Daily Calendar for Friday, March 8, 2024
Question of the Day
What is the average wind speed inside a tornado?
The Fujita-Pearson scale ranks tornadoes by wind speed. The rankings range from F0 (very weak) to F6 (inconceivable). F0 denotes wind speeds of 40 to 72 mph; F1, 73 to 112 mph; F2, 113 to 157 mph; F3, 158 to 206 mph; F4, 207 to 260 mph; F5, 261 to 318 mph; and F6, 319 to 379 mph.
Advice of the Day
Providing is preventing.
Home Hint of the Day
Sugar maple dries slowly and splits hard, but it burns hot and lasts a long time.
Word of the Day
Cat Nights
This term harks back to the days when people believed in witches. An old Irish legend says that a witch could turn into a cat and regain herself eight times, but on the ninth time, August 17, she couldnβt change back, hence the saying: βA cat has nine lives.β Because August is a βyowlyβ time for cats, this may have prompted the speculation about witches on the prowl in the first place.
Puzzle of the Day
What goes up the hill, down the hill, and yet stands still?
A road
Died
- King William III β
- Millard Fillmore (13th U.S. president) β
- William Howard Taft (27th U.S. president) β
- Joe DiMaggio (baseball player) β
- Elliott Jaques (scientist who coined the term midlife crisisββ) β
- Robert Pastorelli (actor) β
- John Inman (actor) β
- Victor Manuel Blanco (astronomer who helped build the Cerro Tololo Inter-American Observatory in Chile) β
Born
- Simon Cameron (Pennsylvania political boss, U.S. senator, Secretary of War) β
- Oliver Wendell Holmes (Supreme Court justice) β
- Kenneth Grahame (author) β
- Joseph Lee (American philanthropist) β
- Sam Jaffee (journalist) β
- Johnny Dollar (country singer) β
- Lew DeWitt (singer, Statler Brothers) β
- Lynn Redgrave (actress) β
- Micky Dolenz (musician, actor, & director) β
- Jim Rice (baseball player) β
- Aidan Quinn (actor) β
- Kathy Ireland (model & actress) β
- Freddie Prinze Jr. (actor) β
- James Van Der Beek (actor) β
- Bob, Dave, & Clint Moffatt (musicians, of The Moffatts) β
- Devon Werkheiser (actor) β
Events
- First train crossed Niagara Railway Suspension bridgeβ
- Confederate ironclad frigate Virginia (formerly Merrimack) sunk Union ship Cumberland at Hampton Roads, Virginia (U.S. Civil War)β
- Everett Horton patented a fishing rod with telescoping metal tubesβ
- The first state dog licensing law in the United States was passed in New York stateβ
- Yankee slugger Babe Ruth signed an $80,000 per year (2-year, $160,000) contractβ
- U.S. Supreme Court ruled in McCollum v. Board of Education that religious instruction in public schools is unconstitutionalβ
- Whirlwind I’s Director, precursor to computer operating system, demonstratedβ
- First U.S. ground combat troops arrived in Vietnamβ
- First year free for students from Newfoundland at Memorial University, N.L.β
- Joe Frazier defeated Muhammad Ali for the heavyweight boxing championship in New Yorkβ
- Meteorites fell in northeastern China, with the largest fragment, weighing about 3,902 pounds, falling in Jilin Province.β
- Daily artillery barrages between Christian and Syrian forces and their militia allies began in Beirut. At least 930 died before cease-fire took hold in Septemberβ
- Wheeled suitcase with collapsible towing handle patentedβ
- The body of actor-writer Spalding Gray was pulled from New York’s East River, two months after he walked out of his Manhattan apartment and disappearedβ
Weather
- 1.6-inch-diameter hail fell in Erin, Ontarioβ
- A tornado in Arkansas killed 64 peopleβ
- A winter storm brought high winds, heavy rains, and snow to southern British Columbiaβ
- Portsmouth, New Hampshire, had a record high temperature of 69 degrees Fahrenheitβ