On This Day June 23

1981 The Pawtucket Red Sox and the Rochester Red Wings, two teams from the Triple-A International League played the longest ever professional baseball game. The game begun at McCoy Stadium, Pawtucket, Rhode Island on April 18, 1981. It lasted for 33 innings, with eleven hours and 25 minutes of playing time. 32 innings were played, before the game was suspended at 4:00 the next morning. The final 33rd inning was played June 23, 1981. Pawtucket won the game, 3–2.

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Trivia Of The Day

The word orange ( meaning the fruit) entered the English language around 1400 — but it wasn’t used as the name of a color until the 1540s. Before then, the English speaking world referred to the orange color as geoluhread, which literally translates to “yellow-red."

The Beatles played their first proper evening gig at Liverpool’s Cavern Club on March 21, 1961. They played there 292 times between 1961 and 1963, sharing just £5 a gig between them.

Alpha Centauri is the closest star system to the Solar System, being 4.37 light-years from the Sun. A car traveling 100 mph would take more than 29 million years to reach Alpha Centuri.

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Happy Birthday

1685 Baroque composer Johann Sebastian Bach was born in Eisenach, Saxe-Eisenach, Germany on March 21, 1685, the youngest of eight children. Johann was orphaned aged 10 and was raised by his eldest brother Johann Christoph Bach, the organist at the Michaeliskirche in nearby Ohrdruf. He attended the Gymnasium in Eisenach the same school that Martin Luther attended 200 years earlier.

Eisenach in 1647

Bach was acknowledged in Germany as the greatest organist of his time and esteemed as a specialist in the mechanics of organ building. However his contrapuntal (music that consists of two or more melodies played at the same time) style of writing sounded old fashioned to his contemporaries. Indeed his sons Carl Philip and Johann Christian Bach were more famous in their lifetime than their father.

For more March 21 anniversaries, including the Napoleonic Code coming into force, the first-ever Earth Day proclamation and the creation of Twitter, check out OnThatDay.

Today Is...

International Color Day is celebrated each year on March 21 by the International Color Association. Apparently they chose the date to mark the spring equinox, when light and dark are equal, though the equinox usually falls on March 19 or 20.

The human eye can detect more shades of green than any other color.

The color you see in a pitch-black room is "Dark Gray" not black and it is called "Eigengrau".

When asked to name a color, 60% of any sample will name the color “red.”

Just Completed

I've just completed my Encyclopedia of Trivia blog about the Big Bang. Did you know after the big bang only hydrogen and helium along with trace amounts of lithium and beryllium were created. The other 86 elements found in nature were all created by nuclear reactions inside stars; Check out my entry here.  

On This Day August 31

12 The Roman emperor Caligula was born Gaius Caesar.in Antium (modern day Anzio) on August 31, 12AD. His Roman general father, Germanicus Caesar was the adopted son of Tiberius. The infant Gaius traveled with his parents among the legions of Rome and the soldiers were amused when he wore a miniature soldier costume He was soon given his nickname "Caligula" (or Caligulae), meaning "Little Soldier('s boots)" in Latin, after the small boots he wore as part of his costume.

Emperor Caligula, Ny Carlsberg Glyptotek. By Louis le Grand

161 Roman emperor Lucius Aurelius Commodus Antoninus was born on August 31, 161 in Lanuvium, near Rome. He was the son of the reigning emperor, Marcus Aurelius, and Aurelius' first cousin, Faustina the Younger, the youngest daughter of Roman Emperor Antoninus Pius. Commodus ruled as co-emperor with his father Marcus Aurelius from 177 until his father's death in 180. His accession as emperor in 180 was the first time a son had succeeded his father since Titus succeeded Vespasian in 79.

1422 Henry V of England was prematurely aged due to living the hard life of a soldier. After he caught dysentery at the Siege of Meaux in May 1422 Henry's health steadily deteriorated in the following months. He died at the Chateau of Bois de Vincennes in France  on the morning of August 31, 1422 leaving as heir his nine month old son Henry. 

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Zoo

A zoo, short for zoological gardens is a place where animals are kept in captivity. Modern zoos are not only to be for people's entertainment, but for also education, research, and the conservation and protection of different species.

