On This Day January 1

Bouvet Island in the South Atlantic Ocean is the most remote island in the world. It was discovered by French explorer Jean-Baptiste Charles Bouvet de Lozier on January 1, 1739 (see picture below). The nearest land is the uninhabited Queen Maud Land, Antarctica, over 1,600 km (994 mi) away to the south. The nearest inhabited lands are Tristan da Cunha, 2,260 km (1,404 mi) away and South Africa, 2,580 km (1,603 mi) away.

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On This Day December 31

Thomas Edison made the first public demonstration of his incandescent light bulb on December 31 1879, in Menlo Park. British chemist Joseph Swan had already invented the lamp but Edison wanted to produce a longer lasting one. The American inventor worked thousands of hours on the electric light bulb experimenting with 1,200 different varieties of bamboo before finding a carbonized bamboo fiber that remained lit for over 1,000 hours in a vacuum.

"Edison Lightbulb Museum of Letters and Manuscripts" by Tieum512 

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On This Day December 30

When Frank Sinatra opened at New York's Paramount Theatre on December 30, 1942, he was dubbed "The Sultan of Swoon," as teen girls screamed and cried. Sinatra became the idol of "bobbysoxer" teenage fans everywhere, culminating in the "Columbus Day Riot" of 1944, when 35,000 teenage girls mobbed the New York Paramount to see him sing.

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On This Day December 29

Edmond Audran (1840-1901) was a church organist in the French city of Marseilles who also wrote comic operas. He penned a popular comic operetta about a country girl whose extraordinary good fortune could not be due to mere chance but must have been caused by some supernatural agent. Titled La Mascotte, it premiered on December 29, 1880. Translated into English as The Mascot, it introduced into the English language "mascot," a word for any animal, person, or object that brings good luck.

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On This Day December 28

In 1836 a fleet of eight ships under John Hindmarsh, first Governor of South Australia, camped at Holdfast Bay. South Australia was officially proclaimed as a new British colony on December 28, 1836, near The Old Gum Tree in what is now the Adelaide suburb of Glenelg North.

European settlers with Aborigines, 1850

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On This Day December 27

The Cave of Swallows in Aquismón, San Luis Potosí, Mexico is the largest known cave shaft in the world. The floor of the cave is a 1092 feet (333-meter)) freefall drop from the lowest side of the opening, with a 370-meter (1,214 ft) drop from the highest side. The first documented exploration was on December 27, 1966 by T. R. Evans, Charles Borland and Randy Sterns.

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On This Day December 26

The modern parachute was invented by French chemist and physicist Louis-Sébastien Lenormand. His intended use for the parachute was to help entrapped occupants of a burning building to escape unharmed. Lenormand used his 14-foot contraption with a rigid wooden frame to make the first recorded public parachute jump, when he leaped from the tower of the Montpellier observatory, in France, on December 26, 1783.

Lenormand jumps from the tower of the Montpellier observatory, Wikipedia

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On This Day December 25

Clovis I, King of the Franks, was converted to Christianity, the first barbarian chief of any importance to convert to orthodox Christianity, rather the Arian religion. He was baptized into the Catholic faith on Christmas Day 496, along with his 3,000 strong army at Reims Cathedral. The Bishop Remigius of Rheims declared to him, "bow thy head, proud Frank: adore what thou hast burned; burn what thou hast adored."

Clovis roi des Francs by François-Louis Dejuinne (1786–1844) Wikipedia

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On This Day December 24

During World War I there was an unofficial Christmas truce between British and German troops demonstrating the power for good that is inherent in the season. The truce began on Christmas Eve, December 24, 1914, when the two sides shouted Christmas greetings to each other and as word spread men from both sides of the Western Front ventured into no man's land to mingle and exchange food and souvenirs.

Christmas Truce By A. C. Michael - The Guardian

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On This Day December 23

On December 23, 1888, Paul Gauguin, Vincent Van Gogh's painting companion, threatened to leave him alone to spend a hard winter in Arles. In retaliation, the tortured Dutchman came at the French artist with an open razor. He was stopped by Gauguin, but instead cut off part of his own left earlobe. The incident led to Van Gogh's painting Self-Portrait with Bandaged Ear, which was sold privately in the late 1990s for an estimated US$80/$90 million.

