Daily Calendar for Monday, December 4, 2023
Question of the Day
Why is El Nino named for the Christ child?
The Spanish name El Nino (literally, “the son”) was coined by the fishermen of Ecuador and Peru to denote the warming of the coastal surface waters that often occurs in that area around Christmastime. Although this was a fairly regular seasonal event, the name later took on the larger meaning of any general warming trend and recently has come to mean the unseasonably warm weather patterns that occur two or three times a decade.
Advice of the Day
Create more space; donate used books to your local library.
Home Hint of the Day
When sanding wood by hand, always sand with the grain of the wood, especially when using coarse sandpaper. Otherwise you’ll scratch or mar the surface.
Word of the Day
Nephelococcygia
Sometimes clouds look like other objects, such as dragons, elephants, letters, and even people. Cloud naming is called nephelococcygia.
Puzzle of the Day
What word is that which by having a single letter transposed becomes its own opposite?
United (untied)
Died
- Armand-Jean du Plessis, Cardinal de Richelieu (French clergyman and statesman) –
- Frank Zappa (musician) –
- Besse Cooper (world’s oldest person at time of her death) –
Born
- Thomas Carlyle (historian) –
- Deanna Durbin (actress) –
- Ed Flesh (designer of the wheel on the TV game show Wheel of Fortune”“) –
- Roberta Lynn Bondar (astronaut) –
- Jeff Bridges (actor) –
- Marisa Tomei (actress) –
- Jay-Z (hip hop artist) –
Events
- At Fraunces Tavern in New York’s lower Manhattan, George Washington bade farewell to his officers of the Continental Army, before traveling to Annapolis, Maryland, to resign his commission as commander-in-chief–
- National Grange of the Patrons of Husbandry founded–
- Boss Tweed escaped jail–
- Crew of shipwrecked tanker Kyzikes rescued, Kill Devil Hills, North Carolina–
- In its first aerial attack on Italy, the US bombs Naples–
- First television appearance of Marcel Marceau–
- Matisse’s Le Bateau rehung after being upside down in The Museum of Modern Art for 47 days, New York City –
Weather
- New Haven, Connecticut, received 20 inches of snow in the first of two major snowstorms that December–
- The temperature dropped from 52 degrees F to 18 degrees F in 20 minutes, Livingston, Montana–
- Central Park in NYC reached 72 degrees F–