The "Tiergarten Schönbrunn", Vienna, 

HISTORY

Zoos with collections of native or exotic animals date back to ancient times. Private collections of animals and were first recorded in Egypt about 1500 BC, when one zoo, established by Queen Hatshepsut held leopards, monkeys, and a giraffe.

The ancient Chinese also kept animals for display. The earliest records of zoos in China are from the 12th century BC, during the Chou Dynasty. Animals collected from throughout the region were kept near the palace.

When The ancient Greeks imported peafowl from India, so many people came to view them that, for the first time an admission fee to a zoo was charged.

During Ptolemy II's reign in Egypt from 283 to 246 BC, he developed the Alexandria zoo into the greatest collection of animals the world had yet known.

Throughout the Middle Ages, rulers kept zoos or menageries for purposes of education or status, or to satisfy a fascination. Among them was the Caliph of Baghdad in the 8th century AD, Henry I of England in the 12th century, and the Mongol emperor Kublai Khan in the 13th century.

The Tower of London housed England's royal menagerie for several centuries.

Tower of London Picture from the 15th century, British Library

The first public zoo was the Viennese zoo at Schonbrunn. Founded as a royal menagerie in 1752, it opened to the public in 1765 - but only if the visitors were dressed properly.

The Paris Zoo began in 1626 as, the Jardin des Plantes, a physic garden growing medicinal herbs. In 1795, a public zoo inside the Jardin des Plantes was founded by Jacques-Henri Bernardin, with animals from King Louis XIV's menagerie at Versailles. primarily for scientific research and education.

The price of admission for a zoo in 18th century England was a dog or a cat - they were fed to the lions.

The Zoological Society of London was founded in 1826 and opened its gardens - the first to be called a zoo - in 1828. (It wasn't called "The Zoo until the 1920s). Originally intended to be used as a collection for scientific study, it was eventually opened to the public in 1847. Notices on the cages politely requested lady visitors to refrain from poking the beasts through the bars.

London Zoo 1835

In 1853, London Zoo opened the world's first public aquarium, the Aquatic Vivarium,

The oldest North American zoo is in Central Park, New York, City founded in 1865.

In 1859, the Philadelphia Zoological Society had made an effort to establish a zoo, but delayed opening it because of the American Civil War. It eventually opened on July 1, 1874 with 1,000 animals and an admission price of 25 cents.

Dallas Zoo started out with just two deer and two mountain lions. These animals went on display in 1888 at the zoo's original home in City Park.

Carl Hagenbeck, a German animal dealer and zoo owner, developed the moat technique of displaying animals, which greatly improved their conditions. Hagenbeck Zoo, founded in 1907, was the first zoo in the world to house animals in open-air pens.

The world's first open plan zoo, Whipsnade, in Bedfordshire, England, opened to the public in 1927.

The children's section of London Zoo was opened by the American Ambassador Joe Kennedy's young sons, six-year-old Teddy Kennedy and 12-year- old Bobby Kennedy, the younger brothers of future US President John F. Kennedy on June 2, 1938.

ZOO FUN FACTS

Adolf Hitler was the first European leader to ban human zoos, a popular attraction in Europe where exotic peoples were paid to be on exhibit for onlookers, with recreated habitats and shows. Belgium was the last to ban them, in 1958.

Wilhelm II during a visit on 1909 to Hagenbeck Zoo speaking with human exhibitions.

The Skansen Zoo in Stockholm once let a king cobra wander across zoo grounds at night to stop a spate of burglaries—it worked.

When poisonous frogs are fed zoo diets they no longer become poisonous. The wide variety of food in the wild supplies them with the chemicals for making poison.

In the elections for mayor of Rio de Janeiro in 1988 the population was so unhappy with politicians, that a well-known monkey of the local zoo received over 400,000 votes.

The zoo in Tokyo closes for two months of the year so animals can have a holiday from visitors.

The Pyongyang Central Zoo in North Korea is home to a parrot than can squawk "Long live the Great Leader, Comrade Kim Il-sung" in English.

The actress Betty White is a huge animal lover who would have become a zookeeper had she not gone into acting. She rejected a role in As Good As It Gets because of an animal cruelty scene, she visits local zoos when traveling, and she's been a long-term board member and generous donor to the Los Angeles Zoo.

Source Compton's Encyclopedia