Too much going on to remember!

America the Beautiful

The national hymn, "America the Beautiful," was published in "The Congregationalist" in 1895. The poem was written by a Wellesley College English literature professor, Katharine Lee Bates, to commemorate the Fourth of July.

Museums, galleries

Ancient art was displayed in caves. As time went by, artists' work was displayed in homes and then in galleries and museums; art museums developed from great private collections assembled by royalty, the aristocracy, and the wealthy. A form of art collecting was practiced in the earliest civilizations, with precious objects and artworks stored in temples, tombs, sanctuaries, and the palaces and treasuries of kings. Such collections frequently included booty taken from conquered peoples, and served to exalt the power and glory of a king or a priestly caste rather than to display art objects for their innate significance. The great private collections of European royalty began to be opened to public viewing, and eventually monarchs and aristocrats began donating their holdings to the public. The movement of artworks from private collections into museums has been a dominant feature of art collecting ever since.

Airship

In July 1919, a British dirigible, R-34, made the first round-trip transatlantic flight. Despite great achievements, airships were virtually abandoned in the late 1930s because of their cost, slow speed, and intrinsic vulnerability to stormy weather.

Aborigines

Aborigines are those believed to have been the first inhabitants of a country ab origine, i.e., "from the beginning." The nomadic natives of Australia have been called Aborigines, which means "first people," but it was the original possessors of Greece and Italy who were first referred to by that name; the term was later extended to the original occupants of other countries such as Australia. The Australian aborigines arrived from Asia thousands of years before the Europeans discovered Australia at the end of the 18th century. They were expert hunters, even in the desert, and used the boomerang and the throwing spear as weapons.

Buddha's Eightfold Path

The Eightfold Path teaches that the way Buddhists lead their lives should be correct in eight important aspects. Those who follow the noble Eightfold Path are freed from the suffering that is an essential part of human existence and are led ultimately to nirvana, or enlightenment. The Eightfold Path consists of: (1) right understanding-faith in the Buddhist view of the nature of existence in terms of the Four Noble Truths; (2) right thought-the resolve to practice the faith; (3) right speech-avoidance of falsehoods, slander, or abusive speech; (4) right action-abstention from taking life, stealing, and improper sexual behavior; (5) right livelihood-rejection of occupations not in keeping with Buddhist principles; (6) right effort-avoidance of bad mental states and development of good ones; (7) right mindfulness-awareness of the body, feelings, and thought; and (8) right concentration.

More Facts of the Day

Star Wars
The first Star Wars movie was released in 1977. The studio was unhappy with Star Wars as a title after negative market testing. A competition was held during shooting for cast and crew to come up with a better one, but nothing stuck. The film was initially budgeted at $8 million but production problems forced the studio to contribute an additional $3 million. Within three weeks of the film's release, 20th Century Fox's stock price doubled to a record high. Its success spawned a host of other science fiction films using the same newly developed computer-based special-effects technologies that Star Wars had used so effectively. The famous opening title sequence of the Star Wars series was first used in a series called Phantom Creeps (1939). George Lucas is said to have based the character of Hans Solo (Harrison Ford) on his friend, director Francis Ford Coppola.

Stratosphere
In 1931, Auguste Piccard and Paul Kipfer made the first manned balloon flight into the stratosphere. They were launched in a balloon, designed by Piccard, from Augsburg, Germany and in a pressurized cabin they rose almost 10 miles (51,775 feet) during the flight. During the flight, Piccard gathered valuable information regarding the intensity of cosmic rays in the stratosphere and also recorded a wide range of stratospheric temperatures.

Guillotine
The guillotine was named for Dr. Joseph Guillotin, the French physician and member of the National Assembly during the French Revolution, who proposed the method of decapitation for death sentences. He saw this method as less painful and more certain than previously used methods. The guillotine was first used in April 1792 for the execution of highwayman Nicolas Jacques Pelletier. At first the machine was called Louisette, or Louison, but soon became known as la guillotine. In September 1981, France outlawed capital punishment and abandoned the use of the guillotine.

Indianapolis 500
The Indianapolis 500 is recognized as the world's largest one-day sporting event. First run in 1911, it is an annual Memorial Day weekend tradition. The race was not run in 1917-1918 and 1942-1945. The Indianapolis Motor Speedway was built in 1909 as a testing facility for the local automotive industry. The track was first paved with crushed rock and tar but then repaved with brick; hence the speedway is often called "the Brickyard." Resurfacing with asphalt has covered all but a 36-inch strip of bricks at the start/finish line. The 2 1/2-mile track has two 3,300-foot straightaway’s, two 660-foot straightaway’s, and four quarter-mile turns each banked to around 9 degrees.