Self-Portrait with Bandaged Ear

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On This Day December 22

Russian writer Fyodor Dostoyevsky was arrested with 33 others in April 1849 as a Social Revolutionary, after a police informer had slipped into his socialist discussion groups. Originally he was sentenced to be executed on December 22, 1849. At the stake in front of the squad he was told his sentence was a joke and he was to be sent to Siberia for four years instead.  Dostoyevsky was incarcerated at a penal settlement where they were packed in "like herrings in a barrel."

A sketch of the Petrashevsky Circle mock execution

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On This Day December 21

96 days after the Mayflower Pilgrims set sail from Plymouth, England, they landed on what is now known as Plymouth Rock in Plymouth, Massachusetts on December 21, 1620. The Pilgrims established there the second successful permanent English colony in the part of North America that later became the United States, after the Jamestown Colony. It's now thought that 12 per cent of all modern day Americans are descended from the Mayflower Pilgrims.

Mayflower in Plymouth Harbor by William Halsall 1882

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On This Day November 16

The Sound of Music musical opened on Broadway at the Lunt-Fontanne Theatre on November 16, 1959. Both of the major New York critics hated it, finding it way too saccharine, but producers already had $2 million in advance ticket sales, so their lack of enthusiasm didn't really matter. The play won six Tony Awards, including Best Musical.

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On This Day October 29

American entrepreneur Milton Reynolds first came across the Bíró ballpoint pen during a business trip to Argentina where they were first made. Recognizing their commercial potential, he founded Reynolds International Pen Company to manufacture them. His product Reynolds' Rocket ballpoint pens went on sale at Gimbels department store in New York City on October 29, 1945 for $12.95. Reynolds advertised it as the pen "to write under water." It was immediately successful: $100,000 worth sold the first day on the market.

Birome advertisement in Argentine magazine Leoplán, 1945. Wikipedia 

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On This Day October 16

In the mid 1840s a Boston dentist called William Morton started to experiment with using ether to anesthetize a patient before extracting a tooth. He persuaded one of America’s most prominent surgeons Doctor John Warren, to conduct the first public demonstration of ether as a general anesthetic on October 16, 1846, at Massachusetts General Hospital in Boston with Morton as an anesthetist. The operation for removing a tumor from the lower jaw of a Mr Abbott was a success and the patient felt no pain.

Re-enactment of the first public demonstration of general anesthesia by William T. G. Morton 

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On This Day October 7

Goalkeeper Brad Friedel is the current holder of the Premier League record for most consecutive appearances with 310, a feat he achieved during spells at Blackburn Rovers, Aston Villa, and Tottenham Hotspur. Until the American footballer was left out of the Tottenham team on October 7, 2012, the previous Premier League game Friedel missed was Blackburn's last fixtures of the 2003–04 season against Birmingham City, on May 15, 2004.

Friedel playing for Aston Villa. By Dagur Brynjólfsson

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On This Day July 31

The association of rum with the Royal Navy began in 1655, when the British fleet captured the island of Jamaica. With the easy availability of domestically produced rum, the British substituted the daily ration of liquor from French brandy to a half-a-pint of rum. The rum ration was issued daily to Royal Navy sailors at noon and 5pm or 6pm with a call of "Up spirits!"  July 31, 1970: Black Tot Day marked the last day of the UK Royal Navy's officially sanctioned rum ration.

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On This Day June 30

On June 30, 1859 French tightrope walker Charles Blondin successfully crossed Niagara Gorge on a tightrope, 160 ft (49 m) above the water, near the location of the current Rainbow Bridge.
He repeated the feat a number of times thereafter, always with different theatrical variations: blindfolded, in a sack, trundling a wheelbarrow, on stilts, sitting down midway while he cooked and ate an omelette and standing on a chair with only one chair leg on the rope.

Charles Blondin crossing the Niagara River in 1859

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On This Day March 19

At age 17, French inventor Louis Lumière invented a new process for film development using a dry plate Thirteen years later, he and his brother August patented their combination movie camera and projector, the Cinématographe. They recorded their first footage using their newly patented cinematograph on March 19, 1895. It showed mainly female workers leaving the Lumière factory on the outskirts of Lyon, France, as if they had just finished a day's work.

