This Christian observance falls on the Sunday before Easter and is the sixth and last Sunday of Lent, which began on Ash Wednesday. The beginning of Holy Week, Palm Sunday marks the day when Christ rode into Jerusalem a week before his death and resurrection and was greeted by its people, who strewed cloaks and tree branches along his path to honor him as their king. This event is known as the Triumphal Entry.
Nowadays, Palm Sunday service often includes the blessing of palm leaves (or substitute branches from yews, willows, or other plants) before a procession into or in the church, after which hymns are sung and readings that focus on Christβs final week are given. In many Christian denominations, palm fronds are burned at the end of the service; the ashes are saved for use on the next Ash Wednesday.
Palm Sunday is also called Passion, Branch, Yew, Willow, Blossom, or Fig Sunday, as well as Flower Day and several other names.
Question of the Day
What is the origin of the phrase βburning the candle at both endsβ?
That phrase was coined by the American poet Edna St. Vincent Millay in 1920. It comes from her poem βFirst Figβ: βMy candle burns at both ends; / It will not last the night; / But ah, my foes, and oh, my friends— / It gives a lovely light!β
Advice of the Day
When sheep collect and huddle, Tomorrow will become a puddle.
Home Hint of the Day
If a knot comes loose from the flooring you’ve laid, just glue it back in place with carpenter’s glue. If you lose a knot that’s come loose, fill the hole with wood putty and stain the area to look like a knot.
Word of the Day
Node
Either of the two points where a body’s orbit intersects the ecliptic. Ascending: The body is moving from south to north of the ecliptic. Descending: The body is moving from north to south of the ecliptic.
Puzzle of the Day
What word is that to which if you add a syllable, it will make it shorter?
Short
Died
Queen Elizabeth I(English monarch)β
Jules Verne(author)β
Archbishop Oscar Romero(Salvadorian human rights activist)β
Roger Williams granted charter for colony Rhode Islandβ
Clement Hardy was issued a patent for a rotary disk plowβ
NYC Mayor Robert A. Van Wyck formally broke ground for construction of the NYC subway systemβ
President FDR issued statement appealing to Hungarians to help Jews escape from Nazis (WWII)β
Nicholas Alkemade survived an 18,000-foot fall from a planeβ
The Tennessee Williams play Cat on a Hot Tin Roof opened on Broadway, with Barbara Bel Geddes as Maggie, Ben Gazarra as Brick, and Burl Ives as Big Daddyβ
Entertainer Elvis Presley was inducted into the U.S. Armyβ
Maser patentedβ
Senator Robert Kennedy was first to reach summit of Mt. Kennedy in Yukon Territoryβ
U.S. spacecraft Ranger 9 crash-landed precisely on target in the Alphonsus crater of the moon after transmitting to Earth 5,814 photographs of the crater regionβ
The beaver became a symbol of Canadian sovereigntyβ
French premier Jacques Chirac signed a contract to build the first Disneyland-type amusement park in Europe, on the outskirts of Parisβ
The largest oil spill in U.S. history, initially estimated at 240,000 barrels, occurred after the Exxon Valdez struck Bligh Reef in Alaska’s Prince William Soundβ
An 18.7-inch-long goldfish set a world record
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Boston archbishop Sean O’Malley was elevated to cardinal at a ceremony in St. Peter’s Square in Romeβ
Weather
Eighty-three degrees F at Plymouth, Indianaβ
Twenty-five inches of snow, Kansas City, Missouriβ
92 degrees F in St. Louis, Missouriβ
Snow in the mid-Atlantic states covered cherry blossoms, which had bloomed in the previous weekβs 80-degree temperaturesβ