News, Entertainment, Enlightenment
Mitsuo Fuchida was the guy who led the sneak attack on Pearl Harbor and famously radioed Tora Tora Tora. He survived the war, became a Christian and then a permanent resident of the United States. He had a friendly conversation with Paul Tibbets who flew the Enola Gay that dropped the A-Bomb on Hiroshima. Fuchida said Tibbets did the right thing. It kind of completed the circle.
The first summer camp opened outside Wilkes Barre, Pa. in 1876. It was the North Mountain School of Physical Culture.
Yes Robert James, the original SweeTarts trademark belonged to a company that sold dried prunes. The candy marker Sunline Inc. started using it when it turned its Pixy Stix powder into tablets to make the less messy. The fruit company sued by the candy maker won when a judge ruled the trademark became invalid for lack of use.
Claude Shannon Roulette — Michigan-born Claude Shannon, who died in 1981, is one of history’s math greats. When he wasn’t founding things like information theory and digital circuit design, he was cheating Las Vegas casinos at roulette table.
Yes, he and and colleague Ed Sharp designed and used in 1961 a small computer to let them win at roulette.
There are 1,022,000 words in English. At least that was the estimate in 2010 by Harvard University and Google. Most adult native speakers of the tongue use only about 30,000.
On this date in 1961, The U.S. Air Force put 480,000,000 copper dipoles in orbit in an experiment called Project West Ford. It was a truly great day in science. Almost as good as this one.
Hey hey my my. Rock and roller Neil Young holds patents — 22 patents, actually — for model rail technology. And for an Omnibit that you might have even a harder time getting your mind around, Johnny Rotten is now an American and voting for Donald Trump. My my hey hey.
Some 16,000 books have been written about Abraham Lincoln — more than any other historical figure except Jesus.
The Louvre, the great French museum, was originally a 12-century fortress.
The only other person to wear Neil Armstrong’s space suit was Pierre Cardin.