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FACT-OF-THE-DAY ARCHIVE
"Our life is what our thoughts make it."
- Marcus Aurelius

NOV 2012


Previous Archives

DATEFACT OF THE DAY
11/1/12     This is the day when, in 1870, the United States Weather Bureau made its first observations. It was not called the Weather Bureau back then because it was part of the U.S. Army Signal Corps. In the beginning, reports were telegraphed from 24 locations around the U.S. and the first national weather report was born. - Provided by Reference.com
11/2/12     Very few American homes had radios in 1920, but the ones that did were able to follow the Presidential election results; on Nov. 2, the first radio news broadcast of an election was presented. - Provided by Reference.com
11/3/12     Ayers Rock is a giant red rock formation in the Northern Territory of Australia. It is the largest monolith in the world at 1,143 feet high and about 6 miles in circumference. The landmark, which the Aborigines call Uluru, is the outcrop of a huge bed of sandstone formed about 600 million years ago. The rock changes color according to the altitude of the Sun. - Provided by Reference.com
11/4/12     Starting in 2007, daylight time begins in the United States on the second Sunday in March and ends on the first Sunday in November. On the second Sunday in March, clocks are set ahead one hour at 2:00 a.m. local standard time, which becomes 3:00 a.m. local daylight time. On the first Sunday in November, clocks are set back one hour at 2:00 a.m. local daylight time, which becomes 1:00 a.m. local standard time. These dates were established by Congress in the Energy Policy Act of 2005, Pub. L. no. 109-58, 119 Stat 594 (2005). Not all places in the U.S. observe daylight time. In particular, Hawaii and most of Arizona do not use it. Indiana adopted its use beginning in 2006. - Provided by The US Naval Observatory
11/5/12     Nine Presidents never attended college: Washington, Jackson, Van Buren, Taylor, Fillmore, Lincoln, A. Johnson, Cleveland, and Truman. The college that has the most presidents as alumni (seven in total) is Harvard: J. Adams, J. Q. Adams, T. Roosevelt, F. Roosevelt, Kennedy, G. W. Bush (business school), and Barack Obama (law school). Yale is a close second, with five presidents as alumni: Taft, Ford (law school), G.H.W. Bush, Clinton (law school), and G. W. Bush. - Provided by Infoplease.com
11/6/12     Four candidates won the popular vote but lost the presidency: Andrew Jackson won the popular vote but lost the election to John Quincy Adams (1824); Samuel J. Tilden won the popular vote but lost the election to Rutherford B. Hayes (1876); Grover Cleveland won the popular vote but lost the election to Benjamin Harrison (1888); Al Gore won the popular vote but lost the election to George W. Bush (2000). - Provided by Infoplease.com
11/7/12     The bald eagle is a large North American bird of the forest which catches most of its food victims live -- including ducks, gulls, seabirds, fish from lakes or seas, and salmon from rivers. Bald eagles, which belong to the raptor family, also challenge ospreys, forcing them to abandon their catch. The bald eagle has been a symbol of power and courage and a symbol of the United States. - Provided by Reference.com
11/8/12     A poll by the television show Animal Planet listed vampire bats as the third-most feared animal on the planet, right after wolves and gorillas and just ahead of piranhas. - Provided by RandomHistory.com
11/9/12     The Bamboo plant is a member of the grass family, which has been used for years to make houses, furniture, boats, piping, baskets, and musical instruments. The plant looks like a tree and its most striking feature is that most produce seeds only once in their lifetime -- but a bamboo plant can live for more than 100 years. - Provided by Reference.com
11/10/12     A momentous meeting took place on this day deep in the African jungle. In 1871, journalist Henry M. Stanley met missionary David Livingstone. Though many think that Livingstone was lost - he was actually just sick. Stanley became famous for his "rescue" of the Scottish missionary and explorer when actually Stanley brought much-needed food and medicine, and Livingstone soon recovered. Livingstone remained in Africa for quite some time after Stanley returned to civilization. - Provided by Reference.com
11/11/12     In 2011, there were 21.5 million veterans in the United States. Female veterans numbered 1.8 million. Provided by US Census Bureau
11/12/12     There were 7.5 million Vietnam-era veterans in 2011: 5.1 million served during the Gulf War (representing service from Aug. 2, 1990, to present); 1.8 million in World War II (1941-1945); 2.4 million in the Korean War (1950-1953); and 5.4 million in peacetime only. Provided by US Census Bureau
11/13/12     Nov. 13, 1927, the Holland Tunnel was officially opened. This major throughway between New York City and New Jersey runs under the Hudson River. Before it was built, the only way to get across in an automobile was by ferry. There was an earlier railroad tunnel, but the Lincoln Tunnel and modern-day George Washington Bridge were yet to come. - Provided by Reference.com