Fireworks
Fireworks originated with the ancient Chinese, from military rockets and explosive missiles. During the Middle Ages in Europe, fireworks spread as a type of military explosive. Later, pyrotechnics came to be used in celebrations of victory and peace.

Lax on Facts!

Preakness
The Preakness is a Triple Crown race for three-year-old thoroughbred horses held at Pimlico Race Course in Baltimore, Maryland, annually. Fillies carry 121 pounds, colts 126 pounds. The course is 1 3/16-mile; the race was first run in 1873. It follows the Kentucky Derby and precedes the Belmont Stakes. The Preakness was the brainchild of Maryland governor Oden Bowie, a sportsman and racing entrepreneur. Governor Bowie, whose term had ended in 1872, named the race in honor of Preakness, an impressive colt who had won the Dinner Party Stakes in 1870, at the opening of the Pimlico Race Course.

Crater Lake
Crater Lake in Oregon was first discovered by white explorers in 1853. A couple of years later, William Gladstone Steele saw the lake and made it his mission to establish the lake (6 miles in diameter) and surrounding area (286 square miles) as a national park, which finally took place in 1902. The lake is within a volcanic caldera and it may be a remnant of Mount Mazama, a volcano that rose to probably 12,000 feet until an eruption about 7,000 years ago destroyed the upper portion - or it may be of meteoric origin. Its maximum depth is 1943 feet, making it the deepest lake in the United States and the seventh deepest in the world. Its waters are extremely clear and it is often possible to see to a depth of more than 100 feet.

Victoria Day
Victoria Day commemorates the birthday of Queen Victoria, the British sovereign, in 1819. After Victoria's death in 1901, an act of the Canadian Parliament established Victoria Day as a legal holiday, to be celebrated on the Monday before May 24. It has now become a day for Canadians to celebrate all British sovereigns' birthdays.

Geography Bee
In the last National Geographic Literacy Survey, about 11 percent of 18-to-24-year-old citizens of the U.S. could not even locate the U.S. on a map. The Pacific Ocean's location was a mystery to 29 percent; Japan, to 58 percent; France, to 65 percent; and the United Kingdom, to 69 percent. More young U.S. citizens in the study knew that the island featured in the TV show "Survivor" was in the South Pacific than could find Israel. Each year thousands of schools in the U.S. participate in the National Geographic Bee using materials prepared by the National Geographic Society. The contest is designed to encourage teachers to include geography in their classrooms, spark student interest in the subject, and increase public awareness about geography.

Constitutional Convention
The Constitutional Convention met at the State House in Philadelphia, Pennsylvania and there were 55 delegates to the Convention. Twelve of the thirteen states were represented; Rhode Island did not send delegates to the Convention. The Constitution was drafted in 1787. The Constitution became law on June 21, 1788 after 2/3 of the states ratified it. Not all the states had ratified the Constitution by April 30, 1789 when George Washington became the first President of the United States. The structure of the document has not changed since it was written but amendments have provided the flexibility necessary to meet changing circumstances. The Constitution is preserved for all to view at the National Archives in Washington, D.C.

Moving update

We are not moving after all. Hubby didn't get the job. It's good in a way. We won't have to deal with packing things up and moving them clear across the country. Our son won't have to leave his friends. And we won't have to worry about what to do with our house. I was getting kind of hyped up about moving though. I guess after spending 20 years with the military and having to move about every 4 years, you never really get over the moving bug. I was sort of looking forward to living in an area that had lots of big trees and not just the scraggly looking mesquites like we have here. At least now I don't have to worry about having to deal with the local public school superintendent. Whew! I haven't had to deal with the local school district in all these years and I wasn't looking forward to doing it now. Thank goodness! My son is happier too. Although I'm still not happy that my husband has to continue to work in another city and the fact that we only get to see him on weekends. We are still hoping that he will find a job that is closer to home. Until then, I'm happy to continue on with homeschooling my son in a state that is very homeschool friendly!

