05 July 2017
Interesting tidbits:
1054 - The brightest supernova ever recorded (Crab Nebula) was first reported.
1643 - The first recorded tornado in the future US (Essex County, Massachusetts).
1687 - Isaac Newton's PRINCIPIA published by Royal Society in England. Outlined his laws of motion and universal gravitation.
1937 – Spam, the luncheon meat, was introduced into the market by the Hormel Foods Corporation. Because so much of it was supplied to the Allies in WWII, Spam became extremely popular in parts of Europe.
1946 – The bikini went on sale after debuting during an outdoor fashion show at the Molitor Pool in Paris, France
1996 – Dolly the sheep became the first mammal cloned from an adult cell.
2009 – The largest hoard of Anglo-Saxon gold ever discovered, consisting of more than 1,500 items, was found near the village of Hammerwich, near Lichfield, in Staffordshire, England.
2012 – The Shard in London was inaugurated as the tallest building in Europe, with a height of 310 metres (1,020 ft).
Today's birthday crew:
1675 – Mary Walcott, American accuser at the Salem witch trials.
1794 – Sylvester Graham, American dietary reformer. He was an early advocate of dietary reform in the United States and was most notable for his emphasis on vegetarianism and the temperance movement, anti-masturbation, as well as dietary habits. In 1829, he invented graham bread, and the recipe first appeared in The New Hydropathic Cookbook in 1855. Graham bread was made from unsifted flour and free from chemical additives such as alum and chlorine. Graham argued that chemical additives in bread made it unwholesome. It tasted good according to local accounts. The use of additives by bakeries was a common practice during the Industrial Revolution to make bread whiter in color, and more commercially appealing. Darker wheat bread was considered the fare of country rubes. Refined bread was a status symbol of the middle class because of its "purity and refinement" in its color and was purchased, rather than home-made. Graham believed that a firm bread made of coarsely ground whole-wheat flour was more nutritious and healthy. Graham was also inspired by the temperance movement and preached that a vegetarian diet was a cure for alcoholism, and, more importantly, sexual urges. The main thrust of his teachings was to curb lust. For Graham, an unhealthy diet stimulated excessive sexual desire which irritated the body and caused disease. While Graham developed a significant following known as Grahamites, he was also ridiculed by the media and the public for his unwavering zealotry. According to newspaper records, many women fainted at his lectures when he aired opinions both on sexual relations and the wearing of corsets. In 1837 he had difficulty finding a place to speak in Boston because of threatened riots by butchers and commercial bakers. In 1850 he helped found the American Vegetarian Society modeled on a similar organization established in Great Britain. He died the following year, at the young age of 57. Graham focused on meat and milk, which he believed to be the cause of sexual urges. In fact, he claimed animal byproducts produced lust; Grahamism thus rejected meat, animal byproducts, and alcohol in order to develop a purer mind and body. Next time you eat graham crakers remember that they were invented to help diminish and control sexual urges.
1810 – P.T. Barnum, American showman, businessman, politician, scam artist, and entertainer, remembered for promoting celebrated hoaxes and for founding the circus that became the Ringling Bros. and Barnum & Bailey Circus. Although Barnum was also an author, publisher, philanthropist, and for some time a politician, he said of himself, "I am a showman by profession...and all the gilding shall make nothing else of me," and his personal aims were "to put money in his own coffers." Barnum is widely but erroneously credited with coining the phrase "There's a sucker born every minute." Barnum bought a traveling museum and used it as a platform to promote hoaxes and human curiosities such as the '"Feejee" mermaid' and "General Tom Thumb." In 1850 he promoted the American tour of singer Jenny Lind, paying her an unprecedented $1,000 a night for 150 nights. After economic reversals due to bad investments in the 1850s, and years of litigation and public humiliation, he used a lecture tour, mostly as a temperance speaker, to emerge from debt. His museum added America's first aquarium and expanded the wax figure department. Barnum served two terms in the Connecticut legislature in 1865 as a Republican for Fairfield. As mayor of Bridgeport, Connecticut he worked to improve the water supply, bring gas lighting to streets, and to enforce liquor and prostitution laws. Barnum was instrumental in starting Bridgeport Hospital, founded in 1878, and was its first president. The circus business was the source of much of his enduring fame. He established "P. T. Barnum's Grand Traveling Museum, Menagerie, Caravan & Hippodrome," a traveling circus, menagerie and museum of "freaks," which adopted many names over the years.
