Sunday, October 10, 2004
Sunday's Notes
The United States Naval Academy opened on this day in 1845 in Annapolis, MD, with 50 midshipmen students and seven professors. Vice President Spiro Agnew resigned on this day in 1973. Less than a year before Richard M. Nixon's resignation as president of the United States, Agnew became the first...
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Saturday, October 9, 2004
Strange Days
for November: November 1 - Plan Your Epitaph Day November 2 - National Deviled Egg Day November 3 - Sandwich Day and Housewife's Day November 4 - Waiting For The Barbarians Day November 5 - Gunpowder Day November 6 - Saxophone Day and Marooned Without A Compass Day November 7 - National Bittersweet...
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The Past, On This Day
It's the birthday of composer Camille Saint-Saens, born in Paris (1835), a child prodigy, with perfect pitch and a fantastic memory. His first famous opera was Samson and Dalila (1877). It's the birthday of Charles R(udolph) Walgreen, owner of the Walgreens drug store chain, born near Galesburg, IL...
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Friday, October 8, 2004
Today . . .
... is the birthday of young adult novelist R.L. [Robert Lawrence] Stine, born in Bexley, OH, creator of the Goosebumps and Fear Street series of horror novels for young people. In response to critics who have said that his books aren't good for children, Stine said, "I believe that kids as well as...
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Thursday, October 7, 2004
It is . . .
... the birthday of the poet and essayist Diane Ackerman, born Diane Fink in Waukegan, IL (1948). Her first book of poetry, The Planets: A Cosmic Pastoral (1976) is entirely about astronomy. She has since written many other poems about science, as well as cattle farming, flying an airplane, and...
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Wednesday, October 6, 2004
On this Day . . .
...In 1847, Charlotte Brontë published her novel Jane Eyre under the pseudonym "Currer Bell." In it, Brontë wrote, "Prejudices, it is well known, are most difficult to eradicate from the heart whose soil has never been loosened or fertilized by education; they grow there, firm as weeds among...
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Tuesday, October 5, 2004
Today is the . . .
...Birthday of one of the few writers ever to become leader of a country, Czech dramatist and president Vaclav Havel, born in Prague (1936). Plays include The Garden Party (1964), The Memorandum (1965), The Mountain Hotel (1976). The first non-communist leader of Czechoslovakia (elected 1989), he...
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Monday, October 4, 2004
Monday, Oct. 4
Birthday of Edward L. Stratemeyer, born in Elizabeth, New Jersey (1862). He's known as the man who created the Hardy Boys, the Bobbsey Twins, the Rover Boys, and Nancy Drew. Birthday of humorist Roy Blount Jr., born in Indianapolis, Indiana (1941), author of many books of humor, including What Men...
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The Weekend
Saturday, Oct. 2 Birthday of comedian Groucho Marx, born in NYC (1890). In 1908, he began acting with his brothers Harpo and Chico, and they became famous as the Marx Brothers. Two of the snappy insults for which he was famous were, "Marriage is a wonderful institution. That is, if you like living...
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Friday, October 1, 2004
Today, Oct. 1
It's the birthday of aviation pioneer William E. Boeing (1881). He left Harvard early to go into the timber industry, became interested in flying, took lessons, and bought a small plane. On his first solo flight from Los Angeles to Seattle, he misjudged his landing and damaged his plane. When he...
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