Oops, I'm still bad...Facts of the Day

Academy Awards

The first Academy Awards were held in 1929 with about 270 people attending at the Hollywood Roosevelt Hotel. The silent film Wings won Best picture and there were only 12 categories for awards the first time; there are now 25 categories (not including scientific and technical, special achievement, and honorary awards). The Academy Awards was first televised in 1953. The design for the award statuette - a knight standing on a reel of film and holding a sword - is credited to Metro-Goldwyn-Mayer (MGM) art director Cedric Gibbons. The statuette stands 13.5 inches tall and weighs 8.5 pounds. The true origin of the nickname Oscar has not been determined.

Brown v Board of Education

In May 1954, the U.S. Supreme Court ruled unanimously that segregation of public schools "solely on the basis of race" denied "equal educational opportunity" even if "physical facilities and other 'tangible' factors may have been equal." The case, Brown v. Board of Education, was argued by Thurgood Marshall, then director of the NAACP Legal Defense Fund, who went on to become the first black appointed to the Supreme Court. Marshall presented evidence showing that separating black and white students discriminated against blacks, placing them at a severe disadvantage. He argued that segregated schools were not and could never be equal. Such schools, he said, violated the equal protection guarantee of the 14th Amendment.

Gertrude Elion

Gertrude Belle Elion, American pharmacologist who was the co-recipient of the 1988 Nobel Prize for Physiology and Medicine, was the first woman to be inducted as a member of the National Inventors Hall of Fame (1991). Elion won the Nobel for developing drugs for the treatment of leukemia, autoimmune disorders, urinary-tract infections, gout, malaria, and viral herpes. Even in retirement, Elion helped oversee the development of azidothymidine (AZT), the first drug used in the treatment of AIDS.

Gone With the Wind

After an ankle injury in 1926, Margaret Mitchell (1900-1949) left the Atlanta Journal newspaper and for the next 10 years worked slowly on a romantic novel about the Civil War and Reconstruction as seen from a southern point of view. For six years after it was finished, the novel was set aside by Mitchell. But in 1935, Mitchell was persuaded to submit her manuscript for publication and it came out the next year. Within six months 1 million copies had been sold; 50,000 copies were sold in one day. It has sold more copies than any other novel in U.S. publishing history, and was eventually translated into 25 languages. It was awarded the Pulitzer Prize in 1937 and made into a movie in 1939. Mitchell, who had trouble adjusting to her celebrity and never attempted another book, died after an automobile accident in 1949.

Amelia Earhart

Amelia Earhart was the first woman to fly solo across the Atlantic Ocean, departing Newfoundland, Canada and landing near Londonderry, Ireland - 2026 miles total in a record time of 14 hours 56 minutes. Earhart refused to wear typical flying gear; she wore a suit or dress instead and a close-fitting hat instead of a helmet and no goggles until landing. She died on July 2, 1937, en route from Lae, New Guinea to Howland Island; the U.S. spent $4 million looking for Earhart, making it the most costly and intensive air and sea search in history to that date.

Oops, my bad...Facts of the Day

Sutton Hoo
The Sutton Hoo ship burial mounds of the 6th and 7th centuries, discovered in Suffolk, England in 1939, were the richest treasure found in British soil. It was the Royal Cemetery of the Wuffingas, early Anglo-Saxon kings of East Anglia. The largest of the burial mounds was found to cover a Saxon boat, its form preserved only by the impression left in the sand by its vanished timbers, with their iron bolts still in their original positions. The boat had been propelled by 38 oars; there was no mast. The grave goods include a decorated helmet, sword, and shield; ceremonial whetstone; gold belt buckle; purse and cloak clasps; Millefiori glass; cloisonné garnets; Merovingian gold coins; and Byzantium silver vessels and spoons. It is likely to have been prepared as a cenotaph in honor of Redwald (d. 625), an important East Anglian king. The treasure shows a higher cultural level and wider commercial contacts than had previously been figured for the early Saxon period in England. This type of funerary ritual is known from Migration Period Europe and is described in the Anglo-Saxon poem Beowulf. The ship and artifacts are now housed in the British Museum.

