Did Ya Know

[Rhonda]

Did Ya' Know:

1. The first Oktoberfest evolved from what event? --A wedding

2. What has always been the site for the traditional Oktoberfest celebration? --Therese's Meadow

3. Just how long is Oktoberfest? --16 days

4. Lacrosse, an outdoor game in which two teams using netted sticks compete to throw a ball into the opponents' goal, is similar in tactics to ice hockey and soccer. A national sport of Canada, lacrosse has grown in popularity in the United States, Australia, England, and Ireland. Who invented the game? --Huron Indians

5. Some early Spanish priests, aware of the passion the native people had for the fruit of this plant and unsure of its powers, assumed they were aphrodisiacs and warned against consumption. Of course, true to human nature this only added to the popularity of ____? --Chile pepper

6. Beggars invented cigarettes in 16th-century Spain...by wrapping paper around the butts of cigars thrown in the street by the affluent.


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[Rhonda]

[color=Purple][/color]1.

In 1610, Italian astronomer Galileo Galilei, 46, discovered four satellites of Jupiter with the aid of the newly invented telescope. His discovery revolutionized astronomy, and led Galileo to adopt the Copernican (heliocentric) model of the solar system in place of the older, less adequate, Ptolemaic (earth-centered) view.

2. In 1789, the first U.S. presidential election was held. Americans voted for electors who, a month later, chose George Washington to be the nation's first president.

3. In 1800, he became the 13th President when President Zachary Taylor died unexpectedly. He sent Commodore Perry to Japan and admitted California, which had just begun the Gold Rush, into the Union.

His name was Millard Fillmore and he was born this day, January 7, 1800.

When the Library of Congress caught fire, he and his Cabinet formed a bucket brigade to extinguish the flames. Millard Fillmore stated: "On commencing my Presidential career, I found the Sabbath had frequently been employed for private interviews with the President. To end to this I ordered my doorkeeper to meet all Sunday visitors with an indiscriminate refusal."


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[Rhonda]

In 1800, in London, the first soup kitchens were opened for the relief of the poor.

In 1815, though the War of 1812 had ended two weeks earlier, news had not yet reach New Orleans and on this day, January 8, 1815, five thousand British soldiers charged in a frontal assault against General Andrew Jackson's Tennessee and Kentucky sharpshooters. French pirate Jean Lafitte and his men aided the Americans. In just a half-hour, over two thousand British were killed and only 8 Americans. General Jackson wrote: "It appears that the unerring hand of Providence shielded my men from the shower of balls, bombs, and rockets, when every ball and bomb from our guns carried with them a mission of death."

In 1918, President Wilson outlined his 14 points for peace after World War I.

In 1935, rock 'n' roll legend Elvis Presley was born in Tupelo, Miss.


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[Rhonda]

[font=Comic Sans MS]Did Ya' Know:

28 million Americans suffer from migraines.

75% of those suffering from migraines, roughly 21 million, are women. 1 out of 4 households is affected by migraines.

$13 billion in missed work or reduced productivity annually is due to migraines.

Percentage of American adults who eat at least five servings of fruits and vegetables a day:

1990 Men-17 Women-21
1996 Men-19 Women-26
--American Heart Association

In Charlotte, N.C., a year-long study was done, and it concluded that two-thirds of those arrested had used pot, cocaine, heroine, or meth.

What the survey did not reveal is that nearly all had copped their stuff while in jail.


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[Rhonda]

In 1752, today is Betsy Ross Day. She was born January 1, 1752 to a Quaker family in Philadelphia, the 8th of 17 children. She apprenticed as a seamstress, where she fell in love with an upholsterer named John Ross, son of an Episcopal rector and nephew of George Ross, who signed the Declaration of Independence.

As Quakers forbade interdenominational marriage, John and Betsy eloped. They attended Christ's Church and their pew was next to George Washington's.

During the Revolution, John died when a munitions depot he was guarding blew up. Shortly after General Washington asked Betsy Ross to sew the American Flag.

In 1921, the first religious program heard over the radio was broadcast from Calvary Episcopal Church of Pittsburgh over local radio station KDKA. (The first licensed radio station in the US, KDKA had been on the air only two months.)


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[Rhonda]

In 1863, President Lincoln signed the Emancipation Proclamation, declaring that slaves in rebel states were free.

In 1892, the Ellis Island Immigrant Station in New York formally opened.

In 1898, Manhattan, the Bronx, Brooklyn, Queens and Staten Island were consolidated into New York City.

In 1901, the Commonwealth of Australia was proclaimed.

In 1984, the break up of AT&T took place as the telecommunications giant was divested of its 22 Bell System companies under terms of an antitrust agreement.

In 1993, Czechoslovakia peacefully split into two new countries, the Czech Republic and Slovakia.