1853 – Cecil Rhodes, English-South African businessman and politician. He was the founder of the diamond company De Beers, which today markets 40% of the world's rough diamonds and at one time marketed 90%. An ardent believer in British colonialism, he was the founder of the southern African territory of Rhodesia, which was named after him in 1895. South Africa's Rhodes University is also named after Rhodes. He set up the provisions of the Rhodes Scholarship, which is funded by his estate. In October 1871, 18-year-old Rhodes and his brother Herbert left home for the diamond fields of Kimberley. Financed by N M Rothschild & Sons, Rhodes succeeded over the next 17 years in buying up all the smaller diamond mining operations in the Kimberley area. His monopoly of the world's diamond supply was sealed in 1889 through a strategic partnership with the London-based Diamond Syndicate. They agreed to control world supply to maintain high prices. Rhodes supervised the working of his brother's claim and speculated on his behalf. Rhodes used his wealth and that of his business partners and investors to pursue his dream of creating a British Empire in new territories to the north by obtaining mineral concessions from the most powerful indigenous chiefs. Rhodes' competitive advantage over other mineral prospecting companies was his combination of wealth and astute political instincts. He befriended local representatives, the British Commissioners, and through them organised British protectorates over the mineral concession areas via separate but related treaties. In this way he obtained both legality and security for mining operations. He could then win over more investors. Imperial expansion and capital investment went hand in hand. The imperial factor was a double-edged sword: Rhodes did not want the bureaucrats of the Colonial Office in London to interfere in the Empire in Africa. He wanted British settlers and local politicians and governors to run it. This put him on a collision course with many in Britain, as well as with British missionaries, who favoured what they saw as the more ethical direct rule from London. Rhodes won because he would pay to administer the territories north of South Africa against future mining profits. The Colonial Office did not have the funds to do it. Rhodes promoted his business interests as the strategic interest of Britain: preventing the Portuguese, the Germans or the Boers from moving into south-central Africa. Rhodes had already tried and failed to get a mining concession from Lobengula, king of the Ndebele of Matabeleland. In 1888 he tried again. He sent John Moffat, son of the missionary Robert Moffat, who was trusted by Lobengula, to persuade the latter to sign a treaty of friendship with Britain, and to look favourably on Rhodes' proposals. His agent Francis Thompson, who had travelled to Bulawayo assured Lobengula that no more than ten white men would mine in Matabeleland. This limitation was left out of the document, known as the Rudd Concession, which Lobengula signed. Furthermore it stated that the mining companies could do anything necessary to their operations. When Lobengula discovered later the true effects of the concession, he tried to renounce it, but the British Government ignored him. Armed with the Rudd Concession, in 1889 Rhodes obtained a charter from the British Government for his British South Africa Company (BSAC) to rule, police, and make new treaties and concessions from the Limpopo River to the great lakes of Central Africa. He obtained further concessions and treaties north of the Zambezi, and in the Lake Mweru area. Rhodes also sent Sharpe to get a concession over mineral-rich Katanga, but met his match in ruthlessness: when Sharpe was rebuffed by its ruler Msiri, King Leopold II of Belgium obtained a concession over Msiri's dead body for his Congo Free State. Rhodes also wanted Bechuanaland Protectorate (now Botswana) under the BSAC charter. But three Tswana kings, including Khama III, travelled to Britain and won over British public opinion for it to remain governed by the British Colonial Office in London. Rhodes commented: "It is humiliating to be utterly beaten by these n-."
1948 – William Hootkins, was an American character actor, most famous for supporting roles in Hollywood blockbusters such as Star Wars, Batman, and Raiders of the Lost Ark. He played Hans Zarkov's assistant in the 1980 cult sci-fi Flash Gordon, and had a supporting role in the 1996 version of The Island of Dr. Moreau.
1958 – Bill Watterson, American cartoonist and the author of the comic strip Calvin and Hobbes, which was syndicated from 1985 to 1995. Watterson stopped drawing Calvin and Hobbes at the end of 1995 with a short statement to newspaper editors and his readers that he felt he had achieved all he could in the medium. Watterson is known for his views on licensing and comic syndication, and his move back into private life after drawing Calvin and Hobbes came to a close.
Happy birthday guys!