Odometer and Speedometer
An odometer registers the distance traveled by a vehicle. An odometer consists of a train of gears (with a gear ratio of 1,000:1) that causes a drum, graduated in 10ths of a mile, to make one turn per mile. A series, commonly of six, such drums is arranged in such a way that one of the numerals on each drum is visible in a rectangular window. The drums are coupled so that 10 revolutions of the first cause 1 revolution of the second, and so forth; the numbers appearing in the window represent the vehicle's accumulated mileage. A speedometer is an instrument that indicates the speed of a vehicle. The speed-indicating mechanism of the speedometer is run by a circular permanent magnet that is rotated 1,000 revolutions per mile of vehicle travel by a flexible shaft driven by gears at the rear of the transmission. The magnet turns within a movable metal cup that is attached to the shaft carrying the indicator. As the magnet rotates, it exerts a magnetic drag on the cup that turns i t against a spiral spring. The faster the magnet rotates, the greater the pull on the cup and the pointer. Thomas Jefferson was the first to use the word odometer in writing in 1791; speedometer did not appear in writing until 1904.

Pope
The pope is elected by the College of Cardinals. Nine days after a deceased pope's funeral, the cardinals gather to elect a new pope. The voting is very secretive and the new pope must get over two-thirds of the votes. If after a week, the cardinals still have not picked a new pope, then they can choose someone who only garners half of the votes. The results are sent to the people outside the Vatican using smoke signals. Black smoke means the cardinals have not made up their minds yet. White smoke means they have chosen a new pope. There have been more than 265 holders of the office of pope from Saint Peter to John Paul II.

Migration
Migration is the seasonal movement of a population of animals to a different environment, most common in certain species of birds - such as Arctic terns, which migrate annually 17,600 km between their breeding ground in the Arctic Circle and the Antarctic. Migration is also observed in mammals such as porpoises, fish like eels and salmon, and some insects. Birds' migration is fascinating and it is based on their high metabolic rate, which means they require a rich, abundant supply of food at frequent intervals. Birds employ sighting - using landmarks and geographical features like rivers, coastlines, and mountain ranges. They also monitor the Earth's magnetic field, apparently with their visual system and with tiny grains of a mineral called magnetite in their heads. Birds also observe the stars, use the Sun for guidance, rely on their sense of smell, and may follow their neighbors.

Hurricane Season
The hurricane season generally is from June to November, with a great many in September when the surface ocean temperature warms to over 27 degrees C. Meteorological and oceanographic conditions are conducive during most of this period to the formation of hurricanes. Tropical storms reaching a hurricane velocity of more than 75 miles per hour are common in the northern Caribbean as well as in the Gulf of Mexico; they are almost nonexistent in the far south. The Caribbean has fewer hurricanes than either the western Pacific (where these storms are called typhoons) or the Gulf of Mexico. Hurricanes are divided into five categories, ranging from minimal to catastrophic.

Moving?

There is a very big possibility that we will be moving to Georgia. Not that we really want to, but my husband may have a job there. He flies out there Wed. for a Thurs. interview. Now to me, that would indicate that he has the job if he wants it. A company doesn't spend all that money just to tell you no. I am really torn about it too. My son has said that he will not move (of course he will since he's underage) and I don't really want to leave my home. I'm not real concerned about the homeschool laws out there. I can circumvent those, but the "rules" are so ridiculous it's funny. I do object to having to report anything to the local school superintendent though. I've never had to do that.

Just in case we do move, I've been doing some research on local homeschool groups and other activities that my son can become involved in. If the job does happen, then I will be able to find out more about the area we will be moving to and also get connected to the homeschool community ahead of time. My son doesn't want to leave his friends...really I think it's his one best friend. It's taken him a while to make some friends and I really don't want to take him away from that. That's why I want to get involved before we would move so that he would have some connection beforehand with other kids out there. I think though that now that my son realizes that people do accept him for who he is, that he won't have any problem making new friends. He is more outgoing now. He may not go right up to someone and start talking to them, but if they talk to him, he will converse with them.

I considered the possibility of putting my son back in public school, thinking that would be easier for him to acclimate himself into the local teen scene. But after looking at the requirements for kids going into public school, I changed my mind. They require several vaccinations and a letter from the health dept. that the child received those vaccinations. Now my son has had almost all of his shots except chicken pox and meningitis. For one, I've heard that some people who have gotten the chicken pox vaccination still get the disease. So what's the point in getting vaccinated? I don't know about the meningitis one. I don't really believe that either vaccination has been around long enough to know what the side effects are of the shot. If it wasn't for the shots, I seriously might consider putting him in public school. He would hate it I'm sure. He doesn't like most p.s. kids. Guess he's prejudice. I told him not all p.s. kids are bad. Just look at his bowling teammate. She's a great kid, but then she is an exception. Anyway, the vaccinations are my main reason for NOT putting him into p.s. in Georgia.