In 1994, the North American Free Trade Agreement went into effect.

In 1999, the euro, the new single currency of eleven European countries, officially came into existence with the start of the New Year.


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[Rhonda]

Did Ya' Know:

1. Each red blood cell lives an average of 4 months and travels between the lungs and other tissues 75,000 times before returning to the bone marrow to die.

2. An Englishman invented Scotland's national dress - the kilt. It was developed from the philamore - a massive piece of tartan worn with a belt and draped over the shoulder - by English industrialist Thomas Rawlinson who ran a foundry at Lochaber, Scotland in the early 1700s and thought a detachable garment would make life more comfortable for his workers.

3. Mail to the Havasupai Indian Reservation in northern Arizona is delivered by mule. It is the only U.S. Postal Service route of its type in existence today.


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[Rhonda]

In 1879, Thomas Edison first publicly demonstrated his electric incandescent light in New Jersey.

Did Ya' Know: 1. James Buchanan, 15th U.S. president and the first unmarried man to be elected president, reportedly took great pride in his tiny feet, although he was a large robust man.

2. Often depicted wearing a tall black stovepipe hat, 16th president of the United States Abraham Lincoln carried letters, bills, and notes in his hat.

3. The 18th U.S. president, Ulysses S. Grant was born Hiram Ulysses Grant, but he changed his name because he did not like his monogram, HUG.

4. Both ambidextrous and multilingual, 20th president of the United States James Garfield could write Greek with one hand while writing Latin with the other.


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[Rhonda]

In 1853, the United States bought some 45,000 square miles of land from Mexico in a deal known as the Gadsden Purchase.

In 1865, the Jungle Book was written by Rudyard Kipling, who was born this day, in Bombay, India. Educated in England, he returned to India as a journalist. His notoriety as a writer grew tremendously and in 1907, he received the Nobel Prize for literature. He popular works include: Kim, Wee Willie Winkie, Baa Baa Black Sheep, and Gunga Din. In his Ballad of East and West, Rudyard Kipling wrote: "Oh, East is East, and West is West, And never the twain shall meet, Till earth and sky stand presently, At God's great judgement seat."

In 1937, birth of No l Paul Stookey, American folk singer. Stookey was "Paul" of the 1960s folk trio Peter, Paul & Mary. Converted in the late 1960s, Stookey is now a Christian recording artist, and prefers using his "born again" name, No l.

In 1940, California's first freeway, the Arroyo Seco Parkway connecting Los Angeles and Pasadena, was officially opened.


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In 1845, after nearly ten years of being its own nation, the Republic of Texas became the 28th State of the Union this day, December 29, 1845. It later joined the Confederacy, but was readmitted after the Civil War.

The Preamble stated: "We, the people of the Republic of Texas, acknowledging, with gratitude the grace and beneficence of God, in permitting us to make a choice of our form of government, do establish this Constitution." It later added: "Nor shall any one be excluded from holding office on account of his religious sentiments, provided he acknowledge the existence of a Supreme Being."

In 1849, the Christmas hymn by Edmund Sears, "It Came Upon a Midnight Clear," was first published in "The Christian Register." Sears' carol features the American emphasis in Christian living, that is, the social message of "peace on earth, good will toward men."

In 1851, the first American Young Men's Christian Association (YMCA) was organized, in Boston.


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Did you know...

Rudolph the Red-Nosed Reindeer Claim: The character 'Rudolph the Red-Nosed Reindeer' was created for the Montgomery Ward group of department stores.

Status: True.

Origins: To most of us, the character of Rudolph the Red-Nosed Reindeer — immortalized in song and a popular TV special — has always been an essential part of our Christmas folklore. But Rudolph is a decidedly twentieth-century invention whose creation can be traced to a specific time and person.

Rudolph came to life in 1939 when the Chicago-based Montgomery Ward company (operators of a chain of department stores) asked one of their copywriters, 34-year-old Robert L. May, to come up with a Christmas story they could give away to shoppers as a promotional gimmick. (The Montgomery Ward stores had been buying and giving away coloring books for Christmas every year, and May's department head saw creating a giveaway booklet of their own as a way to save money.) May, who had a penchant for writing children's stories and limericks, was tapped to create the booklet.

May, drawing in part on the tale of The Ugly Duckling and his own background (he was a often taunted as a child for being shy, small, and slight), settled on the idea of an underdog ostracized by the reindeer community because of his physical abnormality: a glowing red nose. Looking for an alliterative name, May considered and rejected Rollo (too cheerful and carefree a name for the story of a misfit) and Reginald (too British) before deciding on Rudolph.

He then proceeded to write Rudolph's story in verse, as a series of rhyming couplets, testing it out on his 4-year-old daughter Barbara as he went along.

