Smile!

Because it's Say Cheese Day.

Thought for the day, from Mel Prust:

"A computer lets you make mistakes faster than any invention in human history, with the possible exceptions of handguns and tequila."

Bumper Sticker of the Day:

HONK IF YOU LOVE JESUS
TEXT IF YOU WANT TO MEET HIM

T-shirt of the Day:

Of all the things I've lost, I miss my mind the most!


Today is:

Assistance Dog Week begins

Assyrian Martyrs Day -- various Assyrian communities

Battle of Boyaca Day -- Colombia

Feast of 'Aut-Yeb -- Ancient Egyptian Calendar (Personification of Female Joy; finding this on several sites, but none that have to do with Egypt, so celebrate at your own risk)

Harvest Holiday -- Slavic Pagan Calendar (reaping ceases for a few hours in honor of Volos' beard; bread is eaten and offerings given to Mother Earth and Volos for a bountiful harvest)

International Forgiveness Day

International Friendship Day

Joust of the Quintana -- Italy

National Lighthouse Day -- US

National Peacekeepers Day -- Canada

National Raspberries and Cream Day

Niigata Festival -- Niigata City, Japan (Heian period dress processions and fireworks, through the 9th)

Particularly Preposterous Packaging Day -- especially the kind no one can open without a machete, what's with that!

Professional Speaker's Day

Purple Heart Day -- US

Republic Day -- Cote d'Ivoire

Say "Cheese" Day (In my family, we do not say "Cheese". We say "Chicken Lips!" Try it some time when walking past tourists who are trying to get a good photo, and watch them smile genuine smiles and come up with a good picture.)

Sinjks Alka -- Sinj, Croatia (knight tournament)

Sisters Day

Smartest Leprechaun Eisteddfod -- Fairy Calendar

St. Albert of Trapani's Day

St. Cajetan's Day

Youth Day -- Kiribati


Birthdays Today:

Charlize Theron, 1975
David Duchovny, 1960
Garrison Keillor, 1942
B.J. Thomas, 1942
"The Amazing" James Randi, 1928
Carl "Alfalfa" Switser, 1927
Billie Burke, 1884
Mata Hari, 1876


Today in History:

Battle of Crannon between Athens and Macedon, following the death of Alexander the Great, BC322
Construction of the dome of Santa Maria del Fiore begins in Florence, 1420
Coup again the Tianshun Emperor by the Ming Dynasty Chinese military general Cao Qin, 1461
Francis Drake's fleet returns to Plymouth, 1573
The first documented performance of Macbeth, at the Great Hall at Hampton Court, 1606
Sieur de La Salle's brigantine Le Griffon becomes the first ship to sail the upper Great Lakes, 1679
Cherokee Indians take Ft. Loudon, Tennessee, 1760
George Washington creates the Order of the Purple Heart, 1782
Simon Bolivar triumphs over the Spanish at the Battle of Boyaca, 1819
The long simmering tension between the Hatfields and the McCoys on the Kentucky/West Virginia border erupts into full scale violence on election day, 1882
The Peace Bridge opens between Fort Erie, Ontario and Buffalo, New York, 1927
IBM dedicates the first program-controlled calculator, the Automatic Sequence Controlled Calculator (known best as the Harvard Mark I), 1944
Thor Heyerdahl's balsa wood raft the Kon-Tiki, smashes into the reef at Raroia in the Tuamotu Islands after a 101-day, 7,000 kilometres (4,300 mi) journey across the Pacific Ocean in an attempt to prove that pre-historic peoples could have traveled from South America, 1947
Explorer 6 transmits the first TV photo of Earth from space, 1959
The "artistic crime of the century" occurs when Philippe Petit of France, after months of planning and smuggling in materials, makes an illegal tightrope walk between the Twin Towers of the World Trade Center, 1974
Viking 2 enters orbit around Mars, 1976
The Washington Star ceases all operations after 128 years of publication, 1981
Takao Doi, Mamoru Mohri and Chiaki Mukai are chosen to be Japan's first astronauts, 1985
Barry Bonds of the San Francisco Giants breaks baseball great Hank Aaron's record by hitting his 756th home run, 2007