I'm still checking into all of the other rules and regulations. I've got to really investigate the driving requirements. It may take longer for him to get a license out there. And I wouldn't be able to use the driving program I bought which would suck.

I think it's so much harder to move while homeschooling than it was when my kids were in p.s. Seriously! I didn't have to deal with the different rules and regulations when they were in p.s. They were up-to-date on their shots and I had all their school records either with me or sent to the new school from the old one. With homeschooling, you have to find out what the other state requires and if they are homeschool friendly (and Texas is!). I would have to keep records for things that I didn't do before. And then submit some of those records to the local superintendent! I really don't want anything to do with the local schools. A lot of them tend to overstep their bounds.

Guess there's no reason to get all worked up about it though. I will have to wait until hubby goes for his interview and then he should know something within a few days of that. I'll let you know what happens.

MOMSENSE

Facts of the Day!

Sack of Rome
The Renaissance ended with the Sack of Rome by the armies of the Holy Roman emperor Charles V, in May 1527. In eight days, his Spanish troops and German mercenaries killed around 4,000 Romans and looted works of art and literature. Even the Pope, Clement VII, was imprisoned. Though the Renaissance was effectively ended, Rome bounced back and by 1600, it was once again a prosperous city.

Inauguration
The first U.S. inauguration was held in 1789 - for George Washington - at Federal Hall in New York City. Washington's second inauguration (and that of his successor, John Adams) was held in Philadelphia because the capital had been moved there. Thomas Jefferson was the first president to be inaugurated in Washington, D.C. Any Presidents who assume office upon the death of their predecessor take the oath wherever they are and do not have inaugurations: Chester Arthur took the oath in New York City; Theodore Roosevelt in Buffalo, New York; Calvin Coolidge in Plymouth, Vermont; and Lyndon Johnson in Dallas, Texas. The word inaugurate is from Latin and it meant "to take omens from the flight of birds and to install or consecrate after takes such omens (or auguries)."

Mother's Day
The second Sunday in May is set aside in the United States to celebrate mothers. There is also a Mother's Day celebration in the United Kingdom, Denmark, Finland, Italy, Turkey, Australia, Mexico, Canada, China, Japan, and Belgium. England's "Mothering Sunday", similar to Mother's Day, is also called Mid-Lent Sunday and it is observed on the fourth Sunday in Lent, though it has largely been replaced by Mother's Day on the second Sunday in May. Anna Jarvis, born in Grafton, West Virginia in 1864, started the movement to have a Mother's Day. She wrote letters to politicians, newspaper editors, and church leaders and organized a committee called Mother's Day International Association to promote the new holiday. She wanted Mother's Day to be close to Memorial Day so people would recognize mothers for the sacrifices they made for their families in the same way that service people had for their country. The first official Mother's Day observance was in May 1907. President Woodrow Wilson gave the day national recognition in 1914. Jarvis spent the last years of her life trying to abolish the holiday she had brought into being, because she protested its commercialization.

V-E Day
V-E Day stands for Victory in Europe Day, commemorating the unconditional surrender of Germany to Allied forces on May 8, 1945. Adolf Hitler declared that Germany had proved unworthy of him and committed suicide in his Berlin bunker on April 30, 1945. Hitler's successor, Admiral Karl Dönitz, started negotiations with the Western powers, hoping to save as many troops and refugees as possible from Soviet reprisals. But the U.S.S.R. refused to recognize the surrender ceremony at U.S. General Dwight Eisenhower's headquarters on May 7 (the hostilities set to end at one minute past midnight May 9, 1945 - or 9:01pm Eastern on May 8 in the U.S.). A separate German surrender to the USSR was signed and a separate Soviet V-E Day held, in Berlin on May 8 to end the war once and for all.

Railroad
The Union Pacific Railroad Company extended the American railroad system to the Pacific coast - built westward from Omaha, Nebraska, for 1006 miles to meet the Central Pacific Railroad's line, which was built from Sacramento, California, at Promontory Point, Utah. On that day, a golden spike was driven by Leland Stanford, present of the Central Pacific, to celebrate the linkage in 1869. This was a very important part (1800 miles' worth) of the first American transcontinental railway line.

