FYI January 06, 2017

NATIONAL TECHNOLOGY DAY
Circle of 6
When talking about personal safety, this is a tool you might consider having.  It’s designed to quickly and discreetly get help in dangerous situations.  By simply tapping twice, pre-written messages are sent to designated recipients, GPS location included.

 

NATIONAL BEAN DAY
Garbanzo Bean Chocolate Cake (Gluten Free)

 

NATIONAL SHORTBREAD DAY
Best Scottish Shortbread Recipe
Shortbread Cookies

On this day:

1721 – The Committee of Inquiry on the South Sea Bubble publishes its findings.
The South Sea Company (officially The Governor and Company of the merchants of Great Britain, trading to the South Seas and other parts of America, and for the encouragement of fishing)[3] was a British joint-stock company founded in 1711, created as a public-private partnership to consolidate and reduce the cost of national debt. The company was also granted a monopoly to trade with South America, hence its name. At the time it was created, Britain was involved in the War of the Spanish Succession and Spain controlled South America. There was no realistic prospect that trade would take place and the company never realised any significant profit from its monopoly. Company stock rose greatly in value as it expanded its operations dealing in government debt, peaking in 1720 before collapsing to little above its original flotation price; this became known as the South Sea Bubble.

 

 
1893 – The Washington National Cathedral is chartered by Congress. The charter is signed by President Benjamin Harrison.
The Cathedral Church of Saint Peter and Saint Paul in the City and Diocese of Washington, operated under the more familiar name of Washington National Cathedral, is a cathedral of the Episcopal Church located in Washington, D.C., the capital of the United States.[1][2] Of Neo-Gothic design closely modeled on English Gothic style of the late fourteenth century, it is the sixth-largest cathedral in the world[citation needed], the second-largest in the United States,[3] and the highest as well as the fourth-tallest structure in Washington, D.C. The cathedral is the seat of both the Presiding Bishop of the Episcopal Church, Michael Bruce Curry, and the Bishop of the Diocese of Washington, Mariann Edgar Budde. In 2009, nearly 400,000 visitors toured the structure. Average attendance at Sunday services in 2009 was 1,667, the highest of all domestic parishes in the Episcopal Church that year.[4]

 

1907 – Maria Montessori opens her first school and daycare center for working class children in Rome, Italy.
Maria Tecla Artemisia Montessori (Italian pronunciation: [maˈriːa montesˈsɔːri]; August 31, 1870 – May 6, 1952) was an Italian physician and educator best known for the philosophy of education that bears her name, and her writing on scientific pedagogy. Her educational method is in use today in some public and private schools throughout the world.

 

1912 – German geophysicist Alfred Wegener first presents his theory of continental drift.
Continental drift is the movement of the Earth’s continents relative to each other, thus appearing to “drift” across the ocean bed.[2] The speculation that continents might have ‘drifted’ was first put forward by Abraham Ortelius in 1596. The concept was independently and more fully developed by Alfred Wegener in 1912, but his theory was rejected by some for lack of a mechanism (though this was supplied later by Arthur Holmes) and others because of prior theoretical commitments. The idea of continental drift has been subsumed by the theory of plate tectonics, which explains how the continents move.[3]

In 1858 Antonio Snider-Pellegrini created two maps demonstrating how the American and African continents might have once fit together.

 

1912 – New Mexico is admitted to the Union as the 47th U.S. state.
New Mexico (Spanish: Nuevo México [ˈnweβo ˈmexiko]; Navajo: Yootó Hahoodzo [jò:txó hàhò:tsò]) is a state located in the southwestern region of the United States of America. It was admitted to the union as the 47th state on January 6, 1912. It is usually considered one of the Mountain States. New Mexico is fifth by area, the 36th-most populous, and the sixth-least densely populated of the 50 United States.

 

Born on this day:

1256 – Gertrude the Great, German mystic (d. 1302)
Gertrude the Great (or Saint Gertrude of Helfta) (Italian: Santa Gertrude) (January 6, 1256 – ca. 1302) was a German Benedictine, mystic, and theologian. She is recognized as a saint by the Roman Catholic Church, and is inscribed in the General Roman Calendar, for celebration throughout the Latin Rite on November 16.

 

1412 – Joan of Arc, French martyr and saint (d. 1431)
Joan of Arc (French: Jeanne d’Arc,[5] IPA: [ʒan daʁk]; 6 January c. 1412[6] – 30 May 1431), nicknamed “The Maid of Orléans” (French: La Pucelle d’Orléans), is considered a heroine of France for her role during the Lancastrian phase of the Hundred Years’ War, and was canonized as a Roman Catholic saint. Joan of Arc was born to Jacques d’Arc and Isabelle Romée, a peasant family, at Domrémy in north-east France. Joan said she received visions of the Archangel Michael, Saint Margaret, and Saint Catherine of Alexandria instructing her to support Charles VII and recover France from English domination late in the Hundred Years’ War. The uncrowned King Charles VII sent Joan to the siege of Orléans as part of a relief mission. She gained prominence after the siege was lifted only nine days later. Several additional swift victories led to Charles VII’s coronation at Reims. This long-awaited event boosted French morale and paved the way for the final French victory.

 

 

FYI:

Cale Guthrie Weissman: 12 Apps to Help You Keep Your New Year’s resolutions

 

Jordan Todorov: Berlin’s Secret Cold War-Era Vineyard

 

Maggie McCracken: 11 Veggies You Never Knew You Could Make into Fries

 

Posted in Living By J.D. DiGiovanni: Arthur’s Cave Cabin By Miller Kendrick

 

 

 

Hana Glasser:  An Adorable Swedish Tradition Has Its Roots in Human Experimentation
How the Swedish custom of lördagsgodis, or Saturday candy, relates to tests at a 1940s mental institution.
In 1946, at a mental hospital outside of Lund, Sweden, researchers forced a group of patients to ingest 24 pieces of a sticky, light brown substance in a single day. These severely disabled patients were involuntary participants in a long-term study commissioned by the state medical board in cooperation with big industry, and this coerced feeding would continue for three years. The four to six doses that they consumed four times a day over that time were in some ways sweeter than their typical medicines—but also more troubling. No benefit to the patient was ever expected. Rather, the goal was to measure the damage inflicted by the substance over time and determine a dosage safe for public consumption.

 

FYI if you are thinking about buying a used Ferrari 355~