for the national USMC War Memorial.
1954 – The first mass vaccination of children against polio began in Pittsburgh, PA.
1963 – Peter Hicks, a farmer from Sussex in England, who electrified his car to ward off traffic wardens in London’s Convent Garden, found out he may be able to evade the law. Read more of this story here: news.bbc.co.uk – Peter Hicks (opens in new window for you).
1963 – The Chiffons’ “He’s So Fine“ was released.
1970 – Holy Eucharist given by women for 1st time in Roman Catholic service
1972 – Elvis and Priscilla Presley separated.
1974 – Columbia Records released Billy Joel’s “Piano Man.”
1998 – In central Florida, tornadoes killed 42 people and damaged and/or destroyed about 2,600 homes and businesses.
1998 – Osama bin Laden publishes a fatwa declaring jihad against all Jews and “Crusaders;” – the latter term is commonly interpreted to refer to the people of Europe and the United States.
2010 – Unknown criminals pour more than 2.5 million litres of diesel oil and other hydrocarbons into the river Lambro, in northern Italy, sparking an environmental disaster.
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Born on this Day
1592 – Balthazar Gerbier, Dutch painter (d. 1663)
1633 – Samuel Pepys – of London England, navy expert/composer (Diary, Memoirs)
1685 – George Frideric Handel, German-English organist and composer (d. 1759)
1817 – George Watts London, painter & sculptor
1947 – Shakira Caine Guyana, actress (Man Who be King) – Miss Guyana (1967) wife of Michael Caine
1952 – Brad Whitford, – American musician (Aerosmith)
1959 – Linda Nolan, Irish singer and actress – (The Nolan Sisters)
1964 – Dana Katherine Scully fictional character (X-Files)
1983 – Emily Blunt, English actress
1994 – Dakota Fanning, American actress
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Died on this Day (and remembered here)
1821 – John Keats, English poet (b. 1795)
1931 – Nellie Melba, Australian soprano and actress (b. 1861)
1934 – Edward Elgar, English composer and academic (b. 1857)
1965 – Stan Laurel comedian (Laurel & Hardy), died in California of heart attack at 74
1976 – LS Lowry, English artist (b. 1887)
1995 – Melvin Franklin, American singer (The Temptations) (b. 1942)
1995 – James Herriot, English writer (b. 1916)
2000 – Stanley Matthews, English footballer (b. 1915)
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~ Playtime Bell Rings! ~
These are the jokes folks!
Knock knock.
Who’s there?
Yoda lady.
Yoda lady who?
wow, Great yodeling!
if you didn’t ‘get it’ – say it all over again, only this time out loud.
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Apparently taking a day off is not something you should do when you work for a calendar company.
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What’s the biggest pan in the world?
Japan
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What do snowmen do in their spare time? Chill.
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Vegans believe meat eaters and butchers are gross.
But those who sell you fruits and vegetables are grocer.
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I’ve seen this show about beavers last night – best dam documentary I’ve ever seen!
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Why does Peter Pan fly all the time? … Neverlands!
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Should pregnant women actually be called … body builders?
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What did the blonde girl say when she saw Cheerios? … “Donut seeds!”
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I hope when I inevitably choke to death on gummy bears people just say I was killed by bears and leave it at that.
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I hate when I’m running on the treadmill for half an hour and look down to see it’s been 4 minutes.
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I entered what I ate today into my new fitness app and it just sent an ambulance to my house.
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My kids are at an age now where they are beginning to understand embarrassment. This is my time to shine.
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I’m not saying your perfume is too strong. I’m just saying the canary was alive before you got here.
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Ahh …. and now we’ve reached coffee time, and a moment of contemplation. . .
Thought for the Day
“Father, into your hands I commend my spirit.” ….. Those are said to be the last words spoken by Jesus Christ, and they have inspired a number of people, both great and small. And … they inspire me every morning … for they aren’t my last words, they are my first with the dawn of every new day.
I can think of no better person to take care of my living spirit, than my Father. For while He’s taking care of ‘stuff’, I can get on with all the other stuff.
Give it a try. Let Him take care of stuff, while you go off and enjoy your day doing the ‘stuff’ you’re meant to be doing.
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Well … that was a great read today, wasn’t it! I learned so much … sadly, my one and only brain cell has developed a leak. On windy days it makes a gentle sound which goes: shhhhhhrupppp. On rainy days it makes a sound like: [insert long wet raspberry noise here].
I’m guessing that the gentle shhhhhrupppp noise is actually the brain cell telling me to ‘shut up’. The long wet raspberry noise – well I’m not really sure I know what it’s telling me when it makes that noise, but it worries me greatly that others might hear it and think that I’ve …. well …. you know. eek! 
Thank you so much for coming. I so enjoy your company. I take this opportunity to say hello to new friends too. Please new people, don’t be shy. Everyone here is a total delight and you’ll soon get to know them all. Say hello, in a comment, and before you know it people will be replying to your comments when they begin to recognise your name. And … if you have a blog yourself, you’ll no doubt gain some followers too!
Have a truly wonderful Friday, all. And remember … as far as anyone knows, we are all nice, normal people here!
The Art of Cobwebs 