Although Barbara was thrilled with Rudolph's story, May's boss was worried that a story featuring a red nose — an image associated with drinking and drunkards — was unsuitable for a Christmas tale.

May responded by taking Denver Gillen, a friend from Montgomery Ward's art department, to the Lincoln Park Zoo to sketch some deer. Gillen's illustrations of a red-nosed reindeer overcame the hesitancy of May's bosses, and the Rudolph story was approved.

Montgomery Ward distributed 2.4 million copies of the Rudolph booklet in 1939, and although wartime paper shortages curtailed printing for the next several years, a total of 6 million copies had been given by the end of 1946.

The post-war demand for licensing the Rudolph character was tremendous, but since May had created the story as an employee of Montgomery Ward, they held the copyright and he received no royalties.

Deeply in debt from the medical bills resulting from his wife's terminal illness (she died about the time May created Rudolph), May persuaded Montgomery Ward's corporate president, Sewell Avery, to turn the copyright over to him in January 1947. With the rights to his creation in hand, May's financial security was assured. "Rudolph the Red-Nosed Reindeer" was printed commercially in 1947 and shown in theaters as a nine-minute cartoon the following year.

The Rudolph phenomenon really took off, however, when May's brother-in-law, songwriter Johnny Marks, developed the lyrics and melody for a Rudolph song. Marks' musical version of "Rudolph the Red-Nosed Reindeer" (turned down by many who didn't want to meddle with the established Santa legend) was recorded by Gene Autry in 1949, sold two million copies that year, and went on to become one of the best-selling songs of all time (second only to "White Christmas"). A TV special about Rudolph narrated by Burl Ives was produced in 1964 and remains a popular perennial holiday favorite in the USA.

May quit his copywriting job in 1951 and spent seven years managing his creation before returning to Montgomery Ward, where he worked until his retirement in 1971. May died in 1976, comfortable in the life his reindeer creation had provided for him.

It might be fitting to close this page by pointing out that, although the story of Rudolph is primarily known to us through the lyrics of Johnny Marks' song, the story May wrote is substantially different in a number of ways.

Rudolph was not one of Santa's reindeer (or the offspring of one of Santa's reindeer), and he did not live at the North Pole. Rudolph dwelled in an "ordinary" reindeer village elsewhere, and although he was taunted and laughed at for having a shiny red nose, he was not regarded by his parents as a shameful embarrassment.

Rudolph was brought up in a loving household and was a responsible reindeer with a good self-image and sense of worth.

Moreover, Rudolph did not rise to fame when Santa picked him out from the reindeer herd because of his shiny nose. Santa discovered the red-nosed reindeer quite by accident, when he noticed the glow emanating from Rudolph's room while delivering presents to Rudolph's house.

Worried that the thickening fog — already the cause of several accidents and delays — would keep him from completing his Christmas Eve rounds, Santa tapped Rudolph to lead his team, observing upon their return: "By YOU last night's journey was actually bossed. Without you, I'm certain we'd all have been lost!"


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[Rhonda]

Did Ya' Know:

1. Sarah Edmonds was one of many women who fought in the U.S. Civil War in disguise as a boy and a man. She became a Union spy, and later deserted to protect her secret. Edmonds revealed her true identity after the war in an attempt to clear the desertion charges and gain a pension.

2. Scheduled to be demolished in 1968, Grand Central Station was saved by a campaign led by Jacqueline Kennedy Onassis and architect Philip Johnson. The station was listed in the National Register of Historic Places in 1983.

3. The U.S. Civil War conflict had at least thirty different names during the 1800s: The War Against Northern Aggression, The War for States' Rights, The War for Constitutional Liberty, The War for the Preservation of the Union, The Brothers' War, Mr. Lincoln's War. Many Southerners back then preferred to call it "our Second War of Independence." Some Southerners today eschew calling it the Civil War, preferring "The War Between the States." U.S. Official Records use the term "The War of the Rebellion."

4. Gulliver's first name was Lemuel in Jonathan Swift's "Gulliver's Travels.

" 5. Horse-racing regulations state that no race horse's name may contain more than eighteen letters. Names that are too long would be cumbersome on racing sheets.

6. Byron Kilburn and Moses M. Strong, to secure a grant of 1,000,000 acres of Wisconsin land for their railroad, distributed $862,000 in bribes among the governor, lieutenant governor, state senators, assemblymen, a Supreme Court justice, the governor's secretary, and the chief clerk and assistant clerk of the assembly (1856).

7. Houdini was the first man to fly an airplane solo in Australia.

8. The world record for a photographic memory feat is held by a man in Burma who recited 16,000 pages of Buddhist canonical texts from memory.

9. No person has ever been killed by a falling meteor, although several have been struck over the years, and a dog in Egypt was struck and killed.