11/14/12     Herman Melville had written five novels before the one which was published on this day in 1851. Moby Dick begins with the words, "Call me Ishmael" and goes on to say, "I love to sail forbidden seas, and land on barbarous coasts" before relating the story of Captain Ahab's grim pursuit of the great white whale Moby Dick. - Provided by Reference.com
11/15/12     Although it is much colder on Mars than on Earth, the similar tilt of Earth's and Mars' axes means they have similar seasons. Like Earth's, Mars' north and south polar caps shrink in the summer and grow in the winter. In addition, a day on Mars is 24 hours 37 minutes - nearly the same as Earth's. No other planet shares such similar characteristics with Earth. - Provided by RandomHistory.com
11/16/12     Horses have five highly developed senses: taste, touch, hearing, smell, and sight. They also have an enigmatic sixth sense, heightened perception, which is very rare in humans. - Provided by RandomHistory.com
11/17/12     The world's worst landslide started by an earthquake occurred in 1920 in the Kansu province in China. The landslide killed about 200,000 people. - Provided by RandomHistory.com
11/18/12     On August 3, 2011, the national debt rose $238 billion, the largest one-day increase in the history of the U.S. The previous one-day record increase was on June 30, 2009, when the debt increased $186 billion. - Provided by RandomHistory.com
11/19/12     When the Roman Empire began to fall, inflation dramatically increased. Between A.D. 200 - 280, the price of a bale of wheat rose from 16 to 120,000 drachmas. - Provided by RandomHistory.com
11/20/12     While waves generated by wind may travel anywhere from around 2 to 60 miles (3.2 to 97 km) per hour, tsunami waves can travel at speeds of 600 miles (970 km) per hour, the speed of a jet plane. - Provided by RandomHistory.com
11/21/12     The average adult heart beats 72 times a minute; 100,000 times a day; 3,600,000 times a year; and 2.5 billion times during a lifetime. - Provided by RandomHistory.com
11/22/12     One of the most popular first Thanksgiving stories recalls the three-day celebration in Plymouth, Massachusetts, in 1621. Over 200 years later, President Lincoln declared the last Thursday in November as a national day of thanksgiving, and in 1941 Congress established the fourth Thursday in November as a national holiday. - Provided by RandomHistory.com
11/23/12     The boomerang is a curved throwing stick invented and used chiefly by the aborigines of Australia for hunting and warfare. The aborigines used two kinds of boomerangs and many varieties of boomerang-shaped clubs. The returning boomerang is the one we use for fun. The name derives from the word used for this item by the Turuwal tribe of aborigines in New South Wales. - Provided by Reference.com
11/24/12     In the 1928 elections, less than 3% of Germans voted for the Nazi party. In 1938, Hitler was Time magazine's man of the year. - Provided by RandomHistory.com
11/25/12     Bronze is a mixture, or alloy, of two metals -- copper and tin. This hard, tough alloy was discovered around 3500-3000 BC. The discovery was an important technological event because bronze could be cast into intricate shapes and then hold that form without growing brittle; copper was too soft. The Bronze Age is the time in history when bronze first came into use in the making of tools, weapons, and other objects. - Provided by Reference.com
11/26/12     Among the more obscure annals of American history is the saga of the first lion ever seen on these shores. The king of beasts was exhibited in Boston on this day in 1716. It was shown by Captain Arthur Savage. A tiger initially came in 1806; and the eventual marquee animal feature of the circus, the elephant, first landed in 1796. - Provided by Reference.com
11/27/12     By 1910, the nation's railroad system had grown from horse-drawn trains to a gigantic network of locomotives streaming over steel roads from coast to coast It had taken nearly half a century for this to become the backbone of the nation's transportation system. On this day, the world's largest railroad station, Pennsylvania Station, came into use by the Pennsylvania Railroad. - Provided by Reference.com
11/28/12     The Straits of Magellan were discovered in 1520 by Ferdinand Magellan while he was trying to find an eastern route to the Moluccan Islands in the Pacific. From Spain, Magellan first sailed around South America, discovering the Straits of Magellan, and across the Pacific. Though he was killed in the Philippines, his ships continued westward to Spain, accomplishing the first circumnavigation of the Earth. - Provided by Reference.com
11/29/12     The bus is a relatively new means of travel. Its name comes from the Latin omnibus which means 'for all.' The motor-driven bus is a descendant of the horse-drawn omnibus, which was introduced in 1662 by the mathematician Blaise Pascal. By 1819, an omnibus could carry up to 16 passengers. In the 1920s, much larger buses were made for traveling on highways. Streetcars and trolleys -- early buses -- still run in cities like San Francisco and Amsterdam. - Provided by Reference.com
11/30/12     From August 2007 to October 2008, an estimated 20%, or $2 trillion, disappeared from Americans' retirement plans. - Provided by RandomHistory.com


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