Daily Calendar for Saturday, April 13, 2024
Question of the Day
Does the North Star ever change? In other words, will Polaris always be the North Star?
Yes, the North Star does change, and Polaris will not always be it. Like a top, Earth’s axis precesses; that is, it slides along the surface of an imaginary cone. The precessional motion is very slow; one complete cycle of the axis about the cone requires about 26,000 years. In the course of 26,000 years, the north celestial pole will move on the celestial sphere along a circle of approximately a 23-1/2 degree radius, centered on the pole of the ecliptic (where the perpendicular to Earth’s orbit intersects the celestial sphere). In the 20th century, the north celestial pole is very near Polaris, but in about 12,000 years, the celestial pole will be fairly close to the bright star Vega.
Advice of the Day
In time take time, when time does last, for time is no time when time is past.
Home Hint of the Day
The easiest and fastest way to get rid of stumps is to get a company that deals in tree work to chip the stumps out with a machine. You can then use the chips as mulch on flower beds.
Word of the Day
Conjunction
The time at which two or more celestial bodies appear closest in the sky. Inferior: Mercury or Venus is between the Sun and Earth. Superior: The Sun is between a planet and Earth.
Puzzle of the Day
What did one hurricane say to the other hurricane?
I have my eye on you.
Born
- Thomas Jefferson (3rd U.S. president) –
- Butch Cassidy (American Wild West outlaw) –
- Samuel Beckett (author, playwright, & Nobel Prize winner) –
- Caroline Rhea (comedian & actress) –
- Rick Schroder (actor) –
Died
- Archie "Grey Owl" Belaney (conservationist) –
- Annie Jump Cannon (astronomer) –
- Wallace Stegner (writer) –
- Mark "the Bird" Fidrych (baseball pitcher) –
- Jonathan Frid (actor) –
Events
- Pres. FDR dedicated the Jefferson Memorial in Washington, D.C.–
- First navigational satellite Transit-1B launched–
- The Beatles recorded their hit song “Help!” –
- An explosion occurred aboard the Apollo 13 spacecraft on its way to the moon. Short of oxygen and flying a crippled ship, the crew aborted the moon landing and headed back to earth under emergency conditions–
- A dwarf mouse named Yoda celebrated his fourth birthday, making him the oldest of his kind and far beyond 100 in human years. Yoda owes his longevity to genetic modifications that affected his pituitary and thyroid glands and reduced insulin production - and which left him a third smaller than an average mouse and very sensitive to cold–
- Barry Bonds, the San Francisco slugger, hit his 661st career home run, passing Willie Mays (also his Godfather) to take sole possession of third place on baseball’s career list–
Weather
- Zero degrees F at Hanover, New Hampshire–
- Dozen tornadoes in eastern Iowa–
- Tornado tore through Iowa City, Iowa–
- 8.9 inches of snow fell on Great Falls, Montana, setting a new record for this date–
- A tornado struck the states of Bihar and West Bengal in eastern India–