Missed the weekend, so here's todays Facts of the Day

Skyscraper
The first skyscraper was built in 1884-1885 in Chicago. The 10-story Home Insurance Company building was designed by William Le Baron Jenney. It had a steel frame (steel-girder construction) to carry the weight of the building. The walls provided no support, but hung like curtains on the metal frame. This method of construction revolutionized American architecture and allowed architects to build taller and taller buildings. This first skyscraper was demolished in 1931. From the debris of the 10-story Home Insurance Building rose a 43-story tower framed by four 22-story wings: the LaSalle National Bank Building, which was the last major skyscraper built in Chicago before World War II and the Great Depression. The term skyscraper, which came into use shortly after this first one was built, originally applied to buildings of 10 to 20 stories, but by the late 20th century the term was used to describe high-rise buildings of unusual height, usually greater than 40-50 stories.

Mother Goose
Who was Mother Goose? "Mother Goose" was first associated with nursery rhymes in an early collection of songs and lullabies sung by British nurses/caregivers, "Mother Goose's Melody" (or "Sonnets for the Cradle") published in 1781 by John Newbery. The Newbery Company may have derived the name "Mother Goose" from the title of Charles Perrault's French collection of fairy tales "Contes de ma mere l'oye," (or "Tales of Mother Goose" - which means fairytales or old wives' tales) published in 1697.

Orthodox Easter
Why is Easter on different dates for the Orthodox Church? Since the Council of Nicaea in 325, Easter has been the Sunday after the full moon after the vernal (spring) equinox. However, there is still a difference between Eastern Orthodox and Western Orthodox churches, mainly because almost all Orthodox Churches, even those who otherwise use the Gregorian calendar, use the Julian date for the equinox. Thus the date of Orthodox Easter sometimes coincides with the western Easter date, but it is usually one or four or five weeks later.

Pitcher's Elbow
Pitcher's elbow or thrower's elbow is a term used for the injuries associated with a baseball pitcher's throwing method or overuse. Professional baseball pitchers produce arm speeds of 7000 degrees per second as the arm rotates inwards. The elbow is subjected to violent forces during all phases of the pitching motion. There can be damage to the triceps muscle, its tendon, and the olecranon process (the tip of the elbow) which may suffer stress fractures. Pitchers are also predisposed to osteoarthritis in the arm. Until about 1870, the pitcher was merely a player assigned to put the ball in play by pitching it to the batter to hit. Now, until a batter hits the ball, the game is a duel between the pitcher (and catcher) and the batter. Of a major league's team roster of 25, usually 11-12 are pitchers.

James Beard
James Beard (1903-1985) was called the "Father of American Cooking." He wrote more than 20 classic cookbooks and appeared on television's first cooking show ("I Love to Cook") in 1946. He championed American cooking throughout the world. Beard's Greenwich Village (New York City) brownstone was the site of his cooking school and is considered America's only culinary historic landmark. It is the headquarters of the James Beard Foundation.

End of the first week

Today is the end of the first week of the new school year. Even though he hasn't started todays work, it has been a fairly good week. There were only three days this week so it wasn't all that strenuous. My son managed to do all of one assignment in one day so that left him extra time the other days. In fact yesterday he only had to do Algebra, Geography and Biology. Even though I have things assigned on certain days, it doesn't mean that he can't work on the other days assignments that day too. He can work ahead all he wants but he is not to do so much work on one subject that he neglects the others like he has done in the past. I told him that I don't want him to become overwhelmed by the amount of work he has to do each day. He still hasn't started some of his other subjects like computer and foreign language. Those will come later when I see how well he is doing and what days he will have more time to work on other subjects. He hasn't started his outside classes yet either, so that will be a challenge for him once he begins those.

Now if I could just get him to get up out of that bed when I first wake him, instead of getting up an hour later!

Today's Facts of the Day

Audubon
John James Audubon (1785-1851) was a youngster growing up in France when he developed an interest in drawing birds. At 18, he was sent to the United States to avoid having to serve in the army and he became fascinated with North American birds - which he studied from Florida to Labrador in Canada. In 1824, he started to consider publishing the exquisite drawings but was advised to seek a European publisher because the methods for printing the drawings were more advanced there. The engraver Robert Havell of London undertook the project and published the four-volume The Birds of America with its 435 hand-colored plates between 1827-1838. The Audubon Society was founded in 1905. Although Audubon had no role in the organization that bears his name, there is a connection: George Bird Grinnell, one of the founders of the early Audubon Society in the late 1800s, was tutored by Lucy Audubon, John James's widow.

