Awww Monday: What's this for?

What's this for, mommy?  May i sleep in it?

It is kind of small for a bed, but what else is it for?

Until they learn to eat dry food, they just aren't sure what the bowls are for.


Today is:

Constitution Day -- South Africa (the 1993 Constitution, granting blacks the right to vote, was approved)

Day of Ardvi Sura (Aredvi Sura Anahita), Mother of the Stars -- Ancient Persian Calendar (date approximate)

Feast of the Virgen de Chiquinquirá -- Maracaibo, Venezuela

Hap-Dancing and Tiger-Tuning -- Fairy Calendar

Independence Day -- Morocco(1956); Western Saraha(1975)

Married to a Scorpio Support Day -- remembering those married to Scorpios (like me!) and suffering because of it, and encouraging them too hide the flow charts and assert themselves today; sponsored by Wellcat Holidays

National Day -- Oman (trad.; will be observed Nov. 27)

National French Vichyssoise Day

Ned Ludd Memorial Machine-Smashing Day -- internet generated, but enjoy!  i know this first-cousin-to-a-Luddite will

Proclamation of the Republic -- Latvia (1918)

Push-Button Phone Day -- launched this day in 1963

Revolution Day -- Mexico

St. Odo of Cluny's Day (Patron of needed rain)

Total Disregard for Taste Day -- marking the debut of Howard Stern's radio show on this day in 1985

Vertieres Day -- Haiti (Army Day)

William Tell Day -- the famed apple-off-his-son's-head-shot was today in 1307



Birthdays Today:

Owen Wilson, 1968
Elizabeth Perkins, 1960
Sinbad, 1956
Katy Sagal, 1956
Wilma Mankiller, 1945
Linda Evans, 1942
Brenda Vaccaro, 1939
Mickey Mouse, 1928
Alan Shepard, Jr., 1923
John Herndon (Johnny) Mercer, 1909
Imogene Coca, 1908
George Gallup, 1901
Eugene Ormandy, 1899
Clarence Shepard Day, 1874
Dorothy Dix (Elizabeth Meriwether Gilmer), 1861
Ignacy Jan Paderewski, 1860
Sir William Schwenck Gilbert, 1836
Louis-Jacques Daguerre, 1787
Sojourner Truth, 1787


Debuting/Premiering Today:

Calvin and Hobbes, 1985 (in this first strip, Calvin catches Hobbes in a tiger trap baited with a tuna sandwich)
See It Now, 1951
Steamboat Willie (a/k/a Mickey Mouse), 1928
US Uniform Time Zone Plan, 1883 (on this date, the railroads adopted the current uniform time zone plan; it wasn't legally mandated until 1918)


Today in History:

Old St. Peter's Basilica is consecrated, 326
The Japanese Emperor Kammy relocates the residence of Nara to Kioto, 794
William Tell shoots the apple off his son's head, 1307
The Holland/Zealand dikes break during a storm, resulting in thousands of deaths, 1421
The first English printed book, "Dictes & Sayengis of the Phylosophers", is published, 1477
Christopher Columbus first sights the island now known as Puerto Rico, 1493
Vasco da Gama reaches the Cape of Good Hope, 1497
The worst earthquake in Massachusetts Bay/Boston area, 1755
The first Unitarian Minister in the US is ordained in Boston, 1787
30 women meet at Mrs Silas Lee's home in Wiscasset Maine, to organize the Female Charitable Society, first woman's club in America, 1805
Mark Twain's story The Celebrated Jumping Frog of Calaveras County is published in the New York Saturday Press, 1865
National Woman's Christian Temperance Union organizes in Cleveland, 1874
Standard time zones are formed by railroads in the US and Canada, 1883
The first newspaper Sunday color comic strip is printed, in the NY World, 1894
Britain flies its first sea plane, 1911
Lincoln Deachey performs the first airplane loop-the-loop, over San Diego, 1913
Sigma Alpha Rho, a Jewish high school fraternity, is founded in Philadelphia, Pennsylvania, 1917
Release of the animated short Steamboat Willie, the first fully synchronized sound cartoon, directed by Walt Disney and Ub Iwerks, featuring the third appearances of cartoon characters Mickey Mouse and Minnie Mouse, 1928
Off the south coast of Newfoundland in the Atlantic Ocean, a Richter magnitude 7.2 submarine earthquake, centered on Grand Banks, breaks 12 submarine transatlantic telegraph cables and triggers a tsunami that destroys many south coast communities in the Burin Peninsula, 1929
New York City's Mad Bomber places his first bomb at a Manhattan office building used by Consolidated Edison, 1940
In the United States, the North American Free Trade Agreement (NAFTA) is ratified, 1993
HIP 13044 b, a planet that was formed in another galaxy, is discovered in the Helmi Stream, 2010