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On This Day March 13

Jorge Mario Bergoglio was elected Pope on March 13, 2013. Bergoglio chose his name to be called Pope Francis in order to pay tribute to St. Francis of Assisi. Francis is the first Jesuit pope, the first ever from the Americas and the first from the Southern Hemisphere. He is the first non-European pontiff since the Syrian Pope Gregory III in the 8th century.

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Trivia Of The Day February 12

The position of a Venetian gondolier is extremely exclusive and difficult to attain. Only 425 licenses are granted each year, and applicants must be Venetian by birth. Apprenticeships involve over 400 hours of training,

Angel Falls in Venezuela is the world's tallest waterfall. The water there plunges 807 metres to the ground, and it has a total height of 979 metres. It is 17 times higher than Niagara Falls.

Ángel Falls, By Jsembergmanl

Ancient peoples actually slept in two periods, sometimes termed “first sleep” and “second sleep,” each lasting four hours with a two hour reprieve in between. Additionally, most people would take a mid-afternoon rest ranging from 30 minutes to 2 hours.

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Happy Birthday February 12

Charles Darwin was born on February 12, 1809 in Shrewsbury. His father, Robert Darwin, was a successful local doctor, but was stern and critical towards him. Darwin's mother, Susannah Wedgwood, was the daughter of Josiah Wedgwood, the famous potter. His other grandfather was Erasmus Darwin, a naturalist, poet and philosopher who had put forward his own theory of evolution. As a boy he was so enamored with chemistry that his young friends nicknamed him "Gas".

Painting of seven-year-old Charles Darwin in 1816.

Alice Roosevelt, Theodore Roosevelt's only child from his first marriage, was born on February 12, 1884. Alice Lee Roosevelt was the toast of Washington, D.C. When friends asked if he could rein in his daughter, Roosevelt said, "I can be President of the United States, or I can control Alice. I cannot possibly do both."  When she was 16, the song "Alice-Blue Gown" was written about Alice. As a result Alice Blue came to describe a light blueish green color.

For more February 12 anniversaries, including the founding of the state of Georgia, the premiere of George Gershwin's “Rhapsody in Blue” and the first spacecraft to orbit and soft land on an asteroid, check out OnThatDay

Today Is February 12

Abraham Lincoln was born on February 12, 1809 into an illiterate and wandering frontier family.

Lincoln's Birthday is a legal, public holiday in some U.S. states, observed on the anniversary of Abraham Lincoln's birth on February 12, 1809. Connecticut,  Illinois, Indiana, Kentucky, Ohio, Texas, California, Missouri, and New York observe the holiday.

Charles Darwin was also born on the same day. He was born on February 12, 1809 in Shrewsbury, England.

Abraham Lincoln was born in a one roomed log cabin, on Sinking Spring farm at Hodgenville (Hodgensville, Hodgen's Mill), Kentucky, It is now a national historic site open to the public. He was the first president to be born outside of the original 13 colonies.

On November 6, 1860, Lincoln was elected the 16th president of the United States, defeating a deeply divided Democratic Party. He was the first president from the Republican Party. Lincoln's victory on an anti slavery ticket was entirely due to the strength of his support in the North and West; he won only two of 996 counties in all the Southern states.

Five days after General Lee's surrender, on April 14, 1865, Lincoln went to attend the play Our American Cousin by English playwright Tom Taylor with his wife at Ford's Theatre in Washington, D.C.. During the third act of the play, John Wilkes Booth, a well-known actor and a Confederate spy from Maryland, entered the presidential box and fired a pistol at point-blank range into the back of Lincoln's head

On This Day January 23

In 1948 a young American just out of the army, Walter Frederick Morrison, applied for a patent for a plastic flying disc. It is said the idea originated when Morrison and his wife began flinging pie tins to one another on the beach. On January 23, 1957 Morrison sold the rights to his flying disc to the Wham-O toy company, (inventors of the hula- hoop). Called at first the “Toy Flying Saucer”, they changed its name to the Frisbee disc.

Walter Frederick Morrison promoting his Pluto Platters, forerunner of the Frisbee.

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On This Day January 11

At Toronto's General Hospital, 14-year-old diabetic Leonard Thompson became on January 11, 1922 the first person to be treated with the insulin drug, using a fetal calf pancreas extract. However, the ox extract was so impure, Thompson suffered a severe allergic reaction, and further injections were canceled. A second dose was injected twelve days later with an improved extract. This was completely successful in completely eliminating the glycosuria sign of diabetes.

Insulin

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