Morse Code
There are actually two codes called "Morse Code," though Samuel F.B. Morse invented only one (during the 1830s) - which was for telegraphy. The second one, a variant that proved simpler and more precise than the original, the International Morse Code (or Continental Morse Code), was devised in 1851 and it is the one with which we are familiar. In both, dots, dashes, and spaces represent the alphabet, numerals, and punctuation marks. Except for some minor changes in 1938, the International Morse Code has stayed the same and is still used for certain types of radiotelegraphy, like amateur radio.

Biological Clock
In 1994, researchers at Northwestern University announced the discovery of the so-called biological clock. It is purported to be a gene that governs the daily cycle of waking and sleeping called the circadian rhythm. Circadian rhythms are patterns seen in virtually all animals and plants. These rhythms are controlled by biological clocks - which are not perfect timekeepers. When there is an absence of external clues, as is the case in long airplane flights that cause jet lag - the rhythms tend to get off course and need to be reset. Light seems to be the key to reset many biological clocks - specifically, blue light. That is why jet lag can be helped by exposure to sunlight.

Arbor Day
Arbor Day is a day to honor and plant trees and its celebration (the last Friday in April, though dates can differ due to local climate) is generally a good time for planting trees in the U.S. J. Sterling Morton, the U.S. secretary of agriculture under President Grover Cleveland (1893-1897) was the founder of Arbor Day. An early proponent of forestation, Morton urged Nebraska, where he lived, to set aside a day to encourage the planting of trees. The holiday was first observed in April 1872 and was very successful; more than a million trees were planted on that first Arbor Day.

Bugs Bunny
Bugs Bunny debuted in 1938 in the theatrical short "Porky's Hare Hunt." Chuck Jones and Tex Avery further developed the character to ask, "What's up, Doc?" in 1940, when he also kissed his foe, Elmer Fudd. The rabbit's noisy munching on carrots was based on Clark Gable's carrot chewing in the movie It Happened One Night (1934).

Yesterdays Facts of the Day

Kindergarten
Kindergarten (German for 'children's garden') is a term coined by Friedrich Froebel of Germany, who was a pupil of the Swiss originators of the idea - though Maria Montessori had the same idea in Italy. In 1837 in Prussia, Froebel opened "a school for the psychological training of little children by means of play." By applying the name 'kindergarten,' he tried to describe it as an environment in which children grew freely like plants in a garden.

Daffodil
The daffodil's name is a variant of the obsolete affodill, from Latin asphodelus and Greek asphodelos. The daffodil is of the genus Narcissus and was first written about in English in 1548, though back then it referred to both the white daffodil and yellow daffodil. The term, which took an unexplained initial "d" somewhere along the line, now refers only to the yellow Narcissus pseudo-Narcissus, which has a long, trumpet-shaped central corona (outgrowth of the corolla). This flower is also playfully called the daffadilly.

Passover
In Judaism, Passover (in Hebrew, Pesach/Pesah) commemorates the Hebrews' liberation from slavery in Egypt and the "passing over" of the forces of destruction, or the sparing of the first-born of the Israelites, when the Lord "smote the land of Egypt" on the eve of the Exodus. Passover starts on the 15th day of the month of Nisan (March or April) and extends for seven or eight days. All leavened products are prohibited but matzo may be eaten and it symbolizes the Hebrews' suffering in bondage and the speed with which they left Egypt. A special meal called the Seder is held on the first night, featuring foods also symbolic of the liberation.

Lunar Eclipse
When the Moon moves through the shadow of the Earth, it loses its bright direct illumination by the Sun, although its disk still remains faintly visible. Since the shadow of the Earth is directed away from the Sun, a lunar eclipse can occur only when there is a full Moon - that is, when the Moon is on the side of the Earth opposite to that of the Sun. The longest that the total eclipse can last is about one hour and 45 minutes. During the eclipse, the surface of the Moon cools, depending on the makeup of the lunar soil, which varies just like the Earth's soil varies.

ANZAC
ANZAC stands for Australian and New Zealand Army Corps and it is an abbreviation made famous during World War I in the Gallipoli (or Dardanelles) Expedition in 1915 in which combined Allied naval and military forces tried to capture the Gallipoli peninsula in Turkey so that a route would be opened to Russia. ANZAC, with a reputation of being elite troops, took much of the brunt of the battle, which lasted nine months and which was ultimately lost to the Turkish-German military.