Out of this World News

For just a bit of out of this world news, rest assured that while the rest of us are concerned about the economy and the environment on our planet, NASA and other international space scientists are busy looking for another place for us to use.

It seems that they might want the first moon colony to be in the equivalent of a moon cave that is protected by a nice hard lava shell. These "lava tubes," which also occur on the earth and Mars, wouldn't suffer so much the onslaught of the moon's varying temperatures and meteor strikes. They may have even found the perfect cave or tube, in the Marius Hill region.

So, for those of you who want to be part of that first moon colony (tentative date of establishment of a temporary colony, sometime in 2025), rest assured that scientists are already scouting the real estate for "location, location, location."


Today is:

Festival of Sleep Day

Hero's Day, Haiti

Icing Morning -- Fairy Calendar

Humiliation Day

J.R.R. Tolkien Day

Memento More "Remember You Die" Day

National Chocolate Covered Cherry Day

St. Genevieve's Day (patron of Paris, secretaries, actors, lawyers; against drought, fever, floods, plague)

Tenth Day of Christmas


Anniversaries Today:

Alaska becomes the 49th US State, 1959


Birthdays Today

Eli Manning, 1981
Danica McKellar, 1975
Joan Chen, 1960
Mel Gibson, 1956
Victoria Principal, 1950
John Paul Jones, 1946
Stephen Stills, 1945
Van Dyke Parks, 1943
Dabney Coleman, 1932
George Martin, 1926
Maxine Andrews, 1918
Victor Borge, 1909
Ray Milland, 1905
Zasu Pitts, 1898
Marion Davies, 1897
J.R.R. Tolkien, 1892
Father Joseph Damien, 1840
William Tucker, 1624 (first African American child born in North America)
Cicero, BC106


Today in History:

Joan of Arc is handed over to the bishop for trial, 1431
Leonardo da Vinci unsuccessfully tests a flying machine, 1496
Martin Luther is formally excommunicated from the Roman Catholic Church, 1521
The first theater in Amsterdam, the Schouwburg, opens, 1638
Benning Wentworth issues the first of the New Hampshire Grants, leading to the establishment of Vermont as a separate state, 1749
Stephen F. Austin receives a grant of land in Texas from the government of Mexico, 1823
Joseph Jenkins Roberts is sworn in as the first president of the independent African Republic of Liberia, 1848
The Meiji Restoration returns authority to Japan's emperors, 1868
Oleomargarine is patented by Henry Bradley, Binghamton, NY, 1871
The wax drinking straw is patented, by Marvin C Stone in Washington DC, 1888
The first known use of the word automobile was seen in an editorial in The New York Times, 1899
Benito Mussolini announces he is taking dictatorial powers over Italy, dissolves the Italian parliament, 1925
Minnie D. Craig becomes the first female elected as Speaker of the North Dakota House of Representatives, the first female to hold a Speaker position anywhere in the United States, 1933
Edmund Hillary reaches South Pole overland, 1958