Daily Calendar for Wednesday, September 13, 2023
Question of the Day
What is a gandy dancer?
Some railroad workers of the past were called this because of tools they used made by the Gandy Manufacturing Company of Chicago.
Advice of the Day
Harvest and tie up small bundles of dried, woody-stemmed herbs like bay, lavendar, or rosemary to scent your evening fires.
Home Hint of the Day
It can take years for new cedar shingles to weather to match the color of old ones. To make them blend in at once, mix up a solution of 1 pound of baking soda and 1/2 gallon of water. Brush onto the new shingles, and they’ll turn gray in a few hours.
Word of the Day
Syzygy
The nearly straight-line configuration that occurs twice a month, when the Sun and the Moon are in conjunction (on the same side of Earth at the new Moon) and when they are in opposition (on opposite sides of Earth at the full Moon). In both cases, the gravitational effects of the Sun and the Moon reinforce each other, and tidal range is increased.
Puzzle of the Day
Complete, I am an ill-placed zephyr; behead me, and I am floating logs; behead me again, and I am part of a ship. (What word fits the first clue? Follow the directions to form new words from it.)
Draft - raft - aft
Born
- Oliver Evans (inventor) –
- Clara Schumann (pianist & composer) –
- Milton Hershey (founder of Hershey Chocolate Company) –
- Adolf Meyer (psychiatrist) –
- Sherwood Anderson (writer) –
- Leland Hayward (producer) –
- Claudette Colbert (actress) –
- Horace Babcock (astronomer) –
- Roald Dahl (author) –
- Else Holmelund Minarik (children’s author; Little Bear” series”) –
- Mel Torme (singer) –
- Jacqueline Bisset (actress) –
- Peter Cetera (musician) –
- Nell Carter (actress & singer) –
- Anne Geddes (photographer) –
- Michael Johnson (Olympic athlete) –
- Tyler Perry (actor and screenwriter) –
- Stella McCartney (fashion designer) –
- Fiona Apple (singer) –
- Ben Savage (actor) –
Died
- John Barry (commodore, father of the American navy) –
- Richard Merrell (television writer & actor) –
- George Wallace (politician) –
- Dorothy McGuire (actress) –
- Dilhan Eryurt (Turkish astrophysicist) –
- Frank Vincent (actor) –
- Eddie Money (singer) –
Events
- Halford Mackinder’s team became the first Europeans to summit Mount Kenya–
- Henry Bliss walked off a trolley and was hit by a speeding driver. The following day when he died from his injuries, he became the first pedestrian to be killed by an automobile–
- The Chocolate Soldier opened in N.Y.C.–
- Chiang Kai-shek became president of China–
- Margaret Chase Smith became the first woman to serve in both houses of Congress–
- IBM introduced the first computer with a disk storage system–
- A protester dressed as Batman scaled the front wall of Buckingham Palace–
Weather
- Frost hit Albany, New York, ending the shortest growing season ever–