Today, i'll keep it simple.

Rest in peace, Steve Jobs.

You changed our world.

His 2005 Commencement Address at Stanford is here.

The text only is here.


Today is:

Apple Butter Makin' Days -- Mt. Vernon, MO, US (through the 9th; making apple butter on the courthouse lawn, and lots of other fun)

Bathtub Day -- can't confirm this one, but it's as good a day as any to be glad you have one!

Composer Day -- Brazil

Feast Day of Ma'at -- Ancient Egyptian Calendar

Festival of the Deerk Toes -- Fairy Calendar

Festival of Juno Cutitis and Jupiter Fulgor -- Ancient Roman Calendar

Hull Fair -- Hull, England (through the 15th, closed Sunday; a fair that dates back over 700 years)

Kitchener-Waterloo Oktoberfest -- Kitchener and Waterloo, ON, Canada (through the 15th; second largest Oktoberfest in the world)

Lee's National Denim Day

Lepanto Day -- Greece

Nagasaki Kunchi -- Nagasaki, Japan (harvest festival, through the 9th)

National Diversity Day -- vow tolerance, embrace how differences make the world a better place

National Frappe Day

Our Lady of the Rosary -- Catholic Christian

St. Justina of Padua's Day

Tennessee Valley Old-Time Fiddlers Convention -- Athens, AL, US (200 contestants, 18 categories, all crammed into two music filled days; if you love old time fiddle music, this is the place for you)

Victoria, Lady of Victories Day a/k/a Pallas Athena -- Ancient Roman/Greek Calendar (goddess of triumph; date approximate)

World Smile Day / Send A Smile Day -- do one act of kindness, help one person smile

Yom Kippur -- Jewish (begins at sundown)



Birthdays Today:

Simon Cowell, 1959
Michael W. Smith, 1957
Yo-Yo Ma, 1955
Vladimir Putin, 1952
John Cougar Mellencamp, 1951
Bishop Desmond Tutu, 1931
R. D. Laing, 1927
June Allyson, 1917
Vaughn Monroe, 1911
Andy Devine, 1905
Niels Bohr, 1885
James Whitcomb Riley, 1849


Today in History:

The epoch of the modern Hebrew calendar (Proleptic Julian calendar), BC3761
The first public burning of books in Louvain, Netherlands, 1520
Ralph Wedgewood patents carbon paper in London, 1806
The first chartered railway in the US, the Granite Railway, begins operations, 1826
Spain abolishes slavery in Cuba, 1886
Henry Ford institutes the moving assembly line, 1913
Georgia Tech defeats Cumberland college in the infamous 222-0 football game, 1916
160 consecutive days of 100*F+ temperatures begin at Marble Bar, Australia, 1924
Beat poet Allen Ginsberg reads his poem "Howl" for the first time at a poetry reading in San Francisco, 1955
U.S.S.R. probe Luna 3 transmits first ever photographs of the far side of the moon, 1959
Nigeria joins the United Nations, 1960
Oman joins the United Nations, 1971
Cats opens on Broadway and begins a run of nearly 18 years, 1982
The Great Flood of 1993 ends at St. Louis, Missouri, 103 days after it began, 1993
Matthew Shepard, a gay student at the University of Wyoming, is found tied to a fence after being savagely beaten, 1998
The U.S. invasion of Afghanistan begins, 2001